It now for the first time struck us that it was by no means sure whether I should be able to get to the top of the bier without having any one to assist me from below as I had assisted Kitty. Yet if I failed to reach that point, I must give up the idea of reaching the window; and as that was equivalent to resigning my hopes of liberty, it was evidently of the utmost importance that I should accomplish the ascent.
Kitty was the first to suggest a way out of the difficulty.
"Can you alter the position of the bier," said she, "so as to make it slant, instead of standing almost upright as it does now? Because then you might manage to creep up it."
"I've no doubt I can, only I hadn't thought of it," replied I, proceeding to drag the two lower handles away from the door, till the steepness of
