I trusted mostly to Starlight, who seemed to know everything, and to be quite easy about the way it would all turn out.
All that I could get out of him afterwards was that on a certain night a man would be waiting with two horses outside of the gaol wall; and that if we had the luck to get out safe, and he thought we should, we would be on their backs in three minutes, and all the police in New South Wales wouldn't catch us once we got five minutes' start.
This was all very well if it came out right; but there was an awful lot to be done before we were even near it.

The more I began to think over it the worse it looked; sometimes I quite lost heart, and believed we should never have half a chance of carrying out our plan.
We knew from the other prisoners that men had tried from time to time to get away.

Three had been caught.

One had been shot dead--he was lucky--another had fallen off the wall and broke his leg.

Two had got clear off, and had never been heard of since.
We were all locked up in our cells every evening, and at five o'clock, too.