four o'clock in the morning
She found her scissors , and , stripping the bed , sat down to cut and tear the bedding into strips . Prisoners escaped that way ; she had read about such things . But the knots took up an amazing amount of length . It was four o'clock in the morning when she had a serviceable rope , and she knew it was too short . In the end she tore down the window curtains and added them , working desperately against time . She began to suspect , too , that Olga was not sleeping . She smelled faintly the odor of the long Russian cigarettes the girl smoked .