"By Jove!" thought Jack with a chuckle as he scrambled out of the chimney, "won’t there be a rumpus when the cook misses his poker! Luckily, he’ll never think it has gone aloft!" It was a very sooty object that descended, after pausing to make sure that all was safe, into the prisoners’ room. Jack was immediately surrounded by a group of the _Fury’s_ men, so eager to hear what had happened that they raised their voices and provoked an angry reprimand from the sentry at the door. "Silence, you donkeys!" whispered Jack. "Avast your jabber!" said Babbage, scowling upon Turley. "Me and Mr. Hardy have got to lay the course for this little venture." After this the men behaved more discreetly, and left Jack alone with Babbage. "Now, Babbage," said Jack, when he had finished his story, "we’re going to escape, and I’ll tell you how." "Not up the chimbley, sir? I’d squeeze myself as small as I could, but I’m afeard I should stick fast and spoil the whole boiling." "No, no; you’re too fat for the chimney. You’ll be left in charge till you hear a hubbub below; then you’re to break open the door and make a dash for it at the head of the men." "Why, I’ll obey orders, sir; Ben Babbage always obeys orders; but, begging your pardon, it beats me how I’m to break the door open with a poker and a chopper—" "Babbage, if you make any more difficulties you’ll never see your brother Sol, for here you’ll stay. You shall have other tools by and by. You understand, nothing is to be done until you hear the signal; it will be loud enough, I promise you. I shall wait until the captain’s guests have gone. That will probably be late; so there’ll be plenty of time for us to make a rope. No, don’t speak. I haven’t done yet. We’ll tear up the coverlets—they’re precious thin, but we haven’t any better—and twist up a rope long enough to reach from the top of the chimney to the bottom: about fifty feet, I should think. Then I’ll take it with me and four or five of the men, Turley for one— "Begging your pardon, sir— "What?" "Begging your pardon, sir,—not Turley, but me." "Oh, very well! You’re too fat for the chimney at present, as you owned yourself, but we could get something off you with the chopper." Babbage grinned sheepishly, and made no further suggestions. Several hours later, Jack, at the window, heard loud voices and laughter in the courtyard below. The captain’s guests were evidently departing. Allowing an hour to pass, sufficient, he thought, for the captain and the servants to have settled into their beauty sleep, he signed to his four selected men, and led the way up the chimney, Turley carrying the rope. They clambered across the roof and came to the kitchen chimney. "Now, Turley," said Jack, "pay out the rope as I go down. By George! ’tis a good deal hotter than when I was here before."