Alfred despaired. But, as usual with spirits so quickwitted and resolute, it was but for a moment. “One man in his time plays many animals;” he caught at the words he had heard, and played the game the jackal desperate plays in India, the fox in England, the elephant in Ceylon: he feigned death; filled his mouth with water, floated on his back paddling imperceptibly, and half closed his eyes. He was rewarded by a loud shout of dismay just above his head, and very soon another ladder was placed on the other side, and with ropes and hands he was drawn out and carried down the ladder: he took this opportunity to discharge the water from his mouth, on which a coarse voice said, “Look there! _His_ troubles are at an end.” However, they laid him on the grass, and sent for the doctor; then took off his coat, and one of them began to feel his heart to see whether there was any pulsation left: he found it thumping. “Look out,” he cried in some alarm; “he's shamming Abraham.” But, before the words were well uttered, Alfred, who was a practised gymnast, bounded off the ground without touching it with his hands, and fled like a deer towards the front of the house: for he remembered the open iron gate. The attendants followed shouting, and whistle answered whistle all over the grounds. Alfred got safe to the iron gate: alas! it had been closed at the first whistle twenty minutes ago. He turned in rage and desperation, and the head-keeper, a powerful man, was rushing incautiously upon him. Alfred instantly steadied himself, and with his long arm caught the man in full career a left-handed blow like the kick of a pony, that laid his cheek open and knocked him stupid and staggering. He followed it up like lightning with his right, and, throwing his whole weight into this second blow, sent the staggering man to grass; slipped past another, and skirting the south side of the house got to the tank again well in advance of his pursuers, seized the ladder, carried it to the garden wall, and was actually half way up it, and saw the open country and liberty, when the ladder was dragged away and he fell heavily to the ground, and a keeper threw himself bodily on him. Alfred half expected this, and drawing up his foot in time, dashed it furiously in the coming face, actually knocking the man backwards. Another kneeled on his chest: Alfred caught him by the throat so felly that he lost all power, and they rolled over and over together, and Alfred got clear and ran for it again, and got on the middle of the lawn, and hallooed to the house:--“Hy! hy! Are there any more sane men imprisoned there? Come out, and fight for your lives!” Instantly the open windows were filled with white faces, some grinning, some exulting, all greatly excited; and a hideous uproar shook the whole place--for the poor souls were all sane in their own opinion--and the whole force of attendants, two of them bleeding profusely from his blows, made a cordon and approached him.