Life was so vigorous in him at present, that he looked round his narrow room in an instinctive quest for some means of escape. It was about twelve feet square. The outer wall was of stone, some eighteen inches thick, pierced by a single unglazed splay window, narrowing from twenty inches broad on the inside to seven on the outside. The bottom of the window was about three feet above the floor, and it extended upwards for about an equal distance. Below it, embedded in the wall, projected a narrow platform about a foot high, which, Bob guessed, was intended to accommodate a watchman or possibly a marksman, for the tower had evidently been built as a watch-tower. Clambering up into the window-recess, Bob looked through the open slit, and saw that it commanded a view across the river, which flowed past at a depth of some eighty feet. The water-course was obstructed by ice; to plunge into it was impossible. Returning to the floor, Bob noticed that the inner walls were of brick, comparatively new in contrast with the mouldering stonework of the outer wall. He concluded that at one time the whole story had formed a single chamber, and that it had been partitioned off recently, though in all probability before the advent of the Russians. The door was of massive make, and hung on ponderous iron clamps; it opened inwards, and there was no keyhole on the inner side. "Things look black," thought Bob, as he convinced himself that there was no means of escaping from his dungeon. He tramped up and down with bent head, idly speculating on the scenes the old tower must have witnessed. How often in bygone days, he wondered, had Chinese, Korean, or Japanese flotillas passed under its walls up and down the Yalu? What romances might be woven about the spot, going back into ages long anterior to ironclads and machine-guns! He wished he knew something of the history of these far Eastern countries, and was resolving to look it up on the first opportunity when he suddenly remembered that he was to die, and the remembrance brought him to a stand-still and gave his imagination pause. Looking again through the narrow opening, he saw in the distance a troop of Cossacks picking their way across the hills. He watched them with idle interest as they gained the summit and disappeared at a trot over the crest. He followed them in fancy; they were soldiers going perhaps to their death; and he wished that he too might meet with death in some active, heroic way, instead of tamely as the target of a firing-party. He was drawn from his reverie by the entrance of a soldier with a plate and jug. The man set the food down on the stone platform and left without a word.