Under the Meteor Flag Part 25

A long and--to me--most painful pause ensued, neither of the officers questioning me further. Had they done so, I feel certain I should have thrown off the mask and avowed myself to be that hateful thing, a disguised and secret enemy.

At length a tap came to the door; and Lieutenant Saint Croix, who had gone out in search of Guiseppe, returned, bringing the man with him. A single glance was sufficient to satisfy me that my former enemy once more stood before me.

He approached the table, and, saluting the general, stood waiting, as it seemed to me, with some trepidation, to learn why he had been summoned to the dreaded presence of the chief.

"Attention, sir!" exclaimed the general harshly. "Do you recollect the circ.u.mstances connected with the theft of Captain Leroux's yacht, 'Mouette,' from Ajaccio?"

"Perfectly, sig-- I mean, monsieur," he replied.

"Did you happen to know the lad who was taken away in her?"

"Francois? Yes, I knew him," he replied.

"Is he at all like this fisherman?" asked the general.

The fellow turned his gaze on me with an expression of stolid indifference. Regarding me steadfastly for a full minute, I saw his eyes brighten and gleam with an expression of fiendish malice; he approached me so closely that his hot breath fell full upon my cheek, his eyes glaring into mine like those of a tiger when he scents blood; then, turning to the general, he replied,--

"No, _monsieur le general_. This is the young naval officer who conveyed the despatches to Count Lorenzo di Paoli, and who, it is believed, stole the 'Mouette' on the night when the count's chateau was attacked; afterwards leading the 'Vigilant' into an ambush whereby she was captured."

"Are you certain?" inquired the general.

"Quite certain," replied the Corsican. "It was I who watched him land from the frigate, and afterwards discovered his lurking-place in the woodman's hut. And I also saw him frequently, after his escape from the troops, in the chateau of Count Lorenzo."

"That is sufficient," replied the general. Then, turning to me, he remarked sarcastically,--

"If you have anything to say in refutation of this man's statement, say it. But no, I see you have not. It is well, sir. You have chosen to enter this town in disguise and with a false story; the inference is plain. You are a spy; and as such you will be shot at daybreak to- morrow morning."

"Take him away," he continued, turning to Lieutenant Saint Croix; "confine him securely in the tower; and you, Guiseppe, take charge of him; I can spare none of my own men to play the part of gaoler. And remember, I shall hold you responsible for his safety!"

"I will answer for it with my own life," exultingly exclaimed the scoundrel, as he roughly seized me by the collar and led me away.

As we pa.s.sed through the guard-room, Lieutenant Saint Croix summoned a file of soldiers, who promptly placed themselves one on each side of me; and in this humiliating manner I was conducted to the prison from which, in a few short hours, I was to go to my grave.

On leaving the guard-room, we crossed the small open court, and pa.s.sed under the archway into the pa.s.sage which led through to the barrack- yard.

Midway through the pa.s.sage we came to a halt before a low door of solid oak, which was opened with the aid of a ponderous key, when a steep narrow stairway of stone lay before us. It wound upwards, corkscrew fas.h.i.+on, in the thickness of the wall, and, ascending it, we eventually reached a stone landing or short pa.s.sage, very dimly lighted by two narrow unglazed windows, one at each end. There were two doors on each side of this pa.s.sage, one of which the young officer unlocked and flung open, motioning me to enter. I did so, seeing that I had no choice in the matter; the door slammed heavily to, the ma.s.sive bolts grated harshly back into their places, and I was alone.

It was so dark that, until my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I could see nothing except a narrow opening in the wall, far above my head, which admitted all the light and air the architect had considered necessary for the miserable occupants of the dungeon.

I shut my eyes, and clasped my hands tightly over them, keeping them so for about five minutes; and when I opened them again, I was able to see with tolerable distinctness.

I then found that I had been thrust into a chamber about ten feet square and as many feet high, the walls of which were of ma.s.sive masonry. A stone bench ran along one side of the wall, and that was all; furniture of any kind there was absolutely none. The aperture in the wall, which I have already mentioned, was close up under the stone ceiling of the cell, and measured about two feet long and six inches wide. _So_ thick was the wall in which this was pierced, that standing back against the opposite wall I was unable to see the sky out through it. I felt all round the walls of my prison. They were perfectly smooth, and slimy with the acc.u.mulated damp of centuries. I then examined the door. It was of oak or some other hard wood, and evidently very thick, from the dead sound which my knuckles made when I rapped upon it. It was quite useless, then, to think of escape. So strong, indeed, was the place, that they had not thought it worth while to search me, being no doubt convinced that it would be impossible for me to break out with any tools or weapons I might happen to have in my possession. I had a stout knife in my pocket; but five minutes' work with it on the door satisfied me that it would be a labour of days, instead of the few hours which remained to me, to carve my way out with such an instrument.

Nothing then remained but to devote those few remaining hours to the work of preparation for my inevitable fate.

I flung myself down upon the rough stone bench, and let my thoughts wander far away to my dear old Hamps.h.i.+re home, and to the loved ones there whose hearts the vague tidings of my uncertain fate would go far to break. They would of course hear, through Captain Hood, of the mad venture upon which I had embarked; and would doubtless also be furnished with full details of my doings up to the moment when I disappeared from Bob's lingering gaze into the darkness of the murky night. And from that moment all further trace of me would be lost, unless indeed Bastia should eventually fall into the hands of the British; and even then it was improbable that, in the general bustle and excitement, anyone would remember to make inquiries about me. And so the years would drag slowly on; and while my body lay mouldering in an obscure and unmarked grave, those loved ones would be hoping against hope for tidings of me, until, under the long-continued and cruel strain, their hearts would slowly but surely break.

The subject was of too painful a character to be longer dwelt upon; and I turned from it to seek in my hour of need the support and consolation of religion. I recalled to mind some of those sublime pa.s.sages, so lavishly scattered through the pages of the "Book of Books," each solemn word breathing comfort, hope, and promise; but the words chased each other idly through my throbbing brain, which refused to grasp their meaning; turning aside instead to interest itself in all manner of idle fancies. Then I strove to quell the tumult of my mind by earnest prayer; but it was of no use; words came readily enough to my dry and fevered lips; but they were words only, not aspirations of the soul.

And so at length I had to abandon my useless efforts and allow my thoughts to be dragged away a helpless prey to every mad fancy born of my whirling brain. And all the while I was conscious that the sands in the hour-gla.s.s of my life were fast running out, and that the precious moments which were pa.s.sing so swiftly away bore with them the possibilities of an eternity of bliss or an eternity of woe for me beyond the great Boundary Line which I was so soon to cross.

And thus the hours sped swiftly on, until a thin shaft of golden light streamed in through the narrow opening above my head, and, striking on the opposite wall, gleamed there for a few minutes in radiant and dazzling beauty, pa.s.sing obliquely upward the while until it grew narrower and more narrow, dwindled down to the thinness of a thread, and finally vanished. I had witnessed the last gleam of earthly sunlight I was ever to see.

Darkness now rapidly gathered round me; and in a short time it was impossible for me to distinguish anything but the faint outline of the loophole in the wall above me.

As night descended upon the earth, a soft and gentle breeze sprang up, which, entering through the loophole, cooled my fevered blood and permitted me so far to regain control of myself that I once more became cognisant of outward sounds, of which I seemed to have lost all consciousness from the moment I had been thrust into that horrible dungeon. There was the roar of the artillery, the fainter boom of our own guns, the occasional rattle of vehicles along the street, the rumble of heavy ammunition waggons, the frequent clatter of horses' feet; and, now and then, the sound of a human voice. Gradually most of these sounds lulled, and became more infrequent, until finally they died away altogether; and long intervals of perfect silence ensued, broken only by the occasional cras.h.i.+ng discharge of a single gun. And so I knew that night had fallen upon the earth without as well as upon the unhappy prisoner within.

After the lapse of some hours, as it seemed to me, I became conscious of a faint sound outside my prison-door; a key rattled in the lock, the bolts jarred back; the door was flung open; a stream of light flooded the cell, blinding me for the moment; and when my eyesight returned Guiseppe the Corsican was standing in the chamber, in the act of closing the door carefully behind him.

Placing upon the floor the small hand-lamp which he carried, he flung himself carelessly down on the stone bench; and, with an evil smile hovering about his lips, began to jeer at my unfortunate situation.

"Well, signor Englishman," he commenced, "how like you your new lodging?

It is scarcely so large, and I fear it is not as elegantly furnished, as Francesca Paoli's silken chamber, is it? But never mind, my friend; your stay here is but short; and I daresay you can contrive to put up with a little temporary inconvenience in the meantime, can you not?"

"Are you here to make sport of my misfortunes?" I asked.

"Certainly," he replied; "what other purpose do you suppose I could have in visiting you here in the dead of night? Perhaps you thought I had come to set you free and help you to rejoin your accursed countrymen?

No! I hate you all--you Englishmen--and _you_ especially; and I could not deny myself the pleasure of looking in upon you to see how you face the approach of a disgraceful death. I am rejoiced to see how pale and haggard you look. It has told upon you, as it must necessarily tell upon all cowards. Let me note carefully how you look, now; so that I may compare it with your appearance a few hours hence, when you face the muskets of your executioners. Pah! why you are quailing already, you white-livered poltroon; what will it be in the morning?"

I had resolved the moment I perceived the villain's object, that nothing he might say or do should wring any outward manifestation from me. But as he went on, the apathy which had before possessed me gave way under the influence of his taunts; my indignation was gradually aroused until my blood boiled; and now, rising suddenly, I sprang upon him with the bound of a tiger, clutching his sinewy neck with both hands and pressing my thumbs with all my strength into his throat.

The ruffian was so completely taken by surprise by the suddenness and violence of this unexpected attack that he went down unresistingly before me, the back of his head striking violently upon the hard stone bench upon which he had been seated.

I was now fully roused; I felt possessed of the strength and fury of a demon; and, still retaining my vice-like grasp upon his throat, I raised his head again and again and again, only to dash it with intensified violence against the stones each time. The miserable wretch grasped at the knife in his belt and drew it out; but before he had time to use it I had dashed his head yet once more against the stones, with such superhuman strength and violence that a dull crus.h.i.+ng sound accompanied the blow, the man uttered a deep groan, and the knife fell clinking on the floor from his nerveless hand. Relaxing my grasp upon his throat, I raised the lamp and allowed its rays to fall upon my victim's face. It was of a livid purple hue. The tongue, hanging out of the mouth, was bitten nearly through; his whiskers were wet with blood, which oozed in two thin streams from his throat where I had grasped it; and a slowly widening pool of blood was steadily spreading over the bench beneath his head.

The first thought which presented itself was, "Is he dead, or merely stunned?" The next--which flashed into my brain with the rapidity of lightning--was, that there lay my gaoler, the man who stood between me and liberty, helpless before me; and the chance of escape was once more in my hands.

I rolled the senseless body off the bench on to the floor. It fell, and lay there motionless; the muscles all relaxed, and the same livid hue upon the face.

Hastily unrolling the crimson sash which encircled his waist, I cut it into convenient lengths; and, rolling the body over face downwards, quickly and with all the dexterity of a seaman secured the arms together at the wrists, and the feet at the ankles; after which I lashed the heels and hands close together, rolled the body back as far as it would come, and thrust into the mouth, as a gag, the long haft of his murderous sheath-knife, securing it in position by means of the handkerchief which he wore round his throat.

I next possessed myself of the keys, of which there were two; one, of course, for the cell-door, and the other, doubtless, for the door at the foot of the stairs.

I had no difficulty in fitting the right key to the cell-door; and as soon as I had done so I blew out the lamp, and placed it outside the cell, closed and locked the door, and, removing my boots, stealthily crept down the winding staircase.

The door at the bottom was open; and as it folded inwards I noiselessly adjusted the key in the lock before venturing outside. I then stepped through the doorway; drew the door quietly to, and, with the utmost precaution, turned the key in the lock, managing to do so with very little noise.

As I removed the key, and stood back in the recess to deliberate upon my next steps, I became conscious of the sound of running water; and looking along the pa.s.sage into the barrack-yard, and the courtyard at the back of the tower, I saw, by the faint light of one or two lamps, that the ground was flooded, and that it was raining heavily. So much the better; there would be fewer people about, and my chances of escape would thereby be all the greater.

The first question was, how to get beyond the boundaries of the barracks. The front or barrack-yard was bounded on three sides by lofty buildings and on the fourth by a high wall, with gates in it, it is true, but gates which would be closed and locked at that hour of the night. The difficulties of escape by way of the front were great, and might very possibly prove insurmountable; I therefore determined to make my first attempt at the back.

Keeping close within the deepest part of the shadow, I moved cautiously in the direction of the guard-room; and had just gained the courtyard when I heard footsteps entering the pa.s.sage behind me. I darted out from under the archway, and hastily concealed myself behind one of the ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses which supported the back wall of the building.

Peering cautiously out from my hiding-place, I saw the individual, whoever he was, emerge from the archway, cross the yard, and enter the guard-room.

Still crouching close behind the b.u.t.tress, I looked carefully round to note the possibilities of escape which presented themselves in the rear of the tower. The yard, like the one in front, was enclosed by a wall, but it was only about twelve feet high. On the other side of this wall, looming indistinctly up against the murky sky, were some trees, one or two of which appeared to be near enough to enable me to spring into their branches, could I but reach the top of the wall.

At first I could see no way of doing this. But a little closer scrutiny, and the exercise of a little consideration, at length suggested a means of escape. A sort of wing, projecting out from the main building of the old castle, formed one boundary of the courtyard, and joined the wall, the top of which I desired to reach; and I suddenly remembered the rough, uneven, and time-worn appearance of the masonry of this building which had attracted my attention in the morning. I thought that perhaps the masonry might be rough and uneven enough to permit of my climbing the face of it; and, as it seemed to be the only road of escape, I resolved to try it.

I accordingly made my way to the point which I had resolved to attack, and set about the attempt. But I was unable to manage it. I found I required something more than the slight hold I was able to obtain with my hands, while working my way upward with my feet; and after a trial which must have lasted quite an hour I found myself just where I had started; namely, on the pavement of the courtyard.