Heavens! what a struggle was that. Martin’s blue eyes seemed to be starting from his head, his tongue lolled out and the muscles of his body rose in great knots. Foy hopped to him and pushed as well as he was able. It was little that he could do standing upon one leg only, for now the sinews of the other had given way again; still that little made the difference, for let the soldiers on the further side strive as they might, slowly, very slowly, the thick door quivered to its frame. Martin glanced at the bolt, for he could not speak, and with his left hand Foy slowly worked it forward. It was stiff with disuse, it caught upon the edge of the socket. “Closer,” he gasped. Martin made an effort so fierce that it was hideous to behold, for beneath the pressure the blood trickled from his nostrils, but the door went in the sixteenth of an inch and the rusty bolt creaked home into its stone notch. Martin stepped back, and for a moment stood swaying like a man about to fall. Then, recovering himself, he leapt at the sword Silence which hung upon the wall and passed its thong over his right wrist. Next he turned towards the door of the court-room. “Where are you going?” asked Foy. “To bid _him_ farewell,” hissed Martin. “You’re mad,” said Foy; “let’s fly while we can. That door may give—they are shouting.” “Perhaps you are right,” answered Martin doubtfully. “Come. On to my back with you.” A few seconds later the two soldiers on guard outside the Gevangenhuis were amazed to see a huge, red-bearded man, naked save for a loin-cloth, and waving a great bare sword, who carried upon his back another man, rush straight at them with a roar. They never waited his onset; they were terrified and thought that he was a devil. This way and that they sprang, and the man with his burden passed between them over the little drawbridge down the street of the city, heading for the Morsch poort. Finding their wits again the guards started in pursuit, but a voice from among the passers-by cried out: “It is Martin, Red Martin, and Foy van Goorl, who escape from the Gevangenhuis,” and instantly a stone flew towards the soldiers. Then, bearing in mind the fate of their comrades on the yesterday, those men scuttled back to the friendly shelter of the prison gate. When at length Ramiro, growing weary of waiting, came out from an inner chamber beyond the court-room, where he had been writing, to find the Professor and the porter dead in the passage, and the yelling guard locked in his own torture-chamber, why, then those sentries declared that they had seen nothing at all of prisoners clothed or naked.