Here I was in the open air, and from the entrance a narrow causeway or bridge led to the top of the wall. But all danger was not over, for at the farther end stood two more red-coated gentry. One had called the attention of the other to my approach, and there they were, drawn up like two statues at attention. I should have to go between them. But the light was very dim, and only boldness could serve my purpose. So I gazed directly at them, and with a great bound of my heart in my throat, I saw that I was going to be successful. They presented arms as I brushed by. A small flight of stairs led down the wall on the outside, and here the ditch was spanned by a foot-bridge, and on the bank stood another sentry. I had wondered why I had not been asked for a password of some sort, and now I feared that this last man would prove my downfall, and that surely I would be stopped and asked some question. I hesitated as I stood there half-way down the steps, and at this instant I noticed the sentry across the bridge bring his musket to a half-charge with a ring of his accoutrements. In the dusk I could see four or five figures approaching, and then I heard the sentry call them to halt. I could not make out the words that followed, but it was all merely perfunctory business I recognized, as the approaching figures were officers. Now fear often gives a man a judgment and cleverness that support him in sore straits. There was but one chance, and I took it. I turned about, retraced my steps, passed the two sentries, who saluted me once more, then again the third man at the head of the stairway, and I was back in the corridor. When I had turned the angle of the passage, I entered one of the rooms, and crouched down behind a curtain, holding my big hat in my lap. My teeth chattered so that I feared the noise would be audible, and I had been just in time, as, laughing and talking, the officers were approaching. As I sat crouched in a corner I perceived that they had some huge joke among them. They were walking slowly, and I heard distinctly what passed. "The idea of Tillinghast forgetting the countersign strikes me as being grand," exclaimed some one, with a guffaw at the end of the sentence. "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed another. "I told you it was the author of _Robinson Crusoe_, Tilly." "Why, confound it all! I always thought that he himself wrote the book," roared a deep bass. I recognized the speaker as the junior in command of the prison. It was his clothes, by-the-way, that I had on my back at the moment. "I think the Governor chose it for a play on words," said another. "A poor pun even for him." "Why we should require a password at all is more than I can see," said Tillinghast. "Come down to my quarters, Carntyne. We have time for a game of whist."