The Battle and the Breeze, page 69 by Robert Michael Ballantyne
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much danger, liability to frustration, and requiring the utmost caution combined with energy.
They waited until they thought the night was at its darkest. When all sounds around them had ceased, they took off their shoes and carefully lifted the bench to the wall under the window. Ben went up first by mounting on Bill's shoulders. With one powerful wrench he pulled the iron framework of the window into the room, and handed it down to Bill, who stooped a little and placed it gently against the wall. His comrade then thrust his head and shoulders out at the window, and while in that awkward position spread his jacket over the sill. This was intended to protect the cord which was fastened to the top of the umbrella, and by which it was to be drawn up after his descent.
When this was done, Bill clambered up by the cord which hung from the uncut stanchion, and pushed the umbrella past Ben's body until he got hold of the end of it, and drew it out altogether. Bill then descended into the cell, having the small cord in his hand, and watched the motions of his comrade with intense anxiety.
The window was so small that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The height he knew to be little short of sixty feet, but in the dark night it appeared an abyss of horrible profundity. A cold sweat broke out upon him, and for one moment he felt an almost irresistible tendency to let go the umbrella and clutch the window-sill, but he was too late. Like lightning he shot down for a couple of yards; then the parachute expanded and checked him with such violence, as he swung round, tha