THE MYSTERIOUS PLAN OF ESCAPE.
Condemned to death—how near
The fatal, terrible to-morrow!
’Twould end her agony and sorrow,
Yet, oh, how fraught with fear!
She counted—mind’s fore-torturing hell—
Hours, minutes, till the solemn bell
Should sound upon her ear.—_Michell._
Meanwhile Annella had entered the cell of the young prisoner, whom she
found extended upon the outside of the bed, looking more like a corpse
laid out than a living creature. Mrs. Barton was sitting near her.
Annella nodded to the warder, and then, with that hushed air of awe with
which one approaches death or deep affliction, she drew near Eudora,
whispering:
“How do you find yourself this morning?”
Eudora, whose eyes were covered with her left hand, put out her right
hand, and silently pressed that of Annella, but made no other answer.
Annella stooped and kissed her chilled lips, and after a few minutes,
repeated her question:
“How do you find yourself this morning, dear Eudora?”
“Drifting, drifting down the dark river towards the horrible fall! I
shall soon go over and be dashed to pieces! That will be well. There
will be a catching of the breath, a shiver of fear, a shock of death,
and all will be over!” murmured the sufferer.
Again Annella stooped and pressed her lips to those of Eudora, and then
turning to the warder, she asked:
“How has she seemed since I was here yesterday?”
“Oh, Miss, it a’most breaks my heart to be with her and see her—it do.
She bore up well enough even after Mr. Montrose told her as the petition
had been refused, and she knew there was no hope at all. She heard all
that as quiet as possible, and took leave of him quite calm when he went
away. You see, I think she tried hard to bear up for his sake, to spare
his feelings; for the moment he was gone, she turned and sank down in a
deep swoon, poor dear! and that’s the second time she’s gone into one o’
them since she has been here. And it was a longer fit than the first,
and we only brought her to this morning about sunrise, and she’s been
lying as you see her, ever since. And what makes matters worse, the
chaplain, as might ha’ spoke some words o’ comfort to her, is ill in
bed,” replied Mrs. Barton.
Annella would have given much for the privilege of whispering into the
ear of the despairing sufferer a few words of hope, but even her
sanguine nature felt that the communication would now be premature, as
it might also be cruel and dangerous. And as she might not speak of
hope, Annella felt that all other words were worse than mockery in a woe
like this.
She sat down beside the bed and took the prisoner’s poor little wasted
hand, and held it in silence, sometimes pressing it tenderly, or kissing
it, while she waited in breathless suspense for the appearance of
Malcolm Montrose.
More than two hours passed in this silent, dreary misery, and still
Malcolm did not appear. And now every passing minute seemed to tread
with a leaden foot upon the sinking heart of Annella, that every moment
grew heavier, more fearful, and more impatient.
“Oh, I cannot stand this! I shall lose my breath presently!” she
inwardly exclaimed, feeling the protracted suspense grow almost
suffocating.
At length footsteps were heard approaching, the cell door was unlocked,
and Malcolm Montrose was ushered in by the turnkey, who, as usual,
retired.
Annella bounded forward to meet him, and raised her eyes, dilated and
blazing with burning anxiety, to his face.
She read there the death-warrant of Eudora Leaton.
“He has failed!” she said to herself, as she sank, shuddering into the
nearest seat, where she sat during the remainder of the interview, like
one spell-bound in some awful trance, with her elbow resting on the
little table, her chin leaning on the palm of her hand, her face white
as death, her lips compressed, her eyes contracted, glittering, and
fixed apparently upon some far-distant, visionary, fearful scene in
which, perhaps, she saw herself the principal actor.
Malcolm, meanwhile, passed her quickly, and sank upon his knees beside
the bed, and took Eudora’s pale hand, inquiring, in a low tone of
reverential tenderness:
“How is my dearest Eudora, now?”
“Almost resigned, Malcolm, if I could only suffer alone!—thinking less
of my own fate than of your sorrow when all shall be over with me,”
replied Eudora, opening her eyes, and fixing them upon his face with an
expression of tender pity.
He could not bear the look of those sweet eyes. He bowed his head upon
her hands, and it required all his strength to keep the swelling agony
of his bosom from bursting forth in sobs.
“Oh, Heaven!” he exclaimed, “what anguish it is to feel myself utterly
powerless to save you, or to help you, even by the sacrifice of my life
and soul, that I would gladly offer for your sake!”
She drew her hand from under his face, and passing it around his bowed
head, gently smoothed his hair, while she said:
“All that human power could do to save me you have done. Let that
thought support you.”
“But to think that I can do no more!”
“Yes, dearest, truest friend, you can do much yet to console me.”
“Ah, Eudora, how—how can I comfort or help you?”
“Why, for the few remaining days of my life, come to me as often, and
stay as long as they will let you.”
“That be sure I will; but, oh I how little good it can do you!”
“It will do me all the good I am capable of appreciating now. Oh,
Malcolm! you do not know how much I regret those precious days vainly
lost in London when they might have been spent with me.”
“And so do I, dearest; but yet I should have been even more wretched
than I am now, had not those days been employed as they were, in using
every possible means to gain a respite for you.”
“I know; so, therefore, it is of no use to regret them.”
“And now, dearest, what else is there that I can do for you?”
“Promise me, dear Malcolm, that when the last day of my life comes, you
will be with me in my hour of death. It will not seem so horrible if I
can have you near me, and take my farewell look from your kind eyes.”
“I promise, Eudora,” answered Malcolm, feeling sure that it would drive
him mad to witness her execution, yet resolving to stand by her to the
very last moment of her life, if permitted to do so.
He remained with her as long as possible, and then in rising to take
leave, promised to be with her again early the next day.
“Malcolm,” she said, holding his hand as he lingered by her side, “you
will think it a frivolous request from one in my awful circumstances, I
know, but I must make it for all that—”
“What is it, dear? Be sure that no wish of yours could be thought
frivolous by any one,” said Malcolm, earnestly.
“It is only to go to Allworth Abbey this afternoon, and bring away my
poor little Fidelle, and bring her with you when you come to-morrow.”
“Certainly, dearest Eudora; I will attend to it at once.”
“I would like to see the faithful little creature once more before I
die. Indeed, I wanted to have her here, only I did not like to bring any
harmless creature to such a gloomy place as this; and, besides, I do not
think they would have let me have her.”
“They will let you have almost anything you desire now, dearest.”
“Except life and liberty, or anything that might help me to either—yes,
I know that! You will not think it levity in me, even in my awful
position, to ask to have my little dog, will you?”
“No, my own dearest one, no; I only see in your desire the all-embracing
goodness of your heart, that, like the love of Divine Providence,
encircles all creatures, from the highest to the humblest,” replied
Malcolm, bowing his head over her hand, and pressing it to his lips, as
he turned to leave the cell.
He looked back for Annella, who remained spell-bound as before.
“Come, Miss, time is up, and you must leave with Mr. Montrose,” said the
warder, touching the girl’s shoulder to call her attention.
Annella started from her trance, and arose to obey; but before leaving
the cell she turned to Eudora, and, in an eager, earnest, breathless
whisper, exclaimed:
“Do not resign yourself to death! Keep up your heart—look forward to
life and liberty! for I swear before Heaven, and by all my hopes of
salvation, that you shall be saved!”
To Eudora these words seemed nothing more nor less than those of
madness—the expression of a compassionate soul wrought by sympathy to
frenzy. But before she had considered how to reply to them, the speaker
had vanished.
Annella joined Malcolm in the lobby; but it was not until they were
fairly outside the prison walls that she spoke, but without the tone of
reproach Malcolm expected to hear in her voice. She merely said:
“So you have failed again?”
“Oh, Heaven! yes. I did all that any man possibly could do to win him
over! I appealed to his affection for her father, to his compassion for
herself, to his regard for his own interests, to every motive that could
actuate the soul of man—but in vain! He was not to be tempted by money,
or moved by mercy. He made it a matter of conscience not to ‘betray his
trust,’ as he called it. And when an honest man—a man like
Anderson—takes a stand upon conscience, you might just as well try to
uproot Helvellyn as to move him from his position!”
“Pitiless monster!” exclaimed Annella.
“No, he was not that either; he wept like a woman in refusing me; but
his last words to me were, ‘Mr. Montrose, I dare not stain my soul with
dishonor; and you, as a man of honor, should not dare to urge me to do
so.’ What could I reply to that? Nothing. And I came away with a broken
heart. Miss Wilder, have you no reproaches for me?”
“No. It is said that things beyond remedy should be beyond regret, and
when they are not so, they should be remedied instead of regretted,”
said Annella, in so strange a tone that her companion turned to look
upon her, and started to see her lips drawn tightly away from her
clenched teeth, and a deadly, stiletto-gleam darting from the contracted
pupils of her half closed eyes.
“What do you mean, Annella?” he inquired in vague alarm.
“Nothing that I intend to confide to you or to any one else whose
friendship is so cold a thing that they will not peril _soul_ as well as
body for a friend in extremity!” said Annella, severely.
“That is a very bitter reproach, which I do not deserve, Miss Wilder,”
said Malcolm, sorrowfully.
“Is it? Good people like you and Mr. Anderson, who would not strain a
point of conscience to save a friend, may think it bitter; I think it
just; but then I’m not good, you know. I’m only devoted—mind, body, and
estate, for life, death, and eternity—to my friends, or rather for my
friend, for I feel only for one.”
“I believe you, Miss Wilder; you have not even the slightest pity for
the anguish I suffer on Eudora’s account,” said Malcolm, bitterly.
“No, not one bit! for you have the use of your long limbs to go whither
you please over this sunny earth. I pity only, that poor, sweet girl,
who cannot get out; who is waiting only for death to release her from
prison. But she shall not die! by all my hopes of heaven, she shall
not!” hissed Annella through her clenched teeth, while the same fearful
expression sat upon her tightly-drawn lips, and gleamed from her
contracted eyes.
“She would not die, if you, kind girl, by any effort or any sacrifice,
could save her; or if I could do so; but oh, Annella, everything has
been tried in vain! human power can do no more!” groaned Malcolm.
“Can it not? We shall see! What is the meaning of that noble proverb,
‘Where there is a will there is a way?’ It came from the wisdom of ages,
and I believe it. My own will is so strong that I shall find a way to
save her, though it should lead through floods and flames!”
“Dear, dear girl, one must honor your single-hearted devotion to this
object, while at the same time—”
“You believe me mad,” interrupted Annella. “Well, believe me so; it will
do no harm. Mr. Montrose, I am at this day a poor, weak, wild girl, as I
may be in another a corpse, a prisoner, or an exile! but whatever
becomes of me, Eudora shall be free!”
“Annella, there is something in your words and manner that fills me with
alarm for your sake. I fear you will attempt some desperate act, which
instead of serving Eudora, will only ruin yourself. What is the plan you
are thinking of?” inquired the young man, in earnest kindness.
“I will not tell you, Mr. Montrose; henceforth I shall act alone in this
matter; then, if my deed be a misdemeanor, my person only will suffer
for it; and if it be a mortal sin, my soul only will perish for it,”
replied Annella, with gloomy firmness.
“Well, Miss Wilder,” said Montrose, solemnly, “whatever your own
thoughts may be, this one request I must earnestly make of you—that you
say not another word upon the subject of rescue to Miss Leaton. It would
be now the greatest possible cruelty to disturb her thoughts with vain
hopes of escape, and prevent her from settling her mind into that
religious resignation and composure that her awful condition renders so
desirable. Therefore I must entreat your silence to her, at least upon
this anxious subject.”
“You have my promise. I will not say another word to her upon the
subject of her escape,” answered Annella, with great emphasis.
They walked on in silence awhile, until they reached a point where their
road forked—the right hand path leading across to the Anchorage, and the
left-hand one going into the town. Annella stopped short, saying:
“Our ways divide here, and I must hurry home, lest my longer absence
should raise inquiry; but before I go, Mr. Montrose, I have something to
say to you, and if you do really love Eudora Leaton, and long for her
release, you will attend to what I say.”
“Dear Annella, I am all attention,” answered Malcolm, in anxious
perplexity.
She looked up and down the roads, and all around them, to see if any
person were in hearing, and finding all the way clear, she suddenly
clutched the hand of Malcolm, held it with a spasmodic grip, gazed in
his face with eager intensity, drew closer to him, and whispered, with
breathless vehemence:
“Do just as you would have done if our plan had succeeded.”
“Eh?”
“Make all the arrangements for flight just as you would have made them
if the governor could have been bribed to connive at Eudora’s escape.”
“I do not comprehend you. What do you mean?”
“Dullard! I mean this—go secretly and find out some small vessel; hire
it, and keep it hovering near this part of the coast ready for service
at a moment’s warning; have a little row-boat always at the beach ready
to take you to the vessel at an instant’s notice; keep your fast horse
tied in the shade of the thicket, under the dead wall, at the back of
the gaol; and you yourself walk every night up and down before the front
gate of the prison, just as you walked the first night after Eudora’s
conviction, and so wait for what fortune shall send you; and then, when
you find Eudora standing before you, do not stop to ask how she came
there, but catch her up in your arms, run with her to the thicket, place
her before you on the horse, gallop to the beach, put her in the boat,
row for life to the vessel, and set sail for some foreign port!” said
Annella, speaking with breathless excitement.
“Dear, devoted girl, are you really mad?” exclaimed Malcolm, in dismay.
“No,” cried Annella, with startling energy, “only exalted above doubt,
fear, and selfishness. Promise that you will do as I request.”
“Well, to make these arrangements will do no harm, though they may do no
good. Yes, Annella, I promise,” answered Malcolm, earnestly.
“And you will set about the business immediately?”
“I will.”
“Then Eudora shall be saved!”