Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 38 Page 37

and fitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to the great iron ring.

All being made ready with much labor, and the hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.