"IT'S ALL OVER!"
Night had long taken the place of day, and sound after sound in the
great gate-house had put Stan on the alert; but no one had come to the
door, and as he rested upon the spear-handle the prisoner underwent
pains which endorsed his ideas that he was to be starved into
submission. In fact, he grew so hungry that all his pride died out, and
in the darkness he humbled himself so that he was glad enough to allay
his starving pains by seeking for and picking up some of the fruit and
scraps of cake that had been thrown to the strange foreign devil, or
wild beast, that the guard of the gate had on view.
"Oh, it's horrible to come down to this!" muttered Stan as, tired out
with standing in spite of the support from the spear-shaft, he sat down
and ate sparingly just enough, as he put it, to keep himself from
feeling faint. But he was terribly hungry, and cake, bread, bananas,
and an orange proved, in spite of being gleaned from the cage floor, not
bad; so that he did not content himself with enough to keep him from
feeling faint, but unconsciously ate heartily, and felt much better.
His spirits began to rise, and after a good, hearty draught from the
water-pot, which, fortunately, he had not exhausted, he was so far from
being starved into submission that he cut something very much like a
caper as he threw himself into an attitude with the spear, looked in the
direction of the doorway, and crying, "Come on!" muttered afterwards, as
he made a thrust at an imaginary enemy, "Oh, how I should like to serve
some of you out for this!"
He listened, but there was not a sound to be heard. Then he seated
himself with his back to the side-wall, so that he commanded the open
partition facing him, the door being to his right, and the front of the
cage to his left, while he held the spear ready for action across his
knees.
"They'll wait till they think I'm asleep," he muttered, "and then pounce
on me. But I'm not going to sleep, and if any one does come sneaking in
he'll have a prick from this spear that will send him out quicker than
he came in. Wonder what father would think if he could see me now! And
Uncle Jeff. I wish he were here. No, I don't. I shouldn't like any
one I know to be in such a predicament. I say, I don't feel frightened,
for they are cowards and no mistake. Fancy their being ready to run
from a boy like me! They won't dare to hurt me, because I'm English.
I'd give something, though, to have poor old Wing here. I do hope he
has escaped--'scaped--I'd--'scape--hah-h-h-h!"
This last very softly, and then Stan heard no more, for weariness and
his large meal had proved too much for him. He was fast asleep.
He was not wide awake when he sprang to his feet with spear levelled,
ready to drive it at the first Chinese soldier who made a rush at him
from the door he believed to have been burst open with a sharp,
crackling sound.
The thrust was not delivered, because no one made a rush; in fact, all
was perfectly still. And when, after a long pause, during which his
imagination had been very busy peopling the dark cage with crouching
enemies in various corners waiting for their opportunity to spring at
him, he began cautiously to make little pushes with the steel point here
and there, without result and ended by advancing softly towards the open
door, to be checked by the spear bringing him up short with the point in
the wood, it began to dawn upon him not only that the door was shut, but
that he must have been asleep.
"How queer!" he muttered. "I was perfectly certain that the door was
burst open, and I'm sure I heard a crackling sound."
Thoroughly satisfied, after a little feeling, that the door was close
shut, he turned round to face the bars, finding that while all elsewhere
was pitch-dark, there was a faint suggestion of light there; inasmuch as
he could just make out the black bamboo bars with the darkest of grey
streaks between them, clearly enough cut save in one place, where, high
up, there was a big blur.
He stood with his heart still beating heavily, consequent upon the
startling manner in which he had been awakened.
And as he stood gazing with eyes whose pupils were dilated in the
darkness, that blur, high up towards the top of the bars, seemed to wear
a familiar shape, which idea grew and grew upon him to such an extent
that he tried to give it a name, and said softly:
"Tchack!"
He was right, for in an instant it began to glide down the bars like a
couple of the beads on a scholastic numeration frame, reaching the
bottom lightly, to utter the same word.
"Why, however did you get out there?" said Stan excitedly. "What
nonsense! I'm looking at the side instead of the front."
He turned sharply, extended his hand, and the next moment touched the
partition bars, and grew more confused.
"It isn't the side," he muttered; "this is the side; and that is the
front, by the light coming there. Have you got out, Tchack?"
Stan's heart beat fast at the idea, for it was full of suggestions of
escape.
But a soft, peculiar sound changed the current of his thoughts, and
looking to his left, he was conscious of the dark blur passing quickly
up to the top of the bamboo bars, and passing horizontally along; then,
as the blur died out in the darkness, he heard the monkey come closer,
working itself high up from bar to bar of the partition against which he
stood, and glide swiftly down, brushing his breast with one hand as it
dropped to his feet.
_Tchack_! it said softly, and the next moment the thin, sinewy hand was
foraging about him to get at his, into which it nestled, and the poor
animal uttered a low, heavy sigh of content.
For some minutes Stan could only think in a puzzled, confused way,
feeling that he must be dreaming; but at length things settled
themselves in an orderly way in his brain, till it became perfectly
clear to him that the monkey must have some way out of the top of its
cage which enabled it to pass along to his place.
If so, he reasoned, the yard must be open to it; and if it could get
into the yard, it was quite possible that it could get through the
doorway or over the wall; and if so, it was probable that it could get
into some court or lane by the gate-house.
If the monkey could do this, he argued directly after, why could not he?
And now he could think clearly, his reason suggested that the crackling
and splintering noise he had so frequently heard must have been caused
by the animal trying to gnaw its way out, the noise which woke him
having been made during the final efforts.
Stan's heart began to beat faster and his ideas to flow more freely. He
wondered now why it had not all seemed clear to him at once, for it was
evident that if he could get through the partition and into the monkey's
cage, there was the way open for him also to escape. He had never
troubled himself about the bars between him and his fellow-prisoner.
Why should he have done so? He did not want to escape from one cage to
the next. But now he recalled that the bamboos were smaller than those
in front; a few touches of his hand confirmed this, and withdrawing the
other from the monkey's grasp, he seized two of the bars, and the animal
sprang up them at once.
"Oh, if I could only climb like you!" said Stan to himself as he went
from bar to bar, trying them and giving them a shake, when, after a few
trials, to his surprise he heard one of those he held creak in a
peculiar way; and upon seizing it with both hands, to his astonishment
and delight he found it give way with a sharp crack, the middle having
been gnawed through, while, climbing up a little, he was able to use it
lever fashion and wrench it so much on one side that in another minute
he managed to force himself through and stand in the place from which
the monkey had escaped.
It is only the first step that costs, the French say in their proverb,
and Stan found it so here. After a time he was able to make out what
the monkey did to escape, for, close up in the left corner, he made out
that instead of the bars looking regular black streaks against the grey
light, there was one large, ragged patch of grey; and upon climbing up,
by clinging leg helped, to a couple of the bars, he soon reached the
top, where one had been gnawed right through and was now a splintery,
sharp mass of fibres. Here, after some difficulty and a good deal of
tearing, Stan managed to get through and slide down outside the bamboos,
to drop the next minute into the yard.
It seemed too good to be true, and he paused in doubt to look round for
and speak to the monkey; but he could not make out where it was, and he
had no time to spare.
There was no sound of sentry near, no sign of danger; so, making for the
gateway, he found it possible to climb, and soon reached the top of the
wall in which it was placed.
Still no sound--nothing but darkness around; and thoroughly strung up
now, the lad lay flat on the wall for a few moments, before lowering his
legs, hanging at full length, and then dropping, to come down heavily
upon rough paving-stones, but with the delight thrilling through him
contained in the thought that to some extent he was now free.
He hesitated for a few moments, listening and looking to right and left,
thinking of the dark and devious lane along which he had passed with
Wing upon that unlucky morning, and wondering whether he could retrace
his steps. But he felt that it would be madness to attempt it; and
besides, his one great idea was to reach the river, feeling sure that
sooner or later he would find an empty boat moored somewhere, and once
on board that, he felt that he would be safe.
He had determined to start off and follow the first turning he came to,
in the hope of reaching the riverside before daylight, when something
seemed to induce him to look up.
His blood began to turn cold, for there on the wall above, dimly seen in
the darkness, he could make out the head of some one intently watching
his every movement.
It was for life and liberty that, giving a violent start, he dashed off;
breathing freely the next minute, for he realised the fact that he had
been watched by his dumb fellow-prisoner, the monkey starting as
violently as he did at the first movement, and disappearing instantly
into the precincts of the prison.
For the moment Stan felt as if, owing so much as he did to the
quaint-looking animal, he would have liked to coax it to follow him; but
common-sense told him that he would be wasting valuable time, and
perhaps sacrificing the liberty he was on the point of securing, so he
kept right on, feeling damped by the fresh thought that perhaps he was
on the wrong side of the great city-wall.
"Can't help it," he said; "there is no choice. This one may turn out
the best."
In the spirit of this thought he hurried along the narrow lane, which
was so dark that he could hardly pick his way, and seeing nothing but
that it was shadowed by low-roofed, overhanging houses, whose occupants
were so far silently asleep; but from the way in which house and _hong_
followed one another, he felt what he had noted when with Wing, that the
city must be densely populated, and that he must find some hiding-place
before daybreak.
He tramped on for quite a couple of hours through what seemed to be a
deserted city, doubling here and there, but without a sign of the main
artery he sought, till, just as he was in despair and ready to sink with
weariness and the thought that all his toil had been in vain--for the
tops of the houses were beginning to show clearly against the grey sky--
he came upon a wider turning. Glancing hesitatingly down it to see if
it offered anything like a hiding-place, he rushed forward at once; for
there, stretching to right and left, was the black, flowing river, with
big junks moored close together, and beyond them and the smaller boats
crowding the stream were the house-boats and dwellings by the farther
shore.
A couple of minutes later Stan was on the hither bank, hurrying by boat
after boat, but all too big to be manageable; and he kept on and on,
feeling that he had not a minute to spare, for at any moment early
risers might be on the move, and the sight of a fugitive English lad
would be sufficient to raise a shout--and a hue and cry to hunt him
down.
"It's all over!" he groaned to himself suddenly; and he made a dart
forward to get in the shelter of a great junk aground right up to the
bank, for all at once he heard the splash of an oar, and a boat was
being pushed off from the far side, looking wonderfully plain now in the
fast-broadening dawn.
It was for liberty, so there was no time to put in practice the familiar
old proverb of "Look before you leap," Stan was running as he placed the
stranded junk between him and the rowers, so he made a bound as he
reached the lowest part midway between the high bows and the towering
stern, springing from a rough kind of wharf on to the junk's deck, which
seemed to be about a couple of feet lower than the wharf.
The leap was nerved by despair; he had a good take-off, and for a brief
moment or two he saw flowing water below him; then he came down on the
rough bamboo deck. There was a soft, crushing sound, and he went
through some of the rotten wood down into darkness, to fall upon his
side and lie motionless, looking up at the grey, ragged patch he had
made, and holding his breath as he listened for the coming of the
boatmen, who must have heard the noise.