A NARROW ESCAPE.
That evening--or rather afternoon, when already the wintry night was
at hand--Juan and I were in Lugo and once more making preparations to
continue our journey--to go on west now, through the Asturias,
Santander and Biscay, as our chart showed us, toward St. Sebastian and
Bayonne, which would bring us into France. But also we hoped that,
after we had passed by the former of these provinces, on reaching the
sea, which we should then do, our journey by land might be at an end;
that we might find, by great good fortune, at some seaside town a
vessel, either English or Dutch, which would take us north to where we
desired to go.
But, alas! 'tis useless to write down all the plans we concocted in
the dirty parlour of the inn we had rested in--an inn dignified by the
name of the "Pósada del Gran Grifon," since 'twas not to be our lot to
make that journey, nor to set out upon it.
Let me not, however, anticipate, but write down all that now befell
us; also let me now begin to tell of the strange marvels that I was
destined to behold the unravelling of, as also the dangers which from
this period encompassed me.
We were alone, had entered Lugo alone, Señor Jaime having bidden us
ride ahead of him and leave him to find his way into the town by
himself.
"And," he said, "be very sure I shall do it. Fear not for me. Only, if
I come not by the time four o'clock has struck, believe that either I
have fallen into the hands of the enemy or that, for some reason, I
have not been able to get face to face with Eaton. Therefore, ride on
without me. Remember my disguise will save _me_. You have both refused
to be disguised. By consequence, look to yourselves. We shall meet
again. I know your road."
And now four o'clock had struck from the cathedral hard by, and he had
not come. Yet, why not? we asked each other. A peasant whom we had met
on the road when but a league between us and Lugo had mentioned this
inn as one where good accommodation for man and beast could be
obtained, and ere we parted from Jaime we had determined that it
should be our meeting place.
And still he had not come. And it was four o'clock and past.
"We must go," I said to Juan, "we must go. 'Tis courting frightful
danger to remain here. Already I have observed half a dozen French and
Spanish sailors pass this window, whom I saw on board some of the
ships and galleons; also some officers. If I meet them face to face,
and they remember me, as I do them, there will be----"
"What?" asked Juan, his face full of terror.
"Well--no Mervyn Crespin a few hours hence! that's all."
"Oh, come, come, come," he exclaimed, catching at my arm. "For God's
sake, come! Why, why did we ever enter this town! 'Twas madness. We
should have remembered they had fled hither."
"There is no other high road to France and Flanders," I said, "that
justifies the risk. Yet, Juan, remember, even now it is not too late
for you to part from me, if you choose. Your coming on here means
nothing. _You_ did not fight against the galleons; therefore you are
in no danger----"
"Silence!" he said again, as he had said once before. "Silence! I will
hear no word about leaving you."
Then suddenly he came away from the window, at which he had been
standing, and crossed the room to me.
"Look," he said. "Look from out that window into the street; then say
if it is not too late for us to part--if my danger is not as great as
yours. Look, I say!"
Glancing first at him, in wonderment at his exclamation, and what the
meaning of it might be, yet with some sort of understanding mounting
to my brain also, I stepped across to the dirty, unwashed window and
looked out into the street.
And then I understood.
Through the dim light cast on the now darkened street by oil lamps,
swung across it at intervals, and also by the candles burning in.
_relicários_, set into the walls, as well as by the feeble glare which
emerged from curtainless and unshuttered windows, I saw a band of men
slowly passing, their drawn swords in their hands, or with musketoons
upon their shoulders.
And ahead of all this body, which was composed of perhaps a dozen,
there marched two of those with whom we had fought on the road between
Chantada and this place--the leader who had addressed us, and another.
As they passed along they gazed at each man whom they encountered;
halting opposite our window, they looked at an inn which faced ours
directly, a little place on which was painted the name, "Pósada Buena
Ventura."
"Open the window a crack," I said to Juan--doing so myself, however,
as I spoke--"and let us listen. Hear what they say. Softly," and
following my words we placed our ears to the inch-wide orifice.
And then we heard every word as it fell from their lips.
"That house opposite," the leader said, "is the last to be examined
except this and another"--while Juan whispered: "I cannot catch its
name--It sounds like the San Cristobal. Yes. Yes. 'Tis that. Ha! And,
see, they enter the house opposite. Yet some remain in the street."
And we both peered from behind the side of the window at them as they
stood there in the road, a crowd of urchins gathered round.
"We are trapped," I said, "trapped. We can never get out. The horses
are in the stables behind--also, the gates are shut."
"God!" exclaimed Juan, suddenly, even as I spoke, "they have finished
there already--are coming here. Another five minutes and they will be
in this room."
"What shall we do?" he wailed a moment later.
"Escape while there is time--from this room, at least. Loosen your
sword in its sheath--follow me," and I drew him back from the window.
"But where? Where to go to?"
"Out of the house, at least. Come. The stairs lead down to the back
part of the house; there is the yard and the stables--also a garden. I
observed it when the horses were put up. Come. There is a wall at the
end of the garden which separates it from another. If we can get over
that we can at least escape into the town. By God's grace, there may
be some way out of it besides the gates. And we have the cloak of
night to help us."
All the time I was speaking I had been drawing Juan toward the door;
also I had seen that my papers and money were bestowed about me
safely--I doubted if we should ever see our valises again!--or, for
the matter of that, our horses. It would be heaven's providence now if
we ever got out of this town alive, and even that I deemed unlikely.
And at this crisis that was all we had to hope for, if so much.
"Lift your _porte epée_ by the hand," I whispered. "If the scabbard
clanks on the stairs we are undone. Follow me."
In another instant we were outside the door of the room. For
precaution and as a possible means of gaining time I drew the key from
the inside of the lock, then placed it in the keyhole outside, made a
turn and, again withdrawing it, dropped it into my pocket. This would
take up some moments, while they clamoured without, bidding us open.
It would take some few more to break down the door, which they would
very probably do. They might be precious moments to us.
It was quite dark outside in the corridor, but at the farther end
there glimmered a faint light from an oil lamp set upon a bracket,
though its rays scarcely reached here, namely, to the head of the deep
oak stairs opposite where the door of the room we had just quitted
was. But from below, which was a stone-flagged passage running from
the front of the house to the back, there was another light--thank
God, 'twas nearer the street than the exit to the yard!
We descended seven steps, then the stairs turned sharply from a small
landing--we ourselves did not dare, however, to turn them.
For below, in that cold stone corridor, we heard and recognised the
voice of the man who had challenged us in the forest ere the fight
began, a night ago.
"Here, are they?" we heard him say. "Here--so the birds are caught.
The one, big, stalwart, brown--that is the English _demonio_--the
other, younger, dark, handsome, might play the lover in one of Vega's
spectacles. Ha! And the third who joined in the murder--an elder one,
swart and grimy, black as the devil himself--is he here, too?"
"Nay," said the woman, whose voice told us she was the landlady,
"there are but two, the bronzed one and the youth. You will not hurt
him! Nay! Nay! _Diôs!_ he is young and beautiful."
"Have no fear. _We_ will not hurt either, if they do not resist. If
they do, we shall cut them down. But--otherwise--no! no!" and he
laughed a fierce, hard laugh. "Oh, no. There are others to hurt
them--the governor, the Regidórs, the judges. Ho! They will hurt them
through the garrote--or--or--the flames. The brasero! The wheel! Now
lead up to them. Where is the room they harbour in?"
"I will fetch another lamp," the woman said. "This one is fixed.
Wait." And we heard her clatter down the corridor on her Spanish
pattens. Yet she paused, too, a moment, and turned back, saying:
"Spare him--the young one. Heavens! his lips and eyes are enough to
madden an older woman than I am."
"Quick, then, quick," the other answered. "They sleep in the prison
to-night, and our supper waits at the gatehouse. Quick."
"Shall we dash through them?" Juan whispered; and now I noticed that,
as before in the hour of danger, his voice was firm and steady. "One
might escape even though the other is taken." And I heard him mutter,
in even lower tones: "Pray God it is you."
"No," I said. "No. We go together. Together escape or--die."
Then, even as I spoke, I saw what I had not observed before, owing to
the dim light in which all was surrounded; saw that opposite to us on
the landing--where the stairs turned--there was a door. Closed tight
into its frame, 'twas true, yet leading doubtless into some room
opening off the stairs which led up to the other one we had quitted.
I was near enough to put my foot out quietly and touch it with my toe
and--God be praised!--it yielded, opened inward.
"Into it," I said in Juan's ear, "into it. They will pass it as they
go up to where we have come from. When they have done so we may creep
down. In!"
A moment later we had entered that room, had quitted the stairs--and
the woman had come back and rejoined the men, was leading them up
those very stairs, across the very spot where a few instants before we
had been standing.
Yet our hearts leapt to our mouths--mine did, I know!--when we who
were standing on the other side of the door heard him stop outside it,
and, striking the panel with his finger--the rap of his nail upon it
was clearly perceptible to our eager ears--say to the woman:
"Is this the room--are they here?"
The woman gave a low laugh in answer; then she said:
"Nay. Nay. 'Tis mine. By the saints! what should they do there! That
handsome _Inglés_, devil though he be!--or that lovely boy? Heavens,
no!" and again she laughed, and added: "Come. They are here. Up these
stairs."
Even as we heard their heavy, spurred feet clatter on those stairs we
were seeking for some mode of escape, and that at once.
Alas! 'twas not to be out of the door again and down into the stone
passage, as we had thought.
For one glance through a great crack, and we saw, by peering down
below, that these Spanish alguazils had some method in their
proceedings. They had left two of their number behind; they stood in
the passage waiting for what might happen above; waiting, perhaps, to
hew down the two fugitives whom those others were seeking for, should
they rush down; waiting for us. There was no way there!
Then, for the room--what did that offer?
It was as dark as a vault--we could distinguish nothing--not even
where the bed was--at first. Yet, later, in a few moments--while we
heard, above, the rapping of sword hilts upon the door of the chamber
we had just quitted--while we heard, too, the leader shouting: "Open.
Open--_Bandidos! Assassinatóres! Espias!_ or we will blow the lock
off"--we saw at the end of the room a dull murky glimmer, a light that
was a light simply in contrast to the denser gloom around--knew there
was a window at that end.
Was that our way out?
Swiftly we went toward it--tore aside a curtain drawn across a
bar--the noise the rings made as they ran seemed enough to alarm those
men above, must have done so but for the infernal din they themselves
were making--opened the lattice window--and, heaven help us!--found
outside an iron, interlaced grate that would have effectually barred
the exit of aught bigger than a cat!
We were trapped! Caught! It seemed as if naught could save us now!
"Lock the door," I whispered to Juan. "They will come here next. The
moment they find we are not in the other room!--ha! they know it now,
or will directly."
For as I spoke there rang the report of a musketoon through the empty
passages of the house. They were blowing the lock off!
Desperately, madly, exerting a force that even I had never yet
realized myself as possessing, I seized the cross-bars of that iron
grating; I pushed them outward, praying to God for one moment--only
one moment--of Samson's strength. And--could do nothing! Nothing, at
first. Yet--as still I strained and pushed, as I drew back my arms to
thrust more strongly even than before--it seemed as if the framework,
as if the whole thing, yielded, as if it were becoming loosened in its
stone or brick setting. Inspired by this, I pushed still more, threw
the whole weight of my big body into one last despairing effort--and
succeeded! The grate was loosened, torn out of the frame; with a
clatter of falling chips and small _débris_ it fell into the yard ten
feet below.
My prayer was heard!
"Quick, Juan," I said, "quick, come. Out of the window, give me your
hands. I will lower you. 'Tis nothing."
From Juan there came in answer a cry, almost a scream of terror.
"Save me! Save me!" he shrieked, "there is another man in the room!"
and as he so cried, I heard a thump upon the floor--a thump such as
one makes who leaps swiftly from a bed--a rush across that floor. Also
a muttered curse in Spanish, a tempest of words, a huge form hurled
against mine, two great muscular hands at my throat.
In a moment, however, my own hands were out, too, my thumbs pressing
through a coarse beard upon a windpipe. "Curse you," I said in
Spanish, as I felt that grasp on me relax. "Curse you, you are
doomed," and drawing back, I struck out with my full force to the
front of me.
Struck out, to feel my clenched fist stopped by a hairy face--the thud
was terrible even to my ears!--to hear a bitter moan and, a moment
later, a fall--dull and like a dead weight!--upon the floor.
"Come, Juan, come," I cried. "Come."