When Cora had departed, after handing me in a pillow and a blanket of the true work-house texture, and crossing herself with a strange expression, meaning, as I interpreted, "Now keep alive if possible till breakfast time, young woman," I sat me down upon the floor at one end of the room, and began my labours. First. I put on a pair of tan-leather gloves; for small as my vanity is, I do not like my hands to look altogether like a hodman’s. Then I removed a strip of the felt with which the wall was covered. It was nearly dark, but I could easily feel the joints between the bricks. The mortar was not very good, but my work was rendered doubly difficult by the bricks being all set cross-wise to the line of the wall; this, I suppose, is what he meant when he described them as "headers." By reason of this arrangement, I had to dig and dig for hours, before I could loosen a single brick; and working all in the dark as I was, I feared every moment to break the stick-blade of my knife. The fingers of my gloves were very soon worn away, and even the palm where the heel of the knife was chafing; nor was it long before my skin was full of weals, and raspy, like the knobs I have seen inside the legs of a horse. At last, to my wonderful delight, one brick began to tremble. In another half-hour, I eased it out most carefully, kissed my trusty blade, now worn almost to a skewer, and with stiff and aching muscles, and the trophy brick upon my lap, fell off into as sound a sleep as ever I was blest with. CHAPTER X. When I awoke, the summer dawn was stealing faintly through the barricaded windows. Oh! how I longed for one draught of air, even as London imports it! My head was burning and my eyes distended from the tainted stuff around me, and my hands, and arms, and even shoulders were stiff from over exertion. Languidly regarding the brick I had worked so hard for, and commiserating much the plight of my tender hands, I felt inclined to give it up, till I thought of all at stake. My poor Uncle in deadly peril through my desperate folly; Conrad too, as that murderer implied, in a critical position. My own life also--it might be a week before the monster returned; and I felt sure that I could not live more than three days in that corruption. The oppression was so horrible, especially when I stood up, that I resolved at all hazards to break one of the windows. I had tried to do so the night before, but they were beyond my reach, and I had no stick, for I durst not touch the poles that propped the unlucky porpoise. Now, I had a good missile, and after two or three vain attempts from the closeness of the bars, I hurled the brick-bat through the glass; and, as it raised the sacks a little, I obtained more light, as well as a breath of air. The taint upon the glass, the reek of the deadly gases, even cleared away for a short distance round the fracture.