“Well, you’re safe for the time being,” said Pottersham, sucking his bitten hand. “Now I’m going. I wish you joy of the hard cold floor and the darkness, you savage little wild cat!”

Jo heard his footsteps going in the distance. She could have kicked herself for not having guessed he might have been lying in wait for her. Now she couldn’t get help for the others. In fact, she was much worse off than they were because she was tied up, and they weren’t.

Poor Jo! She dozed off, exhausted by the night’s excitement and her fierce struggle. She lay against the wall, so uncomfortable that she kept waking from her doze every few minutes.

And then a thought came into her head. She remembered the rope-man, all tied up in length after length of knotted rope. She had watched him set himself free so many times. Could any of his tricks help her now?

“The rope-man would be able to get himself free of this rope in two minutes!” she thought, and began to wriggle and struggle again. But she was not the rope-man, and after about an hour she was so exhausted again that she went into a doze once more.

When she awoke, she felt better. She forced herself into a sitting position, and made herself think clearly and slowly.

“Work one knot free first,” she said to herself, remembering what the rope-man had told her. “At first you won’t know which knot is best. When you know that you will always be able to free yourself in two minutes. But find that one knot first!”

She said all this to herself as she tried to find a knot that might be worked loose. At last one seemed a little looser than the others. It was one that bound her left wrist to her right. She twisted her wrist round and got her thumb to the knot. She picked and pulled and at last it loosened a little. She had more control over that hand now. If only she had a knife somewhere! She could manage to get it between her finger and thumb now and perhaps use it to cut another knot.

She suddenly lost her patience and flung her head back on the bench, straining and pulling at the rope. She knocked against something and it fell to the stone floor with a clatter. Jo wondered what it was — and then she knew.

“That dagger! That old, rusty dagger! Oh, if I could find it I might do something with it!”

She swung herself round on the floor till she felt the dagger under her. She rolled over on her back and tried to pick it up with her free finger and thumb, and at last she managed to hold it.

She sat up, bent forward and did her best to force the rusty dagger up and down a little on the rope that tied her hands behind her. She could hardly move it at all because her hands were still so tightly tied. But she persevered.