Many prisoners, bound hand and foot, have managed even under the watchful eyes of a guard to extricate themselves from their fetters and get away; but it has always been due, Grail gloomily reflected, to some slip-up or oversight on the part of their captors--a pocketknife overlooked in the search of the prisoner’s person, a carelessly tied knot, or a convenient sharp stone against which to fray the ropes. With them, however, no such fortuitous circumstance existed so far as Grail could see; and he was satisfied from Cato’s expression that his companion was equally baffled by their plight. They were simply tied up hard and fast, and in such thorough and scientific fashion that to slip or unloose their fastenings with any one watching them was practically an impossibility. Nevertheless, Grail did not despair. There must be some way out of the dilemma, he believed, and industriously he set himself to find it. So the time passed away, with both Cato and him vainly cudgeling their brains, until at last four o’clock arrived, and with it Matschka roused up Simmons and himself rolled over into the blanket. The deserter yawned, stretched himself, and walked over to the door, to gaze out into the gray morning mists which enveloped the bottoms. “B-r-r!” he muttered, shivering from the chill dampness as he returned to take his seat on the box. “That air is as cold and clammy as the touch of a dead man’s hand.” Cato, seeing evidence of a desire to talk in this, promptly encouraged it. “Feeling seedy, anyhow, aren’t you?” he said. “You didn’t seem to be sleeping very well.” “Sleep?” Simmons laughed harshly. “I haven’t been seeing anything but the staring eyes of that yellow-faced Jap all night long.” He shivered again. “Never killed a man, did you, sarge?” he resumed, after a pause. “Well, don’t! Believe me, it’s a nasty business--kind of turns you sick, when they crumple up and flop down all limp, like that Jap did on the stairs. And that straw hat of his!” he exclaimed. “It sounded to me like a load of brick, bumping from step to step, clean to the bottom. I couldn’t understand why everybody in the house didn’t come running out to see what was the matter. “What else could I do, though?” he burst out in a sort of petulant defense. “As I told the boss, I had to get him, or he’d have got the whole shooting match of us. It was just the same way with Captain Grail there. I hadn’t nothing against him in the world, but I knew where he was going when he ordered out the dirigible, and it was up to me to stop him any way I could. Take it from me, though,” he added, “the Jap had us nearer right than even Captain Grail. He had the whole thing figured down to detailed plans and specifications.” “How did he come to let you get him, then?” inquired Cato, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Grail was slowly working one foot free.