The negro set down a plate on which were some thick slices of buttered bread and a tin cup full of coffee. Tad waited for him to go, but he pointed down at the food and evidently expected to stay until it was finished. The boy had very little appetite, in spite of having tasted nothing since breakfast. He did manage, however, to eat two pieces of bread and gulp down the strong black coffee. Then an idea came to him. He had been wondering how he was to file his leg-iron without making too great a noise. If he could save the butter on the remaining piece of bread he might use it as a lubricant. Picking up the slice he pretended to take a mouthful, meanwhile pushing the plate and cup toward Congo. The giant black stooped, picked them up, and stood for a moment grinning that terrible grin of his. Then he drew a forefinger slowly across his throat and rolled up his eyes till only the whites showed, in a ghastly pantomime of death. With this little token of farewell, he slipped through the door and bolted it on the outside. Tad wasted no time in worrying over the meaning of the negro’s signs. As soon as the footsteps had reached the bottom of the stairs he crept to his loose board and took the file from its hiding-place. In the fading twilight he could barely see the notch in the fetter, but it was easy to find by touch, and he soon turned it into a position where he could move the file back and forth comfortably. By rubbing a little butter along the cutting edge, he found that the noise was scarcely audible--certainly too slight to be heard on the first floor. For the best part of an hour he worked, stealthily but with hardly a moment’s rest. He could feel the notch in the iron growing deeper. It must be two-thirds of the way through, he thought. And then catastrophe overtook him. He was just reaching for the piece of bread, to get more butter, when suddenly it was snatched from under his hand. The biggest rat he had ever seen had seized it and scurried away across the floor. Tad was more than startled. For a moment his nerves were shaken, and he sat there trembling with weariness and fright. Then the ridiculous side of the situation struck him and he rocked back and forth with smothered laughter. When the spasm was over he tried to work on the fetter again and found that the scraping of the dry file was becoming more and more noisy. Saliva would quiet it for a stroke or two, but it dried too quickly. At last he gave up the effort. He put the file away, dropped the board back in place and curled up exhausted in his corner, wishing desperately for his snug blanket aboard the _Katy Roby_. CHAPTER XIII There may have been worse nights in history than the one Tad spent in that garret, but in all his experience he never was to know a longer or more nerve-racking one. Rats scampered everywhere, in the walls and up and down the floor. He could hear them gnawing, squealing, fighting all about him.