With the note was a very fine steel saw, coiled round and round, and a tiny phial of oil. Ryan gave a cry of delight as he read it; and then hid the saw and the oil bottle in his bed, made up the tiny note into a pellet, and swallowed it. As he ate his dinner, he pondered over how so much could have been managed. The courtyard of the prison was, he knew, some ten feet higher than the ground outside. Some one must, after nightfall, have climbed up to the passage window and sawn the bars almost asunder, with a saw as fine as the one he had received. The cuts could hardly have been perceptible, and had probably been filled in with dust or black lead, each night, after the work was done. The difficulty must have been great, for he had learned that sentries patrolled the street outside the prison, and the work could only have been carried on for two or three minutes at a time. How he was to get down to the courtyard he knew not, but probably a sentry had been found more amenable to a bribe than the old sergeant had been. To his bitter disappointment the night passed without anything unusual taking place, and the scheme had evidently failed. He broke up his loaf eagerly the next morning; and found, as he expected, another message: "Authorities suspicions. Sentries changed. Must wait till vigilance subsides. Keep yourself in readiness." A fortnight passed; and then, in the middle of the night, he leapt suddenly from the bed on which he had thrown himself, without undressing, as he heard the key grating in the door. For a minute or two the sound continued, and his heart sank again. "They have got a key, but it won't fit," he muttered. Suddenly he heard the bolt shoot back, and the door quietly opened. "Are you ready?" a voice asked in a whisper. "Quite ready." "Then follow me." Ryan had caught up his boots as he leapt from the bed. The man outside had evidently taken the precaution to remove his, for his step was perfectly noiseless. Dick followed him downstairs and out into the courtyard. He could then see that the man was not, as he had expected, in uniform; but wore a long cloak and a sombrero, like those in general use among the peasantry. He turned in at the passage that had been indicated to Ryan, and stopped at the grated opening at the end. Ryan at once took out the saw, poured some oil on it, and passed his nail down the bar until he found a fine nick. Clearing this out with the saw, he began to cut. The task was far easier than he had expected, for the bar had been already almost sawn through and, in five minutes, the cut was completed. A couple of feet higher up he found the other incision, and completed it as quietly as before. Then he removed the piece cut out, and handed it to the man, who laid it quietly down on the pavement of the passage. In ten minutes the other bar was removed. "I have the cord," the man said, and unwound some ten feet of stout rope from his waist.