Jack Harkaway and His Son's Escape from the Brigands of Greece Part 32

"What?" demanded the governor, eagerly.

"He is there."

"Who?"

"Who but the prisoner? Mathias is there--hopelessly stuck--wedged in.

He has been trying to escape and has hurt himself."

The woman looked up at these words.

"Is it no worse?" she asked. "Is he badly hurt?"

"I can not say yet," said the surgeon; "we must get him down first."

This proved a very difficult matter indeed.

The flue was so narrow that it was sheer madness to attempt climbing it.

Eagerly Mathias had pushed on, and finally got himself wedged inextricably.

He could neither move up nor down.

It was when he made this alarming discovery that his struggles became desperate, and in his wild efforts to free himself from his self-set trap, he tore and mutilated his flesh most cruelly.

The wounds and the want of air had done their work.

An hour's hard work succeeded in setting the prisoner free--or rather his body, for it was found that life had been extinct, according to the surgeon's report, before they had entered the cell.

And when they came to examine the clothes, they made a discovery which threw a light upon the whole affair.

A small sc.r.a.p of paper, dirty and crumpled was found in his pocket, upon which was some writing that was with great difficulty construed in this wise--

"The only hope is from the waterside. If you can but reach the roof, and have the courage to make the plunge, freedom will be your reward."

How this note came there was never discovered.

With this dire catastrophe ended the efforts of the brigands to free their unhappy leader.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. MOLE VISITS THE WIZARD--THE MAGIC MIRROR AND THE LIFE-LIKE VISION--THE INCANTATION--THE CHARMED WIG.

"In point of fact, sir," said young Jack to his tutor one morning, "it is about the only thing worth seeing here."

"What is, Jack?"

"The wizard."

Mr. Mole looked very straight at his pupil upon this.

"What wizard, sir?" he said, severely. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the conjuror that Mr. Jefferson, and dad, and Uncle d.i.c.k went to see."

"When?"

"The other day. Didn't they tell you about it?"

"No, sir."

When Mr. Mole addressed his pupil as "sir," young Jack knew pretty well that he thought he was being humbugged.

There is an old saying--"Jack was as good as his master."

Putting on a look of injured innocence, he called his comrade Harry to corroborate what he had said.

"That's quite true, Mr. Mole."

"That Mr. Jefferson went with Mr. Harkaway and Harvey to see a necromancer?"

"Yes."

"Preposterous!" quoth Mr. Mole. "Why, whatever is the world coming to next? We shall have them spirit-rapping and table-turning and such-like muck, I suppose."

Jack looked serious.

"Then you don't believe in necromancy--that they can tell the past and the future by the aid of astrology?"

"Pickles!"

It would have astonished Messieurs Crosse and Blackwell themselves, could they have heard what a deal that one word could convey when uttered by an Isaac Mole.

"Well, sir," said Harry Girdwood, seriously, "the wizard told us some very remarkable things indeed."

"What did he tell you?"

"Many things, many very wonderful things; but one of the most wonderful was about you, sir."

Mr. Mole started.

"Don't you try to come the old soldier over me," said Mole.

Harry Girdwood protested that he held Mr. Mole in far too much respect to essay any thing like coming the ancient military, or indeed anything else which might be construed into want of proper feeling.

Mr. Mole looked hard at him.