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194 perfect to the eye, they will crumble to pieces at the slightest touch."

Edric was too anxious to effect his escape, to listen to his tutor's exultation; and his arrangements being made, the travellers, with trembling steps and throbbing hearts, explored the vaulted passage, and found, to their infinite delight, that it had led them to the borders of the Nile. A small boat was anchored to the shore, and its crew, an old man and his son, who gained their living by conveying goods up the Nile, were peaceably taking their supper on the bank.

Edric and the doctor had taken the precaution to replace the stone that had concealed the vaulted passage, and having smeared the opposite wall with phosphorus, they had no doubt that when the jailor entered the prison, which he generally did in darkness, he would be too much alarmed to take any effectual means for pursuing them till it should be too late. Having luckily also plenty of money, that certain road to the human heart, they easily persuaded the old man to take them on board, and in a short time they embarked in his fragile vessel and set sail.