A Jacobite Exile Part 23

Charlie then took two loaves of black bread and a portion of goat's flesh from the cupboard; found a bottle about a quarter full of coa.r.s.e spirits, filled it up with water and put it in his pocket, and then, after taking possession of the long knife his captive wore in his belt, went out of the hut and closed the door behind him.

He had purposely moved slowly about the hut, as he made these preparations, in order that the Jew should believe that he was still weak; but, indeed, the effort of dragging the man into the hut had severely taxed his strength, and he found that he was much weaker than he had supposed.

The hut stood in a very small clearing, and Charlie had no difficulty in seeing the track by which the cart had come, for the marks of the wheels were still visible in the soft soil. He followed this until, after about two miles' walking, he came to the edge of the wood. Then he retraced his steps for a quarter of a mile, turned off, and with some difficulty made his way into a patch of thick undergrowth, where, after first cutting a formidable cudgel, he lay down, completely exhausted.

Late in the afternoon he was aroused from a doze by the sound of footsteps, and, looking through the screen of leaves, he saw his late jailers hurrying along the path. The charcoal burner carried a heavy axe, while the Jew, whose head was bound up with a cloth, had a long knife in his girdle. They went as far as the end of the forest, and then retraced their steps slowly. They were talking loudly, and Charlie could gather, from the few words he understood, and by their gestures, something of the purport of their conversation.

"I told you it was of no use your coming on as far as this," the Jew said. "Why, he was hardly strong enough to walk."

"He managed to knock you down, and afterwards to drag you into the house," the other said.

"It does not require much strength to knock a man down with a heavy club, when he is not expecting it, Conrad. He certainly did drag me in, but he was obliged to sit down afterwards, and I watched him out of one eye as he was making his preparations, and he could only just totter about. I would wager you anything he cannot have gone two hundred yards from the house. That is where we must search for him. I warrant we shall find him hidden in a thicket thereabouts."

"We shall have to take a lantern then, for it will be dark before we get back."

"Our best plan will be to leave it alone till morning. If we sit outside the hut, and take it in turns to watch, we shall hear him when he moves, which he is sure to do when it gets dark. It will be a still night, and we should hear a stick break half a mile away.

We shall catch him, safe enough, before he has gone far."

"Well, I hope we shall have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you."

"If we can't find this Swede, I would not wait here for any money.

I would fly at once."

"You would need to fly, in truth, to get beyond Ben Soloman's clutches," the charcoal burner said gruffly. "He has got agents all over the country."

"Then what would you do?"

"There is only one thing to do. It is our lives or his. When he rides up tomorrow, we will meet him at the door as if nothing had happened, and, with my axe, I will cleave his head asunder as he comes in. If he sees me in time to retreat, you shall stab him in the back. Then we will dig a big hole in the wood, and throw him in, and we will kill his horse and bury it with him.

"Who would ever be the wiser? I was going to propose it last time, only I was not sure of you then; but, now that you are in it as deep as I am--deeper, indeed, for he put you here specially to look after this youngster--your interest in the matter is as great as mine."

The Jew was silent for some time, then he said:

"He has got papers at home which would bring me to the gallows."

"Pooh!" the other said. "You do not suppose that, when it is found that he does not return, and his heirs open his coffers, they will take any trouble about what there may be in the papers there, except such as relate to his money. I will warrant there are papers there which concern scores of men besides you, for I know that Ben Soloman likes to work with agents he has got under his thumb. But, even if all the papers should be put into the hands of the authorities, what would come of it? They have got their hands full of other matters, for the present, and with the Swedes on their frontier, and the whole country divided into factions, who do you think is going to trouble to hunt up men for affairs that occurred years ago? Even if they did, they would not catch you. They have not got the means of running you down that Ben Soloman has.

"I tell you, man, it must be done. There is no other way out of it."

"Well, Conrad, if we cannot find this fellow before Ben Soloman comes, I am with you in the business. I have been working for him on starvation pay for the last three years, and hate him as much as you can."

When they reached the hut they cooked a meal, and then prepared to keep alternate watch.

Charlie slept quietly all night, and, in the morning, remained in his hiding place until he heard, in the distance, the sound of a horse's tread. Then he went out and sat down, leaning against a tree by the side of the path, in an att.i.tude of exhaustion.

Presently he saw Ben Soloman approaching. He got up feebly, and staggered a few paces to another tree, farther from the path. He heard an angry shout, and then Ben Soloman rode up, and, with a torrent of execrations at the carelessness of the watchers, leapt from his horse and sprang to seize the fugitive, whom he regarded as incapable of offering the slightest resistance.

Charlie straightened himself up, as if with an effort, and raised his cudgel.

"I will not be taken alive," he said.

Ben Soloman drew his long knife from his girdle. "Drop that stick,"

he said, "or it will be worse for you."

"It cannot be worse than being tortured to death, as you said."

The Jew, with an angry snarl, sprang forward so suddenly and unexpectedly that he was within the swing of Charlie's cudgel before the latter could strike. He dropped the weapon at once, and caught the wrist of the uplifted hand that held the knife.

The Jew gave a cry of astonishment and rage, as they clasped each other, and he found that, instead of an unresisting victim, he was in a powerful grasp. For a moment there was a desperate struggle.

The Jew would, at ordinary times, have been no match for Charlie, but the latter was far from having regained his normal strength.

His fury at the treatment he had received at the man's hands, however, enabled him, for the moment, to exert himself to the utmost, and, after swaying backwards and forwards in desperate strife for a minute, they went to the ground with a crash, Ben Soloman being undermost.

The Jew's grasp instantly relaxed, and Charlie, springing to his feet and seizing his cudgel, stood over his fallen antagonist. The latter, however, did not move. His eyes were open in a fixed stare.

Charlie looked at him in surprise for a moment, thinking he was stunned, then he saw that his right arm was twisted under him in the fall, and at once understanding what had happened, turned him half over. He had fallen on the knife, which had penetrated to the haft, killing him instantly.

"I didn't mean to kill you," Charlie said aloud, "much as you deserve it, and surely as you would have killed me, if I had refused to act as a traitor. I would have broken your head for you, but that was all. However, it is as well as it is. It adds to my chance of getting away, and I have no doubt there will be many who will rejoice when you are found to be missing.

"Now," he went on, "as your agents emptied my pockets, it is no robbery to empty yours. Money will be useful, and so will your horse."

He stooped over the dead man, and took the purse from his girdle, when suddenly there was a rush of feet, and in a moment he was seized. The thought flashed through his mind that he had fallen into the power of his late guardians, but a glance showed that the men standing round were strangers.

"Well, comrade, and who are you?" the man who was evidently the leader asked. "You have saved us some trouble. We were sleeping a hundred yards or two away, when we heard the horseman, and saw, as he pa.s.sed, he was the Jew of Warsaw, to whom two or three of us owe our ruin, and it did not need more than a word for us to agree to wait for him till he came back. We were surprised when we saw you, still more so when the Jew jumped from his horse and attacked you.

We did not interfere, because, if he had got the best of you, he might have jumped on his horse and ridden off, but directly he fell we ran out, but you were so busy in taking the spoil that you did not hear us.

"I see the Jew is dead; fell on his own knife. It is just as well for him, for we should have tied him to a tree, and made a bonfire of him, if we had caught him."

Charlie understood but little of this, but said when the other finished:

"I understand but little Polish."

"What are you then--a Russian? You do not look like one."

"I am an Englishman, and am working in the house of Allan Ramsay, a Scotch trader in Warsaw."

"Well, you are a bold fellow anyhow, and after the smart way in which you disposed of this Jew, and possessed yourself of his purse, you will do honour to our trade."

"I hope you will let me go," Charlie said. "My friends in Warsaw will pay a ransom for me, if you will let me return there."

"No, no, young fellow. You would of course put down this Jew's death to our doing, and we have weight enough on our backs already.

He is a man of great influence, and all his tribe would be pressing on the government to hunt us down. You shall go with us, and the purse you took from Ben Soloman will pay your footing."

Charlie saw that it would be useless to try and alter the man's decision, especially as he knew so little of the language. He therefore shrugged his shoulders, and said that he was ready to go with them, if it must be so.

The Jew's body was now thoroughly searched. Various papers were found upon him, but, as these proved useless to the brigands, they were torn up.

"Shall we take the horse with us?" one of the men asked the leader.