And
it was he who suggested that, through her, we get possession of the
keys. For, every day, she informed us, she passed them by where they
hung on a nail, downstairs, as she swept and cleaned house for the
jailer.
It was not a difficult matter to procure them. She would bring them up
to us and hand them in through the chuck-hole, which the village
blacksmith had repaired and once more reinforced with extra bars, "so
them bastards won't even think of sawing out again," as the jailer had
expressed it.
The evening she handed the keys in to us we were so excited we wanted to
have "Whip the Devil" played again for our singing and dancing. But this
might have once more awakened suspicion. Before, we had raised such a
row as to have caused pedestrians to stop and listen in groups,
wondering what made the men inside so happy....
There were three separate locks on the great cage door. One, two of them
went back with an easy click. For the third we could find no key. There
was nothing else to do now but to have recourse to singing and dancing
again. Baykins started sawing his fiddle furiously while the big negro
in for rape hammered and hammered on the lock to break it, with one
prison stool after another, till all were tossed aside, broken as
kindling wood is broken. It was good that the jailer was either deaf,
or, like the heathen gods in the Old Testament, away on a journey.
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