CHAPTER XVIPLANS FOR ESCAPE
Everybody was eager to hear of Phil’s discovery, and a chorus of low-toned demands for an explanation followed his announcement.
“It isn’t a very romantic discovery,” the explorer of the cellar replied. “In fact, it’s very ordinary and points toward some hard work for us.”
“We’re used to that,” returned one of the prisoners quickly. “Out with it. Don’t keep us guessing.”
“There’s a regular outfit of excavating tools down there,” the boy sergeant explained. “They were concealed behind some boxes, and I suppose that’s the reason the boche invaders never found them. There’s a spade, shovel, pick and hoe there—all in good condition.”
“Do you mean to suggest that we dig our way out of this place?” asked Phil’s last inquisitor.
“Sure—why not?” was the reply.
“We’d have to tunnel out—clear to the other side of their outposts.”
“And that’s just what I propose to do,” said Phil deliberately.
There being no light in the room, nobody could see anybody else’s expression of countenance, but the chilly silence that followed this announcement indicated something of what was going on in the minds of those who heard it. One of the latter whispered into another’s ear:
“He’s gone clean daft—insane. We’d better amuse him.”
But Phil’s sharp ear caught enough of these words to enable him to understand their purport. He realized, too, that it was a very natural conclusion, although he had not intended to provoke it. Any such self-amusement as this would have been exceedingly out of place. Still, he was tempted just a little to see if someone of his prison-associates would perceive the feasibility of his plan. None of them did, however, until he supplemented his last assertion, as follows:
“It isn’t so crazy an idea after all, when you consider that we have only about fifteen feet to dig.”
“By crackey, that’s so!” exclaimed Dan Fentress excitedly. Then moderating his tone of voice in mindfulness of their recent agreement on the subject, he added: “Didn’t youfellows notice that there’s an old stonequarry or something of the kind just south o’ this house? We can dig right into that and slip down and away. It’s hardly likely we’ll find anybody watching from that quarter.”
“That’s a brilliant idea, and we’re a lot o’ mutts for not getting it sooner,” Evans declared. “Let’s get busy at once.”
“There’s just one window in the basement wall, and that’s on the south side,” Phil continued. “We’ll have to blind that up some way before we do much work. Probably there’s nobody watching on that side, but we don’t want to run any risk.”
“We’ll take off our coats and jam ’em up in the window if the frame is deep enough,” Emmet Harding proposed. “Is it?” he inquired, addressing Phil.
“Yes, it’s six or eight inches deep,” the latter replied. “I propped the candle up with several brickbats on the floor a few feet from the window. Nobody’d be likely to see a light from that side unless he were inspecting very closely for one.”
“Let’s go down and begin work at once,” Evans proposed. “The sooner we get away the better our chances of escape will be.”
“We’ll need about eight or ten coats to blind the window with,” said Phil. “Here’s mine.Some of you pass over yours and I’ll go down and take care of that matter.”
A minute later the prison tunnel engineer had as big a load of coats on his arm as he wished to carry while descending into the cellar, and he was about to return below when Dan startled him a little by saying:
“We haven’t got the ventilation yet that we started out to get. And this place is growing stuffy already. How about it? We can’t work very long in such atmosphere as this, and the worst of it will settle into the cellar, where we’ll have to do all our hard work.”
“That’s so,” said Phil. “We can’t open that cellar window any easier probably than one of the windows up here, and if we could, we wouldn’t dare use it for ventilating while working down there with a light. Let’s go around and try the windows up here and see if we can’t get one of them open without making any noise.”
“Let’s try to open one on the north side,” Emmet suggested. “If the guards hear us, we’ll explain that we’ve got to have some fresh air. Then, too, they’ll probably watch that end of the house more closely and maybe neglect the south end if they know one of the north windows is open.”
This plan was adopted and Emmet was delegatedto try the north windows. The general suspense was greatly relieved when he turned and whispered that he had raised the lower sash of the first window he tried and propped it up with a short piece of board. He had not made a sound audible to his companions while doing this.
“Now, nobody must talk above a whisper, and that as little as possible, while the window is open,” he cautioned.
Phil took this as a cue for him to descend into the cellar and blind the foundation window with his load of coats. In a few minutes, after accomplishing this, he returned and selected two aids, with whom he went below again to begin work on the proposed escape tunnel into the excavation to the south.