But there was no chance for his body there, the head would not go first.
He returned, after listening intently, unable to hear a sound, and put his ear to the key-hole of the door to listen there; but all was still, and the faint hope that the girl might be near and open to an appeal for his liberty died away.
Again he felt all about the room, to satisfy himself afresh that there was no way out, and he paused by the chimney, half disposed to essay that means of escape, but he shook his head.
"A fellow who was shut up in prison for life might do it," he said, "but not in a case like this." Then, utterly wearied out, with his long and arduous twenty-four hours' task, beginning with his watch on the cutter's deck, he felt his way to the big chair opposite to the window to rest his legs, and try and think out some plan.
"Nobody can think well when he's tired," he said; and he began to run over in his mind the whole of the incidents since he landed a few hours earlier..