The day wore on, and at length night fell--a still, balmy night, with a sky scintillating with a million flashing stars. [Illustration: (Jack with scallop shell)] A scanty supper of boiled rice and salt fish was served to the prisoner, and then the guards left him stretched upon the ground for the night, securely bound--or so they thought, having never had the opportunity of attending Guildford Fair and being initiated into its mysteries! The exhibits at the Surrey county-town usually included a "strongman" who could shake himself free from any entanglement of rope, however cunningly knotted around him. In exchange for a sovereign, and a promise never to reveal the secret to anyone else, our hero had been shown the trick. There was no fraud or jugglery about the matter. When you know the way it is as simple as ABC, but then every schoolboy has not a sovereign to spare for this sort of thing, has he? No sooner did Jack find himself left alone for the night than he proceeded without loss of time to put his plan of escape into execution. I am not going to tell you how the rope lashings were cast off, for the simple reason that I do not know, for Jack is a boy of honour, and I have never been able to get him to divulge the secret, _even to me_--his own father. Suffice it to say, however, that in ten minutes' time our hero had succeeded in getting his arms free; and his first act was to stealthily grope about in every corner of the dark hut in the hope of finding some object that might be of use to him in the endeavour to bore through the leafy walls of his prison-house. [Illustration: (Jack Villiers waving turban)] The only thing the middy found, however, was a shell shaped like a scallop. There was absolutely nothing else lying about. "This won't do," said Jack to himself; "one can't cut with this blunt thing, and even if one could, the noise would be sure to arouse those beggars of sentries outside. I didn't think of that before." Our hero felt bitterly disappointed. Then a sudden thought flashed through his mind, and he crept to the back of the hut and began softly but quickly digging a hole in the earthen floor, close up to the wall, with his newly-found treasure, the shell. The soil proved light and sandy, and with such ceaseless energy did the prisoner work that in an hour's time he had excavated a hole sufficiently large to allow of his body passing through. The next moment Jack was lying flat on the ground _outside_ the hut, listening intently. He could hear the sentries jabbering near the doorway, but apparently he was free to steal away from the back without being perceived, unless there happened to be any of the inhabitants of the village abroad. [Illustration: (Natives)]