It would be tedious to chronicle the stages of our progress, the
hopes and fears, the anxieties and suspense, which in turn laid
hold of me. Night by night for a week, in pitch darkness and bitter
cold, we scraped away the cement, carrying away in the morning in
our pockets the dust that fell, and disposing of it in the
sweepings of the courtyard.
Once we had a great scare. In the dead time of night we heard
footsteps, and voices in the room below our dormitory, and gave all
up for lost. We stole into our beds, and lay in that painful state
of shortened breath and quickened pulse which the expectation of
ill induces. But by and by the voices ceased; we heard the closing
of the door below; whatever their errand had been (and we never
knew it) the men of the guard had returned to their quarters, and
after a few minutes' pause we were again out of bed and at our
work.
At the end of a week it happened as I had feared. The men's
patience gave out. The bosun was the first to yield. After his two
hours' spell of labor he rose from the cramped position it entailed
and swore he would do no more. The men whose turn it was to follow
refused to get out of bed, and Joe and I, who, having worked our
spell were fast asleep, knew nothing of the mutiny until the
morning. Then, though I was nigh despairing, I affected
cheerfulness, said that we had all been working too hard, and
declared for a couple of nights' holiday.
I did not blame or expostulate, and the wisdom of my course was
vindicated on the third night, when, without a word being said, the
bosun and Runnles took up their tools and set to work again. I
learned afterwards that Runnles had employed himself during the two
days in quietly encouraging the others, and I think it was the
persistence of the little man that shamed them into perseverance.
Night by night for three weeks we toiled on, and then were
bountifully rewarded. We had scraped away the cement between the
stone we had selected and those around it, and by prying it with
our chisel and one or two other tools we had now procured, we
gradually forced it inwards and at length lifted it out and laid it
on the floor. It was the middle of the night, but all the men were
awake, and in the excitement of the occasion the bosun uttered a
shout of triumph, cursing himself immediately afterwards for his
folly. The sentry above stopped, and by and by a soldier came into
the room below and up the ladder and demanded what was the matter.
Luckily I had the presence of mind (and by this time sufficiency of
French) to make answer pat.
"'Tis the big man in a nightmare," I said with a laugh, "dreaming
he heads a boarding party."
"Mad dream!" says the Frenchman with a chuckle, and went down again
without entering the room.
We longed for daylight to reveal the full extent of our success,
yet dared not wait for it, for the stone was heavy, and it would
take some time to replace it, and since we were always visited soon
after daybreak we feared to be intruded on before we had put it
back and removed the traces of our work. So we set it again in its
place and for the rest of the night slept the sound sleep of
contentment.
But this success spurred me on to devise some means of easing the
work yet to be done. The stone was two feet broad; if the wall was
ten feet thick there were four more like it still to be removed,
and at the same rate it would be three months before we could
tunnel through to the air. And thinking of this my heart fell, for
there was not room in the cavity left by the stone for two men to
work abreast, so that it might indeed be four months before we saw
the end of our toil. I determined, therefore, by some means or
other to procure a light, by whose aid I could explore the hole and
see if the next stone was cemented with the same care.
It chanced that that day we had for dinner a very fat piece of
beef. I took advantage of this to pocket some lumps of fat,
intending to make a candle with it and a wick composed of some
twisted threads from my shirt. The difficulty was to kindle the
candle when made, for none of us had a tinder box, though we had
steel in our chisel and could easily break a piece of stone from
the slab we had loosened.
Tolliday was equal to this, however. He pretended that one of the
screws of his fiddle had swelled, so that it would not turn freely
in the hole, and he got us to ask one of the soldiers to lend him
his tinder box, so that he might make a fire of shavings and heat a
skewer red hot, with which to burn away the hole. All unsuspicious,
the man lent him the box, which, when it was returned to him had
somewhat less tinder in it than before.
That night, and during the remaining weeks of our work, we had a
candle. We screened the light very carefully, you may be sure, so
that it should not shine through the grating in the wall on the
courtyard, and attract the soldiers' notice.
The stone having been removed, I crawled into the opening, holding
the candle, and could scarcely check a cry of joy as I perceived
that our task would henceforth be much lighter than I had supposed.
At the end of the hole, instead of another stone cemented like the
first, as I expected, there was a mass of rubble. I could not doubt
that the whole of the interior of the wall consisted of this
material, and that we should encounter no more blocks of stone
until we came to the outer layer of the wall.
It was easy to understand now why castles deemed impregnable were
sometimes battered down. A thickness of ten feet of stone might
withstand any bombardment, but once the outer stones were pierced,
the lighter material would offer but little resistance to cannon
shot.
That was an afterthought, however; my reflection at the moment was
that liberty was nearer to us by several weeks. Being acquainted
with my discovery, my comrades made no ado when I suggested that we
should now remove another of the stones of the inner wall, so that
we might more easily get at the rubble. Filled with a new spirit of
cheerfulness, they worked with such ardor that in ten nights we
were able to lay a second stone alongside of the first.
But we were now confronted with a new difficulty. It had been easy
enough to dispose of the cement dust: it was quite another thing to
get rid of the vast quantity of small stones and pieces of brick
which now had to be removed. Further, if we cleared all the rubble
from the middle of the wall between us and the outside, there would
be no support for the slabs of the battlement above, and however
firmly they were cemented, it was not improbable that they would
sink in and betray us.
The latter predicament we could but ignore for the present. For the
disposal of the rubble, after some thought I hit upon a plan that
proved entirely successful.
When all was quiet one night, Joe and I descended the ladder which
led from our dormitory to the room below, and lifted, after some
trouble, one of the planks of the floor. As I had hoped, it was not
laid immediately on the ground; a space of two feet deep had been
left. Into this hole night by night we cast the rubble we scooped
out from the wall, carefully replacing the plank when we had done.
We moved always with bare feet, carrying the stuff in our pillow
cases. When I consider how many slight accidents might have marred
our work and utterly undone us, I can not but think that we were in
some sort watched over by Providence. Our life aboard ship had made
us sure footed; but that we were able to work for weeks without
betraying ourselves by a sound or the neglect of some precaution I
ascribe to something higher than ourselves.
To come to an end of this part of my story, after several weeks'
work at the rubble we once more encountered stone. Before attacking
this, we waited for a night or two. We no longer had any fear of
the slabs of the battlement falling; the cement was clearly strong
enough to bear the weight of the passing sentry; but I had some
apprehension that as he tramped along the man might discover the
hollowness below him by the ringing of his feet on the stones. But
two nights sufficed to banish this fear also, and then we started
eagerly on the last portion of our task.
The flight of time passes almost unnoticed when the moments are
well filled. Winter had given place to spring, and spring was now
merging into summer. We had no almanac, and kept no account of the
days; it was by the lengthening daylight and shortening darkness
and the new warmth in the air that we knew summer was at hand. The
long nights of winter would perhaps have been more favorable to our
escape, but, on the other hand, we should suffer more from
exposure, and moreover, I fancy no man is ever so brave in cold
weather as in warm. We prisoners, at any rate, worked now with more
zest than ever, heartened by the knowledge that if we did win to
freedom, we should find ourselves in a pleasant, sunny world.
One night when Runnles and the bosun were at work, the chisel of
the former met with no further obstacle. Enlarging the hole he had
made, he set his eye to it, and whispered to the bosun to blow out
the candle. Then he crawled back into the room and told me in his
quiet way that he had seen the stars. Before morning the cement
round a stone somewhat larger than the one we first removed had
been scraped away, or pushed out into the moat, and we knew that
when we had hauled the stone back through the tunnel into the room
we should have made a hole large enough for the biggest of us to
pass through.
My fears for the success of our enterprise were never greater than
at this moment when the way seemed open. The men were in so wild a
state of excitement that I was consumed with anxiety lest their
demeanor should arouse suspicion among our guardians. Before I went
down to the courtyard I spoke to them very earnestly, begging them
to keep a watch on themselves, and not betray by word, look or sign
that anything had happened to break the monotony of our life.
They obeyed my injunctions almost too well, for a more silent,
morose, hangdog set of fellows could never have been seen; they
provoked jests from the prisoners of the other dormitories, who
declared that sure their music had made them all melancholy.
"It must be tonight, Joe," I said, when, our morning tasks being
done, he and I went apart from the rest for a little private talk.
"If we delay it, I cannot answer for their behavior."
"That is all very true, sir," said Joe; "but I can not see how we
are to manage it. There's a hole in the wall, to be sure, and a new
rope on the windlass of the well: but how we be going to get the
rope where 'tis needed is more than I can guess."
"Don't you think that by tonight our drum will want washing?" I
said.
He looked at me, clearly puzzled at what seemed a sudden change of
subject.
"'Tis very dirty, to be sure; but washing it won't make it sound no
better, I reckon."
"I rather think it will," I replied, and then I told him what I had
in mind.
"'Tis a main risky trick, sir," he said dubiously. "If they should
happen to want another bucketful of water we're lost men."
"We must risk something, Joe," I answered, "and fortune has so well
befriended us hitherto that I can't think she will balk us now."
But I own that my anxieties increased as the day wore on, and my
melancholy countenance was doubtless a good match with the faces of
my comrades. When one of the other prisoners twitted me on my
lugubrious mien, I had an inspiration.
"We are saving our cheerfulness for the concert tonight," I said.
"'Twill be the best we have ever given, and we shall never give a
better."
And for the rest of the day there was a great buzz of talk among
the men about the announcement I had made, and a great deal of
laughter at our mournful preparation for a cheerful entertainment.
Late in the afternoon, when water drawing had ended for the day, I
went to one of the soldiers and asked if I might be allowed to wash
our big drum.
"Why, 'twill spoil it," he cried. "You'll get no sound out of a wet
skin."
"I shall only wash one side," I replied, "and it will give a
thicker sound than the dry one, and so add to the variety of the
piece we are going to play."
"Well, wash it then," he said, and went off grinning to tell his
comrades of this latest whimsy.
I fetched the drum from the corner of the room where it lay, and
carried it to the well within the keep. The members of the band
were in the secret, and I had asked them to hold the attention of
the other prisoners while I set about my task. The well was
situated in a somewhat gloomy corner, and, there being none of the
garrison at hand, I was able to accomplish my purpose unobserved
and without interference. Having drawn up a bucketful of water, I
unhooked the bucket, unwound the rope until there were but a few
feet still left upon the windlass, then cut it, made a gash in the
side of the drum, and coiled the lower and longer portion of the
rope in the interior of the instrument. Then I tied the bucket to
what remained of the rope, and lowered it into the well, where it
hung only a few feet from the surface, but quite out of sight in
the darkness. This done, I carried the drum across the yard,
turning its broken side away from the soldiers, who stood smoking
against the wall, and who laughed when they saw the water dripping
from the instrument upon the flagstones.
The prisoners were all grouped in a ring about Joe Punchard, who
was amusing them with a strange dance of his own invention. He bent
his knees till he was almost sitting on the ground, and in that
position danced a sort of hornpipe--a feat that must have imposed a
terrible strain upon his inwards, but which he seemed to perform
with consummate ease. The men were so intent upon his antics that I
passed them by unnoticed, and gained the lower room of the shed,
where I whipped the rope out of the drum and ran with it up into
the dormitory, hiding it under one of the beds. I was down again in
a minute, and then, tearing the membrane jaggedly to disguise the
fact that it had been cut, I went out into the yard, and when Joe
had finished announced with an air of vexation that I had unluckily
made a hole in the drum. At this my fellow bandsmen abused me with
a fine show of anger, the bosun in particular storming at me with a
violence at which I had much ado not to smile.
The other men laughed, and made fun of our mishap, which boded ill
for the success of our concert. But when we had eaten our evening
meal, we got our instruments and played until the sun went down,
with a gusto which certainly we had never shown before. For the
nonce I gave up the castanets to the bosun, and beat the drum
myself, thumping it on its sound side joyously. The soldiers
gathered round and gave us very hearty applause; and when Runnles,
to conclude the program, played them on his flute the air of Au
clair de lune, which he had picked up from one of them, they
cheered him to the echo.
I hoped that there was nothing ominous in the choice of this old
song to end our concert. Moonlight would be fatal to our
enterprise; and I was quite ignorant whether the moon rose early or
late. But we had gone so far that our attempt must be made this
very night, for with the morning the cutting of the rope would
without doubt be discovered; the alarm would be given, and the
ensuing search would bring to light not merely the severed rope,
but our operations upon the wall.
We went up into our dormitory, taking with us our instruments as
usual, among them the bass viol of our invention. This was to serve
as our raft. We waited for several hours with feelings painfully
tense. None of us was inclined to talk; my nine comrades were, I
doubt not, wondering as anxiously as I myself what the issue of our
attempt would be.
When all was quiet, the strongest of them removed the stone at the
inner end of the tunnel, and set it down with many precautions on
the floor. Then Runnles, being a little man, crawled to the other
end and looped the rope about the loosened stone there. This we
hauled inwards an inch at a time, stopping after every pull to
listen. It seemed endless work to drag it into the room, but at
last it was done, and we set the stone alongside the other.
Our way was now clear. I had insisted on being the first to
descend, though Joe Punchard and two other men volunteered for that
office, pleading that they were mariners of longer standing than I,
and therefore fitter for the climbing work. But this I would by no
means agree to--the suggestion and the plan being mine, it was meet
that I should be the first to face what perils it might involve.
Accordingly, I first crawled through the tunnel to see whether the
aspect of the sky favored an immediate descent, and, being
reassured on that point, I went back into the room to make the
final preparations.
We stripped a plank from one of the truckle beds and placed it
across the opening, one end of the rope being knotted about its
middle; the knots were firm, you may be sure, as none but sailors
can make them. Then, taking the other end of the rope, I went to
the outward end and lowered it very gently towards the moat,
knowing that it would not be seen in the darkness by the sentry on
the battlements above even if he chanced to look over, and to that
he would have no temptation.
There was a good deal of doubt among us as to whether the rope was
long enough for our purpose. The bosun, who had crawled after me,
whispered he was sure it was too short. And when I had let it down
to its full length and drawn it up again, as yard after yard it
came dry through my fingers I began to fear that the bosun was
right. But at last the rope left a slimy wetness upon my hands, and
I rejoiced to find that two or three yards of it had fallen into
the water.
Our next step was to draw the rope wholly into the dormitory and
fasten its wet end to the bass viol. On the top of this, it will be
remembered, there were two S-shaped openings which we had cut to
make it serviceable as a sound board. These Joe had now covered
over with the broken skin of the drum, to make the box water tight.
We pushed it through the tunnel, and I let it down into the moat,
very slowly, so that it might not strike the wall and draw the
sentry's attention. When the rope was paid out to its full length I
wrapped a coil of bast about my shoulders, and, having suspended
from my neck a short plank from the head of the bed, I bade the men
in a whisper to remember the further plan we had arranged, and made
my way down the rope--a feat that offered no difficulty to a seaman
even so little practiced as I.
Coming safely to our musical raft, I was not long in discovering it
to be a very cranky thing, so that I had to keep my hold of the
rope in order to maintain my balance. But in a short time I was
able to defeat the raft's attempts to turn turtle, and then,
kneeling on it, still gripping the rope, I looked anxiously for
signs that the attention of the sentry on the battlements had been
awakened. But I heard his footsteps approach and recede at the same
measured pace; 'twas clear he suspected nothing; and without more
delay I began to work the raft towards the far side of the moat,
using the short plank I had brought with me as a paddle. So that no
sound of splashing might rise to betray us, at every stroke I dug
the paddle into the mud, which, as I had suspected, came to within
a little of the surface; indeed, the depth of water was barely
sufficient to float the raft, with my weight on it.
A most unsavory odor resulted from the stirring of the mud; but a
greater inconvenience was the tendency of the raft to lurch.
Holding on to the rope with one hand, I instinctively pulled upon
it to maintain my equilibrium when I felt myself toppling, with the
result that the raft moved backward, and I had to begin my punting
again. Fortunately, the width of the moat was little more than
thrice the length of my crazy craft, in spite of whose instability
I succeeded in reaching the opposite side.
Here, however, I found that my difficulties were by no means over.
The water was low in the moat, and the bank, perfectly free from
vegetation, rose almost vertically to a height of six or eight
feet. On a moonlit night I must have been seen if the sentry had
glanced in my direction; dark as it was, I feared it was not so
dark but that my moving shape might be descried. I waited: not
hearing the sentry's footsteps, I began to fear the worst; but
finding after a time that no alarm had been given, and that all was
still about me, I first fastened the coil of bast I had brought on
my shoulders to the end of the rope where it was knotted about the
raft, and then began to clamber up the bank, somewhat incommoded by
having to keep a hold of the bast with one hand.
Careful as I was, I yet dislodged one or two clods of earth as I
climbed, which fell with a dull splash into the water. I went cold
with apprehension, and clung to the face of the bank, not daring to
make a movement. There were no fowl upon the moat; the splash I had
made was louder than any frog could have made; surely the
unaccustomed sound must this time have caught the sentry's ear! But
all was silent; maybe he was asleep; and in another few moments I
gained the top of the bank, breathless, rather, I suspect, from
excitement than exertion.
It seemed a very long time since I had left my comrades above:
doubtless it had seemed even longer to them. So, after the briefest
of pauses to recover my breath, I gave three sharp tugs upon the
bast line, which were immediately answered by three similar tugs:
this was the signal I had arranged with Joe. The tension on the
line was relaxed; Joe, hauling at the rope, was drawing the raft
gently back across the moat to its former position at the foot of
the wall. There was a short interval; then I knew from the jerking
of the bast line that a man was descending the rope, and when he
was almost level with me I saw his form very dimly. When I learned
from the cessation of the jerks that he was safe on the raft, I
hauled in my line, ferried the man across, and, leaning over, gave
him a helping hand up the bank. It was little Runnles.
"I've got my flute, sir," he whispered with strange inconsequence
as he came to my side.
"Lie on the ground and don't stir," I whispered back.
Again I gave three tugs, and the same sequence of events ensued.
One by one the men came down the rope, crossed the moat on the
raft, and joined me on the bank. We had no difficulty with any of
them but the bosun, whose massy frame so much depressed the raft
that it took the united exertions of six of us to haul it through
the upper layer of mud.
Joe Punchard came last of all. When with his arrival our little
party of ten was complete, we crawled on hands and knees one by one
to the shelter of a thicket that stood some fifty yards away, and
then consulted in whispers how we were to shape our course.