One narrow escape of detection he had. Absorbed in his toil, he failed to hear the first preliminary click of the lock, and the door began to open. Roy flung himself to the ground, reckless of bruises, and the noise of his fall was happily drowned in the creak of the door. When the gendarme entered, he found a sleepy prisoner, lying with head on folded arms. Roy wondered that the thumping of his heart did not betray him. Thoughtful Jean had provided him with three files; and but for this the plan would have proved a failure. Two of them broke. The third held out to the end. A good part of the night he worked, growing terrified lest the task should not be done in time. In the dark, by feeling instead of sight, silently and persistently, despite aching muscles, he kept on at it. His hands were strained and bleeding, and next day he had carefully to guard them from notice. In the morning he was again up in the embrasure—after the usual visit from a gendarme—filing, filing, softly and steadily. By mid-day he had worked his way through the heavy bar. Roy stirred it cautiously. Yes, it yielded. The other end alone would not hold it firm. One good wrench, and it could be forced aside. That was all he had now to do. The bar would have to remain in position till the last moment. He cleared away every speck of iron filing, and then he had to go into the yard. What if the gendarmes should examine the cell during his absence and find out what he had done? What if, any hour before night, they should take it into their heads to test the bar? What if, before Jean came, Roy himself should be removed elsewhere? Then came another question. What if his mother’s prayers were being answered? And by-and-by the afternoon had waned away without any mischance, and the gendarme’s evening visit had been safely paid. Roy’s allowance of food lay upon the floor, the window had not been examined, and Roy was left alone for the night. He wisely disposed of the food, knowing that he would need all his strength. Then he waited, minute after minute, in a suspense hardly to be imagined, not to be described. A slight faint whistle, close to the window. In a moment Roy was up in the slanting embrasure, where for hours he had clung, getting through his task. Jean’s hand met his, and together, noiselessly, they wrenched the bar aside. “Hist! Be still as death!” whispered Jean. Roy squeezed himself through the opening, Jean’s grasp steadying him. He found his feet to be resting on the topmost rung of a ladder. Jean whispered one or two directions, then himself went down and held it firm below while Roy followed. Little need was there to bid the boy be quiet in his movements. The slightest sound might betray them, destroying every hope of escape.