I drank a drop of it.

Never before or since have I put anything down my throat that did me half so much good as that precious mouthful of rum! I was still sitting in the window-seat drying my face, when I suddenly heard their voices close behind me.
They were feeling the outside of the window against which I was sitting.
It was protected, like all the other windows in the cottage, by iron bars.

I listened in dreadful suspense for the sound of filing, but nothing of the sort was audible.

They had evidently reckoned on frightening me easily into letting them in, and had come unprovided with house-breaking tools of any kind.

A fresh burst of oaths informed me that they had recognized the obstacle of the iron bars.