I now began to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the lifelike intensity of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any means, fair or foul, that I could contrive.

So I said beseechingly:

“Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I’ve got, — for you are my friend, aren’t you? — don’t fail me; help me to devise some way of escaping from this place!”

“Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are in guard and keep of men-at-arms.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?”