In the King's Name Part 22

"I shall wear out the knees of my breeches in no time, if I'm to be kept in here long," he said, as he was in the act of making a run and a jump for another look out; but he stopped short just in the act, for he fancied he heard the rattle of a key, and directly after he knew he was not deceived, for there was a heavy step, then another, and then a key was placed in the big door.

"Well, this is being made a prisoner, and no mistake. Hallo, handsome!"

he cried aloud, as the forbidding-looking man addressed by Sir Henry as Allstone entered the place with another looking little more amiable, and both were bringing something in the shape of food.

"What?" said the man surlily.

"I said 'Hallo, handsome!'" cried Hilary. "Have you come to let me out?"

The man uttered a low hoa.r.s.e chuckle, which sounded like a laugh, but his face did not move a muscle, and he looked as if he were scowling heavily.

"We'll carry you out some day, my young buck," he said, "feet foremost.

There's a little burying-ground just outside the place here."

"Thank you," replied Hilary. "Is that meant for a joke?"

"Joke? No, I never joke. Here I've brought you something to eat, and you won't get any more till to-morrow."

He set the rough tray he carried on the floor, and the man who was with him did the same, after which they both stood and stared at the prisoner.

"Send him away," said Hilary suddenly, and he pointed to the fresh man.

"What for?"

"I want to talk to you."

Allstone gave his head a jerk and the man went outside. "Look here,"

said Hilary, "how long are you going to keep me here?"

"Till the skipper is tired of you, I suppose, or till Sir Henry's gone."

"And then you'll let me go?"

"Oh, yes," said the man grimly. "We shall let you go then."

There was another hoa.r.s.e chuckle, which appeared very strange, for it did not seem to come from the man, who scowled at him in the same heavy, morose way.

"Oh! come! you're not going to frighten me into the belief that you can kill me, my man," cried Hilary. "I'm too old for that."

"Who's to know if we did?" said the fellow.

"Why, you don't suppose that one of his majesty's officers can be detained without proper search being made. You'll have the crew of my s.h.i.+p over here directly, and they'll burn the place about your ears."

"Thankye," said the man. "Is that all you want to say?"

"No. Now look here; I'll give you five guineas if you'll let me go some time to-night. You could break through that window, and it would seem as if I had done it myself."

For answer the man turned upon his heel and stalked out of the place without a word.

"Get out, you rude boor!" cried Hilary, as the door slammed and the key turned. "Kill me and bury me! Bah! I should like to see them do it."

A faint noise outside made him scale the window once more; but there was no sign of Adela, so he returned.

"Well, they're not going to starve me," he said to himself, as he looked at the plates before him, one containing a good-looking pork pasty, the others a loaf and a big piece of b.u.t.ter, while a large brown jug was half full of milk.

There was a couple of knives, too, the larger and stronger of which he took and thrust beneath the straw.

"What a piggish way of treating a fellow!" he muttered. "No chair, no table; not so much as a stool. Well, I'm not very hungry yet, and as this is to last till to-morrow I may as well wait."

He stood thinking for a bit, and then the idea of escaping came more strongly than ever, and he went and examined the door, which seemed strong enough to resist a battering-ram.

There was the window as the only other likely weak place, but on climbing up and again testing the mortar with the point of his knife, the result was disheartening, for the cement of the good old times hardened into something far more difficult to deal with than stone. In fact, he soon found that he would be more likely to escape by sawing through the bars or digging through the stone.

"Well, I mean to get out if Lips...o...b.. don't send and fetch me; and I'll let them see that I'm not quite such a tame animal as to settle down to my cage without some effort;" and as he spoke he looked up at the ceiling as being a likely place to attack.

He had the satisfaction of seeing that it was evidently weak, and that with the exercise of a little ingenuity there would be no difficulty in cutting a way through.

But there was one drawback--it was many feet above his head, and impossible of access without scaffold or ladder.

"And I'm not a fly, to hold on with my head downwards," he said, half aloud.

He slowly lowered himself from the window-sill, and had another good look at the walls, tapping them here and there where they had been plastered; but though they sounded hollow, they seemed for the most part to be exceedingly thick, and offered no temptation for an a.s.sault.

He stood there musing, with the place of his confinement gradually growing more gloomy, and the glow in the sky reminding him of how glorious the sea would look upon such an evening.

There were a few strands of straw lying about, and he proceeded to kick them together in an idle fas.h.i.+on, his thoughts being far away at the time, when a sudden thought came to him like a flash.

The place was paved with slabs of stone, and it had been the chapel of the old mansion; perhaps there were vaults underneath, or maybe cellars.

The more he thought, the more likely this seemed. The old builders in that part of England believed in providing cool stores for wine and beer. In many places the dairy was underground, and why might there not be some place below here from which he could make his escape?

He stamped with his foot and listened.

Hollow, without a doubt.

He tried in another part, and another; and no matter where, the sound was such as would arise from a place beneath whose floor there was some great vault.

"That'll do," he said to himself, with a half-laugh. "I'm satisfied; so now I'll have something to eat."

The evening was closing in as he seated himself upon the straw and began his meal, listening the while for some sign of the presence of Adela under his prison window, but he listened in vain. There was the evening song of the thrush, and he could hear poultry and the distant grunting of his friend the pig. Now and then, too, there came through the window the soft cooing of the pigeons on the roof, but otherwise there was not a sound, and the place might have been deserted by human kind.

"So much the better for me," he said, "if I want to escape;" and having at last finished his meal, he placed the remains on one side for use in the morning, and tried to find a likely stone in the floor for loosening, but he had to give up because it was so dark, and climbed up once more to the window to gaze out now at the stars, which moment by moment grew brighter in the east.

There was something very soft and beautiful in the calm of the summer night, but it oppressed him with its solitude. In one place he could see a faint ray of light, apparently from some cottage window; but that soon went out, and the scene that had been so bright in the morning was now shrouded in a gloom which almost hid the nearest trees.

Now and then he could hear a splash in the moat made by fish or water-vole, and once or twice he saw the star-bejewelled surface twinkle and move as if some creature were swimming across; but soon that was all calm again, and the booming, buzzing noise of some great beetle sweeping by on reckless wing sounded quite loud.

"It's as lively as keeping the middle watch," said Hilary impatiently.

"The best thing I can do is to go to sleep."