Owen makes an Effort
Two days passed slowly for Owen in his prison, and during that time the
tedious hours were broken only by the half-hour when he was marched to
an adjoining room and ate his meal in the presence of the three other
imprisoned officers. However, on the third afternoon after his arrival
at Indore an event occurred which roused him from the lethargy which was
beginning to come over him. All was still in the noonday heat, and the
city of Indore seemed to be asleep. The clatter and hum of the populace
had died down, for the people were following a custom in favour with the
Spaniards and were indulging in a siesta. In the palace there was not a
sound to be heard, while in the tower in which he was a prisoner nothing
occurred to break the silence. Owen stood at the window listless and
dispirited, and if the truth be told, almost asleep, when suddenly the
faint sound of a distant footstep attracted his attention.
"The jailer," he thought; "but why is he coming now? It is his custom to
bring me food and water just before the sun goes down. It is strange
that he should be here now. Perhaps he is about to make a surprise
visit, for he is creeping up the stairs."
He tiptoed across to the door of his cell and listened eagerly. He could
hear the almost silent footfall as the man ascended the stairs, and
presently the hollow noise given out by the corridor outside as people
came along it.
"He is sneaking along by the wall. I don't like this visit," thought
Owen. "I wonder what he wants?"
A minute later it was clear that the man outside was within a foot of
his door, and as he listened Owen could hear his deep and hurried
breathing, which made it appear as if he had come up the long flight of
steps two at a time. Then there was a movement of a shoe, a hand went to
the lock and tried it, and then the door was shaken ever so gently. Owen
eased his sabre in its scabbard, for he had even now not been disarmed.
Then he dropped on hands and knees and placed his ear close to the
floor. Next second he leaped to his feet with a cry of joy, for a voice
called to him.
"Sahib! Sahib! Is the sahib Cornet Jones there?"
"Here! I am here, Mulha!"
The breathing was even deeper and quicker outside, and Owen heard a sigh
of relief. Then the voice came even more distinctly, for Mulha, his
faithful servant, had placed his lips close to the crack where the door
closed.
"Master, master," he said in eager, trembling tones, "they have brought
the troopers together again. They and their horses are quartered just
outside the courtyard, and they have orders to move to-morrow. Yes, on
the morrow they are to ride back to the General. I have seen the
message which they are to carry. Holkar will make war with the British,
and will kill you first so that there shall be good cause. I have seen
it, sahib, I say."
The poor fellow could hardly continue, for the very mention of such a
fact unmanned him. His voice trembled even more, and Owen heard a sound
as of a man who has only just succeeded in choking down a sob.
"Hush!" he whispered through the narrow crevice. "I'm still alive, and
will give some trouble before I am killed, Mulha. Tell me more, and look
carefully at the bolts. Can you loosen them?"
"Alas! sahib, there are two locks, and I have no implements. More than
that, the approach to the tower is so carefully watched that I have
obtained admission by the merest chance. The man on duty fell asleep as
he watched, and I slipped past him. But I will try later as the evening
comes, though there is little hope. Sahib, what can we do?"
"Nothing. You cannot help me. I must escape by my own efforts, and I
will do so. Tell me, Mulha, where are you quartered, so that I can find
you if I manage to break out?"
"I am with the troopers, minding your horse and mine," came the answer.
"It is a long, low building to the right, just outside the courtyard.
Sahib, the door is double-locked, and how can you escape? To-night they
will murder you. I have made sure of that. These miscreants will kill
you, and so make cause for war."
At that the poor fellow who was so attached to Owen broke down, and the
prisoner could hear his sobs. He tapped on the door to arrest the noise,
and whispered again.
"Tell the men to be ready at any time," he said quietly. "If it is
possible I will escape. Let them wait and be ready. Where are the guards
stationed?"
"At the foot of the stairs, sahib, at the main entrance and at the exit
from the courtyard. As for the troopers, they are free to move about in
their quarters, but they are watched. We have seen men hovering about.
This white officer too,"--Owen heard his servant grind his teeth as he
spoke of the French colonel,--"sahib, I tell you that he watches every
movement and every one of the guards. I have seen him in the courtyard,
and I have heard him threaten death to any who allowed his prisoner to
escape. Beware, sahib! This man bears you but evil friendship, and would
slay you. Who knows, it may be his doing that these orders have been
given to the troopers, for here in Indore he commands. Holkar is beneath
his thumb, and an order from this white fiend is obeyed as if he were an
emperor indeed. Hush! I hear some one moving. We will wait, sahib!"
Even Owen behind his prison door could hear the far-off sound of a step,
and therefore could not feel surprise when the sounds outside told him
that Mulha had moved away. However, in a moment or two he was back, and
his voice was heard again.
"Farewell, sahib," he whispered. "We will wait. I believe that you will
escape. If not, rest assured, we will avenge you."
He was gone. Owen could hear his faint footfall as he slipped down the
stairs. Then followed silence, complete silence, broken after a little
while by the awakening noises from the city outside.
"Forewarned!" said Owen as calmly as he could, though his heart beat
more forcibly now that he had heard Mulha's news. "So they will murder
me, and make that a cause for war, as if there was not enough already!
Ah! I know whom I have to thank for this! It is the Frenchman; but why?
Why?"
Why indeed? Had our hero devoted himself to elucidating the reason for
such display of malice for a week or even more he would have been no
nearer the answer. The fact remained that Colonel Le Pourton had taken a
sudden and none too friendly interest in him, and, moreover, appeared to
be in some manner connected with his earlier history. What was there
which could possibly make this English youth--a poorhouse boy, a beggar
almost till friends came forward to help him--an enemy to be feared by
one in such high command as this French colonel? And yet----
"He fears me, and he knows something of my earlier history. His
conscience hurts him perhaps. Who knows, he may have been the very one
who arranged for my abduction, for I was certainly stolen when I was a
child. But a Frenchman! It seems impossible."
Owen looked at the matter from all sides, and could not fail to see the
unlikelihood of this man having had anything to do with him in former
days; for, as he had just said, Colonel Le Pourton was a Frenchman, and
we had been at war with his country for a long while. True, there had
been a truce every now and again, even in India, where the two nations
had been struggling the one against the other. English possessions had
been captured and handed back again at the end of hostilities, and the
same could be said of Pondicherry and other French holdings. It was
possible that this Frenchman had known, in times of peace, some of the
British officers, and then----
"What is the good of worrying about the matter?" thought Owen peevishly.
"My life is of far more value to me than is this matter, and I will
leave it. Now, how to escape? I will get away if it is possible. But
how?"
He went over to the window again and stood there, leaning against the
wall and staring down at the streets beneath. And as he did so he noted
the surroundings of the palace, the courtyard below with its outer
gates, the sentries stationed there, magnificent men of Holkar's
bodyguard. And outside the very building to which Mulha had alluded.
Yes, and as he looked there was the figure of the faithful servant
entering the quarters allotted to his comrades. Owen waved his hand to
him, and Mulha, happening to look up at his window, as he had done many
a time in the last few hours without doubt, wondering behind which his
master lay a prisoner, saw the signal and answered it. Then he
disappeared, and our hero saw no more of him. He followed the courtyard
round to its limits, and then traced the walls which surrounded the
palace. They were evidently part of the defences of the town, and were
armed with heavy guns, some of brass and some of iron, and all of large
proportions.
"That is certainly the largest I have ever seen in my life," thought
Owen as his eye lit on one piece of gigantic size which towered over the
others. "Its muzzle must be a couple of feet across."
This, in fact, was the case, and the gun in question almost rivalled in
size another which was captured later in this campaign in Agra--a gun so
huge that a man could easily slide into the barrel. But Owen's attention
was soon taken up by other matters, and for a long while he stood there,
unmindful of what he saw, planning an escape. The sun sank, the last
which he was to see if Colonel Le Pourton could have his way, and the
short twilight lit up the city of Indore, its palace, its minarets, and
its squalid hovels. The sounds in its streets died down, while close to
the gates the gathering throng showed that the country-folk were about
to return to their homes. They were filing through the massive entrance
to Indore, and he could see a thin stream of carts and pedestrians
moving away into the distance. And gradually the gloom deepened,
the light disappeared, and night fell with characteristic
suddenness--perhaps Owen's last. The hour approached for his
assassination, and at the thought he shuddered. Then his courage
revived, and the very imminence of his danger spurred him on and made
him reckless of danger and difficulty, willing to attempt anything.
"We shall see," he said, as his teeth closed together. "This Holkar and
his French friend shall see. They have not killed me yet, and----"
He broke off suddenly and once more tiptoed across to the door, for away
down below came the slither of a sandal and the well-known step of the
jailer. He was coming up the stairs, and very soon he was close to the
prisoner's door. He stopped, and Owen heard the clink of the platter
which carried his evening meal against the stone chatti containing his
allowance of water.
"My evening meal," he thought. "He will come in and place the things on
the floor, and then leave at once without a word, and with only a shake
of his ugly head and an oath if I ask a question. A pleasant fellow
indeed, and just the one to carry out this assassination of which I have
been warned. He'll go, and that is the last time I shall be disturbed
till he or others come on behalf of the Frenchman."
Suddenly his breath came faster and deeper, for a thought had struck
him, and he realised that, since to break out of his prison was
impossible, then the only way now was to throw himself upon his keeper;
and that individual was now about to pay his last evening visit. It was
now or never, and in an instant his determination was taken. He changed
his position slightly, and stood so that when the door opened he would
be behind it. The locks grated; he heard the man swear as he struggled
with the key, for one hand was filled. But in a moment the fastening was
undone and the door swung open, while the jailer, taking the platter in
one hand and bearing the chatti in the other, stepped into the cell. A
cry escaped him, for up to now Owen had always stationed himself at the
window.
"What! Gone! Escaped!"
The man's jaws opened in his consternation, while the chatti dropped
from his hand and crashed to the floor, splintering there and scattering
the contents. Then his wits returned, and he suddenly remembered to look
behind the door. In an instant his mouth opened wide to give vent to a
shout of rage and astonishment, for the prisoner stood there with drawn
sabre in his hand. But the sound never left his lips, for as his eye
fell upon the figure of the prisoner Owen leaped forward and, putting
all his force into the blow, struck the man full in the face with the
hilt of his weapon. There was a sickening crash, and then the clatter of
the plate as it smashed on the floor. As for the Mahratta guard, he fell
like an ox struck true and sure with a pole-axe, and lay stunned and
helpless on the floor.
"The first step towards liberty," said Owen grimly, sheathing his sabre.
"And now to get away. I must not delay, and yet I must not spoil all by
undue hurry. Of course the only sensible thing to do is to take this
fellow's clothes."
That such a course was advisable could not be gainsaid, and he set to
work to carry out the change without delay or hesitation. And presently
he was a Mahratta in appearance and dress, save that his skin was too
light. However, a handful of dust from the floor remedied that defect,
and with his sabre hooked to his belt and his pistol beneath his
quilted jacket he was ready. He stooped and looked carefully at the
jailer.
"A broken nose at any rate," he said, as he observed the man's injuries,
"and for my part I have no hesitation in saying that he richly deserves
it. He is stunned, and I fancy will lie insensible for some little
while. I'll lash his hands behind him and make him fast to that ring in
the wall."
He set to work on a portion of the jailer's waist-cloth, and tore it
into long shreds which he knotted together. When he had a piece of
sufficient length he turned the man on his face and lashed his hands
firmly, afterwards dragging him to the ring and making the tail end of
the improvised rope fast there. He had now done all that was possible,
and therefore, taking the bunch of keys which the Mahratta carried at
his belt when he entered, Owen coolly left the cell, carefully shut and
bolted the door after him, and having shot the locks stood in the
passage thinking and listening.
"What of the other prisoners?" he said to himself. "They are somewhere
in this tower, though I believe on another story. No. They say that they
are in no immediate danger, while their imprisonment is no affair of
mine. Had they been taken with me it would have been a different matter.
I must leave them, for to attempt their rescue would be to throw away
all chance of escape. Here goes!"
Never before had he been in disguise, but he was a lad who took the
trouble to observe, and whose interest in life and people was so great
that he was not content to think of himself and his own appearance
alone, as is the case with some smaller minds, but noted the ways and
appearance of all strangers, seeing the difference between their
actions, their walk, their manner of sitting, and a thousand and one
other matters which might have escaped the eye of one less wide awake.
And now, thanks to that very power of observation, he fell into the
characteristic light step of a Mahratta unconsciously, holding himself
proudly erect as was the wont of the soldiers and servants of the mighty
Holkar. He jingled the keys in his hand, and since it was useless to
stand there at the top of the stairs, he descended, two steps at a time,
as his jailer was accustomed to do. And very soon he was at the foot, in
the big hall which gave access to the courtyard, and at his elbow was
the sentry, a tall fellow wearing a steel head-piece. In the distance,
suspended from the roof, was a lamp of Eastern manufacture, which shed a
faint light over the place, and for an instant fear of recognition
caused Owen to hesitate. But it happened that a strong night breeze had
got up, and this playing into the hall and upon the lamp caused the
flame to flicker and cast fitful shadows on the walls. The sentry turned
to face Owen, stared at him intently, and then shouldered his pike,
giving a nod of recognition.
"You will be making another journey, brother," he said in low tones, for
it was well for Holkar's guards to refrain from disturbing him. "I heard
the chatti and the platter fall to the ground, and I suppose you will be
returning. It is the last meal which he will ever take. He is well, I
hope; but did you strike him? I thought I heard the sound of a blow
also."
Owen stamped his foot as the man spoke, and swore in Mahratti. Turning
his head, he placed his hand to his ear and growled out a reply.
"Speak not to me of the dog," he said angrily. "The fellow commanded me
to set him free, and struck me to make me let him pass. That was the
cause of the breakage. But he will be careful next time. I dealt him a
blow in return which will keep him silent till----"
"Till his hour comes, comrade. Hah! hah! These Feringhee dogs will all
pay the price for their arrogance. But, hus-s-sh! Holkar is within."
"Then I will go. Heed not the noise upstairs should the prisoner call.
Let the dog lie and hunger till to-night."
Owen went across the hall holding his hand to his ear, and boldly
stepped down into the courtyard. It was empty save for the sentry
standing erect and alert at the gate, and Owen was in the very act of
crossing to him to bid him open when a thought struck him.
"If this fellow, the French colonel, is so anxious about my safety in
the cell it is just possible that he has given orders that none are to
leave the palace," he thought. "This man might then suspect, for as the
jailer I ought to know all about the order. Hm! That is an unpleasant
thought."
While he pondered on the matter he wandered away across the courtyard,
and presently found himself on the wide ledge which ran along behind
the wall defending the palace. It was in semi-darkness, for though a
small crescent of the moon was up, clouds filled the sky and obscured
the light. And here he remained for some minutes, thinking deeply and
starting nervously at every sound. Suddenly a door opened at the side of
the palace, some thirty yards behind him, and a flood of light poured
out, illuminating a portion of one of Holkar's gardens. Owen crouched
beneath one of the brass cannon beside which he happened to have been
standing, and then lay flat on his face, for the figure which emerged
was that of Colonel Le Pourton. He stood silhouetted against the
brightly illuminated archway of the door for some few seconds, and then
he strode across to the courtyard with the step of a man who has a
matter of some importance to carry out. Owen followed carefully, his
body close to the wall, shrouded in the dense darkness which existed
there. And very fortunate for him was it that he did so; for as the
Colonel came to the main entrance of the palace Owen heard him call to
the sentry.
"It is time the jailer took food to the prisoner," he cried. "Bid him
come to me ere he does so, for I desire to go to the cell and speak with
the white man. I will return to my quarters now. Bid him come there to
summon me."
And faintly the answer came back, "My lord, the prisoner is fed, and the
man you ask for gone some little time. He went into the courtyard, and I
have not seen him since."
The Frenchman growled out at the reply, and swinging round went to the
man stationed at the outer gate, of whom he demanded whether he had seen
the jailer.
"I did, some little while ago now, my lord," came the answer, while the
courtyard rang with the sound of the man's pike as he grounded it on the
flags. "He went across this place and on to the wall yonder, where he is
now without doubt, for there is no way out and he has not returned.
Unless he slipped past against the far wall, when the sentry within will
have seen him."
Once more the Colonel swung round, and Owen realised with a sickening
feeling of dread that he was coming across to the spot where he was in
hiding. Terror of discovery and what would follow almost rooted him to
the spot, and it was fortunate for him that his enemy, happening to
think of some other matter, returned to question the sentry again. Owen
took full advantage of the respite. Darting along the wall, he did not
halt till he came to the farther end, where a flanking tower was erected
preventing farther progress. There he halted, looking about him like a
hunted animal, while his ears caught the approaching step of the Colonel
in the distance. His danger was imminent, and discovery seemed more than
certain. He drew his sabre, and then thrust it back with a sharp cry of
delight. For danger sharpens men's wits at times, and Owen's mind had
suddenly returned to what he had seen that day. He ran towards the
approaching step, tiptoeing over the grass which bordered the wall, and
halted beside the big gun which had caught his eye. There was not an
instant to be lost, and therefore without hesitation he unhooked his
sabre and thrust it into the muzzle, lest it should strike later and
attract attention. Then he sprang on to the wall, and thrust one leg
into the gun. Leaning all his weight on his hands, he did the same with
the other, and in less time than it takes to tell he was out of sight,
swallowed by the gigantic weapon.
What if it were loaded! What if this Colonel discovered him, and taking
advantage of his position fired the gun!
"It would come to the same in the end," thought Owen. "Anyhow, I am sure
that I could not have found a finer hiding-place, while as for room, in
here there is heaps. It is as I thought. The calibre is very much
greater than one usually comes across, and the muzzle must measure quite
two feet--ample room for a youngster like me. Hark! There he comes."
He held his breath, for the sound of a footstep near at hand came
distinctly to his ears. He heard the Colonel move along past the gun to
the wall of the flanking tower, and then his steps as he returned.
Evidently he was a little uncertain of the sentry's tale, for he stepped
to the wall, and leaning his hand on the muzzle of the giant gun within
which his prisoner lay he leaned over and peered into the darkness of
the street below.
"Not there. It is a good jump, and the fellow knows that I have given
strict orders that none are to leave the palace," Owen heard him say.
Then he raised his voice and called angrily to the sentry.
"Over there!" he shouted; "the jailer is not here, and doubtless you
have never seen him. Pass the word in that he is to be found and is to
come to me without delay. See that the order is given."
He leaped to the ground and went off in the darkness, while Owen,
waiting till his steps had ceased to reach his ears, dragged himself to
the edge of the muzzle, and craning his head over it stared after him.
The figure of the French colonel had disappeared in the gathering
darkness, but within a minute it appeared again at the entrance to his
quarters, where his tall frame was again silhouetted against the light
within. Then he was gone again, and there was only the light, streaming
out from the opening.
"He wants the jailer, and the orders are that none leave the palace,"
said Owen. "Very well. He shall be obeyed. I will go to him."
He swung himself out of the gun, hitched on his sabre, and crossed to
the opening. A minute later he disappeared within, bent on interviewing
his enemy.