Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/268

 deck when I was stunned if it hadn't been for him."

"Yes," agreed Janet evenly. "That is why I came to you."

"Never thought of it," said Jonah Sully, with heavy wonder. "Strange, ain't it? 'Pears to kind of put a different complexion on it too. What they goin' to do with him?"

"Send him back to the penitentiary to-morrow for—for life," said Janet numbly.

"Be, eh?" said the skipper, with a sudden and defiant little grunt. "Well now, come to think of it, I dunno as they will. It's a pesky risky business interferrin' with the law, but there ain't no one ever said Barnabas Sully—Jonah ain't my real name, miss—ever turned his back on any one that ever did him a good turn, an'—an' gol-ding the law, anyhow! Kind of took to him too, come to think of it, dinged if I didn't!"

"I—I knew you would help me"—there was a little catch in her voice, and she pressed his arm gratefully. "I have been thinking and thinking about it ever since it happened, and I am sure it can be done easily—if I were only stronger I would have tried it alone, but I am afraid it would have taken me too long, and besides I couldn't get any tools."

"Well," said Jonah Sully, nodding his head seriously, "that sounds feasible so fur."

"The cell is in the rear part of the townhall, in the basement," Janet explained, "and it has a separate door at the side. I passed there two or three times last week and I noticed that it was fastened with a heavy padlock. It ought not to take a man very long to file away the staples and get the outside door open. I do not know