Before he left the tool-shop, he secreted with the clay a scrap of steel and a small file. That day, and for several days after, whenever chance gave him a minute or two apart from his fellow-workmen, he employed the precious moments in diligently filing the steel to the pattern on the clay. It was slow work: all too tedious for his eager thought. But he worked at his secret task with unfailing patience, and at the week’s end had filed the steel to the likeness of the wards of a key. That night, when his "co-mates in exile" were asleep, he gently inserted the steel in the lock of his ankle-band He tried to turn it. It stuck fast; the wards did not fit. He was not surprised. Before he made the experiment he had felt that it would fail; the key was indeed a clumsy, ill-shapen instrument. But next day he began to work on another piece of steel, and on this he spent every spare minute he could snatch. This time he found himself able to work faster. Night and morning he looked searchingly at the key on the warder’s bunch, and afterwards tried to cut the steel to the pattern that was now, as it were, stamped upon his brain. He wished he could test his second model in the morning light before the warder came, and correct it then. But to do so would involve discovery by his fellow-captives; the time to take them into his confidence was not yet. He had perforce to wait till dead of night before he could tell whether the changes, more and more delicate and minute, made upon his key during the day were effective. And the Babu was fretful; having done his part, admirably, as Desmond told him, in working the key into his story, he seemed to expect that the rest would be easy, and did not make account of the long labour of the file. At length a night came when, inserting the key in the lock, Desmond felt it turn easily. Success at last! As he heard the click, he felt an extraordinary sense of elation. Quietly unclasping the fetter, he removed it from his ankle and stood free. If it could be called free--to be shut up in a locked and barred shed in the heart of one of the strongest fortresses in Hindustan! But at least his limbs were at liberty. What a world of difference there was between that and his former state! Should he inform the Babu? He felt tempted to do so, for it was to Surendra Nath’s ingenuity in interpolating the incident of the key into a well-known story that he owed the clay pattern of the warder’s key. But Surendra Nath was excitable; he was quite capable of uttering a yell of delight that would waken the other men and force a premature disclosure. Desmond decided to wait for a quiet moment next day before telling the Babu of his success. So he replaced his ankle-band, locked the catch, and lay down to the soundest and most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many a night.