In the midst of our hopeless labors, the sound of heavy blows above caught my ear, and fragments of rock fell in; the blows were continued. Was this but a new expedient to crush or suffocate us? A crevice at length showed the light of a torch overhead. I grasped the ax to strike a last blow at the gate and die. I heard a voice pronounce my name! Another blow opened the roof. A face bent down, and a loud laugh proclaimed my crazy friend. “Ha!” said he, “are you there at last? You have had a hard night’s work of it. But come up; I have an incomparable joke to tell you about the tribune and the procurator. Come up, my prince, and see the world.” I had no time to rebuke his jocularity. I climbed up the rugged side of the passage, and found myself still in a dungeon. To my look of disappointment, he gave no other answer than a laugh, and unscrewing a bar from the loophole above his head— “It is my custom,” said he, “to make myself at my ease, wherever I go; and as prisons fall to a man’s lot, like other things, I like to be able to leave my mansion whenever I am tired of it.” “Forward, then,” said I impatiently. “Backward,” said the beggar, with the most unruffled coolness. “That loophole is for me alone. I may be under the governor’s care again, and I have shown it to you now merely as a curiosity. Drink, my brave fellows,” said he, turning to the troop below, and giving them a skin of wine; “soldiers must have their comforts, my gallant prince, as well as beggars. If that villain procurator had not come by express (for no man alive is quicker to catch an idea where he is likely to gain), you should have been by this time sleeping in the governor’s bed, and the governor probably supping with me. But all is fortune, good and bad, in this world. The procurator, putting your escape and mine together, began to think that his presence might be useful here, and the laziest rogue in Palestine came with a speed that might have done honor to the quickest, who stands before you in my person. I had gone on swimmingly with the governor, on the strength of your love-letter, angry as it made him. But the first sight of Florus put an end to my chance of opening the gates for your triumphal entry. I was tied, neck and heels, and flung here, to be gibbeted to-morrow morning. But that morning has not come yet.” [Sidenote: The Assault] He paced the cell uneasily. At length he sprang up, and looking from the loophole, whispered, “Now!” A low creaking sound of machinery followed. “Down into the cavern,” said he; “that accursed cohort has moved at last. Away, my prince, and seek your fortune.” I exhibited some reluctance to be engulfed again. But his countenance assumed a sudden sternness. His only word was, “Down!” As we were parting he solemnly pronounced: “May whatever power befriends the righteous cause, and blasts the man of infamy and blood, send the lightnings before you!”