I am going to get you out of this." "The good God help you!" When the night began to thin I told her I must go, though it would not be out of hearing.
"Be ready the moment I open the gate," I said, "for every second will be of consequence.

Now, good-bye, dearest!" and we kissed once more through the rusty bars, and I stole away.
The passage in the rock which led up to the gate was a continuation of the natural cleft which formed the chamber.

The slope of the rocks left the gateway no more than eight or nine feet high, though, at the highest point inside, the roof of the chamber was perhaps twenty feet above the floor.
The same slope continued outside, so that the side walls of the passage were some eight or nine feet high, and fell almost straight to the rock flooring.

Both cleft and passage were made, I think, like the clefts and caves on Sercq, by the decay of a softer vein of rock in the harder granite, so leaving, in course of time, a straight cleavage, which among the higher rocks formed the chamber, and on the lower slope formed the passage up to it.
My very simple plan was to lie in wait, crouched flat upon the top wall of the passage close to the gateway, and from there to spring down upon the unsuspecting warder, whoever it might be--Torode, or his wife, or any other.

And by such unlooked-for attack I hoped to win the day, even though it should be Torode himself who came.