After surveying it with an earnest and defiant gaze, he slowly moved the brushwood with his foot, against the small cavity in its outer surface.
'Days pass, wounds heal, chances change,' muttered the old man, departing from his haunt with slow and uncertain steps.

'In the mines I have borne lashes without a murmur--I have felt my chains widening, with each succeeding day, the ulcers that their teeth of iron first gnawed in my flesh, and have yet lived to loosen my fetters, and to close my sores! Shall this new agony have a power to conquer me greater than the others that are past?
I will even yet return in time to overcome the resistance of the wall! My arm is crushed, but my purpose is whole!'.