Ned knew that the safe had been forced at last, and that the explosion had served to avert the discovery of his presence through the crash of his noisy misadventure. He rose from the boat, trembling, weak, but animated with a new hope. The finding of the craft here intimated that he was near the wall, where it had doubtless been heedlessly thrust aside, for it had naught to do with the play of Hamlet, and the furnishings of the castle of Elsinore filled all the foreground. He must now be near the rear wall, where was the window at which he had entered. Suddenly he saw before him the dim, wan square in the gloom. The next moment despair fell anew upon him. The sash was down, and secured by some patent device which he had never before seen, and which baffled his trembling fingers. Then he did scream,--a shrill, muffled cry,--so unlike his sturdy boyish halloo that he hardly recognized his own voice. Somehow it rescued him from the torpor that was stealing over him. He knew that it would rouse those within to a danger of which they had not dreamed. In another moment he might be helpless in their hands. Instantly he tore off his shoe. One blow with its heel, and the shivered glass was flying in every direction. Through the broken pane he hastily jumped, with the shoe still in his hand. He fell heavily to the ground, and lay crouching in the shadow close in to the wall. He had indeed given the alarm. There were swift steps within, and then an agitated whispering at the window. The men were evidently frightened at first, but soon sought to reassure themselves. It was nothing, they said,--the glass was doubtless broken by some accident; a passer-by might have thrown a stone, or perhaps a cracked pane had loosened and fallen out at this crucial moment. "I know that there hollerin' mus' have been a long way off yonder somewhers, anyhow," declared the thickset man. "It sounded sorter muffled an' far-like." The "first player" seemed to acquiesce, and then silence ensued.