I was then ordered to give all the information I possessed with regard
to the fleet; its strength; number and calibre of guns; and so on.
To this I replied that having been confined during the whole of my
captivity between two guns, on the lower-deck, I had had no means of
gaining any information whatever, either upon the points mentioned, or
indeed any others.
My statement was received with a look of incredulity and a dissatisfied
grunt.
"What think you, gentlemen," exclaimed the old martinet, "does this
young man's story strike you as being truthful?"
"It sounds plausible enough," replied the officer called Montrouge. "I
see no reason to doubt it."
"What is your opinion, Saint Croix?"
"I believe it to be the truth," replied the individual addressed.
"Good! We differ slightly in opinion, that is all, gentlemen," remarked
the general. "For my own part, I am convinced that this story,"--
striking disdainfully the written statement, which he held in his
hand--"is a simple tissue of falsehood. Luckily, we possess the means
of putting the matter to the test. Send for Guiseppe the Corsican."
Guiseppe the Corsican! the man who had sold me into the hands of the
enemy once already, and who, I had every reason to believe, had betrayed
Count Lorenzo di Paoli also. If this man and I were brought face to
face, I was hopelessly lost.
At that moment, and not until then, did I feel what a shameful and
despicable course of conduct I had entered upon. I had not only assumed
voluntarily the _role_ of a spy; but I had sought to shelter myself
beneath a cloak of falsehood; and now, out of my own mouth was I to be
judged--and surely condemned.
I felt thoroughly crestfallen and humiliated; not so much at my certain
detection as a spy, but at having placed myself in a position where
deliberate falsehood had become an absolute necessity to my safety,
which after all it had not only failed to assure, but had hopelessly
compromised.
A long and--to me--most painful pause ensued, neither of the officers
questioning me further. Had they done so, I feel certain I should have
thrown off the mask and avowed myself to be that hateful thing, a
disguised and secret enemy.
At length a tap came to the door; and Lieutenant Saint Croix, who had
gone out in search of Guiseppe, returned, bringing the man with him. A
single glance was sufficient to satisfy me that my former enemy once
more stood before me.
He approached the table, and, saluting the general, stood waiting, as it
seemed to me, with some trepidation, to learn why he had been summoned
to the dreaded presence of the chief.
"Attention, sir!" exclaimed the general harshly. "Do you recollect the
circumstances connected with the theft of Captain Leroux's yacht,
`Mouette,' from Ajaccio?"
"Perfectly, sig-- I mean, monsieur," he replied.
"Did you happen to know the lad who was taken away in her?"
"Francois? Yes, I knew him," he replied.
"Is he at all like this fisherman?" asked the general.
The fellow turned his gaze on me with an expression of stolid
indifference. Regarding me steadfastly for a full minute, I saw his
eyes brighten and gleam with an expression of fiendish malice; he
approached me so closely that his hot breath fell full upon my cheek,
his eyes glaring into mine like those of a tiger when he scents blood;
then, turning to the general, he replied,--
"No, _monsieur le general_. This is the young naval officer who
conveyed the despatches to Count Lorenzo di Paoli, and who, it is
believed, stole the `Mouette' on the night when the count's chateau was
attacked; afterwards leading the `Vigilant' into an ambush whereby she
was captured."
"Are you certain?" inquired the general.
"Quite certain," replied the Corsican. "It was I who watched him land
from the frigate, and afterwards discovered his lurking-place in the
woodman's hut. And I also saw him frequently, after his escape from the
troops, in the chateau of Count Lorenzo."
"That is sufficient," replied the general. Then, turning to me, he
remarked sarcastically,--
"If you have anything to say in refutation of this man's statement, say
it. But no, I see you have not. It is well, sir. You have chosen to
enter this town in disguise and with a false story; the inference is
plain. You are a spy; and as such you will be shot at daybreak to-
morrow morning."
"Take him away," he continued, turning to Lieutenant Saint Croix;
"confine him securely in the tower; and you, Guiseppe, take charge of
him; I can spare none of my own men to play the part of gaoler. And
remember, I shall hold you responsible for his safety!"
"I will answer for it with my own life," exultingly exclaimed the
scoundrel, as he roughly seized me by the collar and led me away.
As we passed through the guard-room, Lieutenant Saint Croix summoned a
file of soldiers, who promptly placed themselves one on each side of me;
and in this humiliating manner I was conducted to the prison from which,
in a few short hours, I was to go to my grave.
On leaving the guard-room, we crossed the small open court, and passed
under the archway into the passage which led through to the barrack-
yard.
Midway through the passage we came to a halt before a low door of solid
oak, which was opened with the aid of a ponderous key, when a steep
narrow stairway of stone lay before us. It wound upwards, corkscrew
fashion, in the thickness of the wall, and, ascending it, we eventually
reached a stone landing or short passage, very dimly lighted by two
narrow unglazed windows, one at each end. There were two doors on each
side of this passage, one of which the young officer unlocked and flung
open, motioning me to enter. I did so, seeing that I had no choice in
the matter; the door slammed heavily to, the massive bolts grated
harshly back into their places, and I was alone.
It was so dark that, until my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I
could see nothing except a narrow opening in the wall, far above my
head, which admitted all the light and air the architect had considered
necessary for the miserable occupants of the dungeon.
I shut my eyes, and clasped my hands tightly over them, keeping them so
for about five minutes; and when I opened them again, I was able to see
with tolerable distinctness.
I then found that I had been thrust into a chamber about ten feet square
and as many feet high, the walls of which were of massive masonry. A
stone bench ran along one side of the wall, and that was all; furniture
of any kind there was absolutely none. The aperture in the wall, which
I have already mentioned, was close up under the stone ceiling of the
cell, and measured about two feet long and six inches wide. _So_ thick
was the wall in which this was pierced, that standing back against the
opposite wall I was unable to see the sky out through it. I felt all
round the walls of my prison. They were perfectly smooth, and slimy
with the accumulated damp of centuries. I then examined the door. It
was of oak or some other hard wood, and evidently very thick, from the
dead sound which my knuckles made when I rapped upon it. It was quite
useless, then, to think of escape. So strong, indeed, was the place,
that they had not thought it worth while to search me, being no doubt
convinced that it would be impossible for me to break out with any tools
or weapons I might happen to have in my possession. I had a stout knife
in my pocket; but five minutes' work with it on the door satisfied me
that it would be a labour of days, instead of the few hours which
remained to me, to carve my way out with such an instrument.
Nothing then remained but to devote those few remaining hours to the
work of preparation for my inevitable fate.
I flung myself down upon the rough stone bench, and let my thoughts
wander far away to my dear old Hampshire home, and to the loved ones
there whose hearts the vague tidings of my uncertain fate would go far
to break. They would of course hear, through Captain Hood, of the mad
venture upon which I had embarked; and would doubtless also be furnished
with full details of my doings up to the moment when I disappeared from
Bob's lingering gaze into the darkness of the murky night. And from
that moment all further trace of me would be lost, unless indeed Bastia
should eventually fall into the hands of the British; and even then it
was improbable that, in the general bustle and excitement, anyone would
remember to make inquiries about me. And so the years would drag slowly
on; and while my body lay mouldering in an obscure and unmarked grave,
those loved ones would be hoping against hope for tidings of me, until,
under the long-continued and cruel strain, their hearts would slowly but
surely break.
The subject was of too painful a character to be longer dwelt upon; and
I turned from it to seek in my hour of need the support and consolation
of religion. I recalled to mind some of those sublime passages, so
lavishly scattered through the pages of the "Book of Books," each solemn
word breathing comfort, hope, and promise; but the words chased each
other idly through my throbbing brain, which refused to grasp their
meaning; turning aside instead to interest itself in all manner of idle
fancies. Then I strove to quell the tumult of my mind by earnest
prayer; but it was of no use; words came readily enough to my dry and
fevered lips; but they were words only, not aspirations of the soul.
And so at length I had to abandon my useless efforts and allow my
thoughts to be dragged away a helpless prey to every mad fancy born of
my whirling brain. And all the while I was conscious that the sands in
the hour-glass of my life were fast running out, and that the precious
moments which were passing so swiftly away bore with them the
possibilities of an eternity of bliss or an eternity of woe for me
beyond the great Boundary Line which I was so soon to cross.
And thus the hours sped swiftly on, until a thin shaft of golden light
streamed in through the narrow opening above my head, and, striking on
the opposite wall, gleamed there for a few minutes in radiant and
dazzling beauty, passing obliquely upward the while until it grew
narrower and more narrow, dwindled down to the thinness of a thread, and
finally vanished. I had witnessed the last gleam of earthly sunlight I
was ever to see.
Darkness now rapidly gathered round me; and in a short time it was
impossible for me to distinguish anything but the faint outline of the
loophole in the wall above me.
As night descended upon the earth, a soft and gentle breeze sprang up,
which, entering through the loophole, cooled my fevered blood and
permitted me so far to regain control of myself that I once more became
cognisant of outward sounds, of which I seemed to have lost all
consciousness from the moment I had been thrust into that horrible
dungeon. There was the roar of the artillery, the fainter boom of our
own guns, the occasional rattle of vehicles along the street, the rumble
of heavy ammunition waggons, the frequent clatter of horses' feet; and,
now and then, the sound of a human voice. Gradually most of these
sounds lulled, and became more infrequent, until finally they died away
altogether; and long intervals of perfect silence ensued, broken only by
the occasional crashing discharge of a single gun. And so I knew that
night had fallen upon the earth without as well as upon the unhappy
prisoner within.
After the lapse of some hours, as it seemed to me, I became conscious of
a faint sound outside my prison-door; a key rattled in the lock, the
bolts jarred back; the door was flung open; a stream of light flooded
the cell, blinding me for the moment; and when my eyesight returned
Guiseppe the Corsican was standing in the chamber, in the act of closing
the door carefully behind him.
Placing upon the floor the small hand-lamp which he carried, he flung
himself carelessly down on the stone bench; and, with an evil smile
hovering about his lips, began to jeer at my unfortunate situation.
"Well, signor Englishman," he commenced, "how like you your new lodging?
It is scarcely so large, and I fear it is not as elegantly furnished,
as Francesca Paoli's silken chamber, is it? But never mind, my friend;
your stay here is but short; and I daresay you can contrive to put up
with a little temporary inconvenience in the meantime, can you not?"
"Are you here to make sport of my misfortunes?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied; "what other purpose do you suppose I could have
in visiting you here in the dead of night? Perhaps you thought I had
come to set you free and help you to rejoin your accursed countrymen?
No! I hate you all--you Englishmen--and _you_ especially; and I could
not deny myself the pleasure of looking in upon you to see how you face
the approach of a disgraceful death. I am rejoiced to see how pale and
haggard you look. It has told upon you, as it must necessarily tell
upon all cowards. Let me note carefully how you look, now; so that I
may compare it with your appearance a few hours hence, when you face the
muskets of your executioners. Pah! why you are quailing already, you
white-livered poltroon; what will it be in the morning?"
I had resolved the moment I perceived the villain's object, that nothing
he might say or do should wring any outward manifestation from me. But
as he went on, the apathy which had before possessed me gave way under
the influence of his taunts; my indignation was gradually aroused until
my blood boiled; and now, rising suddenly, I sprang upon him with the
bound of a tiger, clutching his sinewy neck with both hands and pressing
my thumbs with all my strength into his throat.
The ruffian was so completely taken by surprise by the suddenness and
violence of this unexpected attack that he went down unresistingly
before me, the back of his head striking violently upon the hard stone
bench upon which he had been seated.
I was now fully roused; I felt possessed of the strength and fury of a
demon; and, still retaining my vice-like grasp upon his throat, I raised
his head again and again and again, only to dash it with intensified
violence against the stones each time. The miserable wretch grasped at
the knife in his belt and drew it out; but before he had time to use it
I had dashed his head yet once more against the stones, with such
superhuman strength and violence that a dull crushing sound accompanied
the blow, the man uttered a deep groan, and the knife fell clinking on
the floor from his nerveless hand. Relaxing my grasp upon his throat, I
raised the lamp and allowed its rays to fall upon my victim's face. It
was of a livid purple hue. The tongue, hanging out of the mouth, was
bitten nearly through; his whiskers were wet with blood, which oozed in
two thin streams from his throat where I had grasped it; and a slowly
widening pool of blood was steadily spreading over the bench beneath his
head.
The first thought which presented itself was, "Is he dead, or merely
stunned?" The next--which flashed into my brain with the rapidity of
lightning--was, that there lay my gaoler, the man who stood between me
and liberty, helpless before me; and the chance of escape was once more
in my hands.
I rolled the senseless body off the bench on to the floor. It fell, and
lay there motionless; the muscles all relaxed, and the same livid hue
upon the face.
Hastily unrolling the crimson sash which encircled his waist, I cut it
into convenient lengths; and, rolling the body over face downwards,
quickly and with all the dexterity of a seaman secured the arms together
at the wrists, and the feet at the ankles; after which I lashed the
heels and hands close together, rolled the body back as far as it would
come, and thrust into the mouth, as a gag, the long haft of his
murderous sheath-knife, securing it in position by means of the
handkerchief which he wore round his throat.
I next possessed myself of the keys, of which there were two; one, of
course, for the cell-door, and the other, doubtless, for the door at the
foot of the stairs.
I had no difficulty in fitting the right key to the cell-door; and as
soon as I had done so I blew out the lamp, and placed it outside the
cell, closed and locked the door, and, removing my boots, stealthily
crept down the winding staircase.
The door at the bottom was open; and as it folded inwards I noiselessly
adjusted the key in the lock before venturing outside. I then stepped
through the doorway; drew the door quietly to, and, with the utmost
precaution, turned the key in the lock, managing to do so with very
little noise.
As I removed the key, and stood back in the recess to deliberate upon my
next steps, I became conscious of the sound of running water; and
looking along the passage into the barrack-yard, and the courtyard at
the back of the tower, I saw, by the faint light of one or two lamps,
that the ground was flooded, and that it was raining heavily. So much
the better; there would be fewer people about, and my chances of escape
would thereby be all the greater.
The first question was, how to get beyond the boundaries of the
barracks. The front or barrack-yard was bounded on three sides by lofty
buildings and on the fourth by a high wall, with gates in it, it is
true, but gates which would be closed and locked at that hour of the
night. The difficulties of escape by way of the front were great, and
might very possibly prove insurmountable; I therefore determined to make
my first attempt at the back.
Keeping close within the deepest part of the shadow, I moved cautiously
in the direction of the guard-room; and had just gained the courtyard
when I heard footsteps entering the passage behind me. I darted out
from under the archway, and hastily concealed myself behind one of the
massive buttresses which supported the back wall of the building.
Peering cautiously out from my hiding-place, I saw the individual,
whoever he was, emerge from the archway, cross the yard, and enter the
guard-room.
Still crouching close behind the buttress, I looked carefully round to
note the possibilities of escape which presented themselves in the rear
of the tower. The yard, like the one in front, was enclosed by a wall,
but it was only about twelve feet high. On the other side of this wall,
looming indistinctly up against the murky sky, were some trees, one or
two of which appeared to be near enough to enable me to spring into
their branches, could I but reach the top of the wall.
At first I could see no way of doing this. But a little closer
scrutiny, and the exercise of a little consideration, at length
suggested a means of escape. A sort of wing, projecting out from the
main building of the old castle, formed one boundary of the courtyard,
and joined the wall, the top of which I desired to reach; and I suddenly
remembered the rough, uneven, and time-worn appearance of the masonry of
this building which had attracted my attention in the morning. I
thought that perhaps the masonry might be rough and uneven enough to
permit of my climbing the face of it; and, as it seemed to be the only
road of escape, I resolved to try it.
I accordingly made my way to the point which I had resolved to attack,
and set about the attempt. But I was unable to manage it. I found I
required something more than the slight hold I was able to obtain with
my hands, while working my way upward with my feet; and after a trial
which must have lasted quite an hour I found myself just where I had
started; namely, on the pavement of the courtyard.
Trembling with my violent exertions, and weak from my long fast (I had
neither eaten nor drank since breakfast the previous morning), I was
almost on the point of despairing, when a bright idea occurred to me. I
would attempt my climb at the point where the wing jutted out from the
main wall of the building, the two walls forming an angle.
A stream of water was pouring down the wall from somewhere off the roof;
and I took a hearty draught from this, which greatly refreshed me. I
then renewed my attempt; and found to my great satisfaction that, though
the labour was still severe, I was able to make slow but steady progress
by bracing myself into the angle between the two walls with my arms and
knees.
In this way I gradually worked my way up the wall, until I arrived at a
point where a bold moulding--called, I believe, a string-course--ran
horizontally along the wall. I continued my climb until my feet rested
upon this moulding, which constituted quite a firm foot-hold compared
with what I had hitherto been able to obtain.
I was now about five-and-twenty feet from the ground; and had it been
light I should have been able to see over the wall; but as it was I
could distinguish nothing but the indistinct masses of the trees, and,
among them, a few greyish objects which looked to me like tomb-stones.
The next thing was to pass along the face of the wing-wall to the point
where it joined the boundary-wall of the courtyard; and the sooner this
journey was accomplished the better; for the muscles of my hands were
beginning to feel cramped and nerveless from the extraordinary strain
which had been put upon them. I accordingly set out on my dangerous
way; and, with the aid of the string-course, got on better than I
expected; but my strength was going so rapidly that, by the time I had
accomplished about a quarter of the distance, it was all I could do to
support myself. I had no choice, however, but still to push on; and I
persevered a short time longer; when, just as I felt that I was
incapable of further effort, when my nerveless fingers were actually
relaxing their hold upon the slight irregularities in the surface of the
wall, and I felt that I must go helplessly crashing down again to the
ground, I distinguished, within a yard of me, on my right, a dark cavity
in the face of the wall; and the remembrance at once flashed upon me
that I had noticed when crossing the yard in the morning, without paying
any attention to it at the moment, a large window in this part of the
wall. One more feeble but despairing effort enabled me to reach the
opening; and with a frame quivering with exhaustion, and an incoherent
thanksgiving upon my lips, I flung my body forward, and lay, breathless
and half-fainting, partly in and partly out of the unglazed window.
After recovering myself a little, I raised myself into a somewhat more
secure and comfortable position, and took a good look round me.
It was still as dark as ever--a circumstance at which I greatly
rejoiced, since it would still take a considerable amount of time to
make good my escape--but my eyes had by this time become so accustomed
to the darkness that I was able to discern with some degree of clearness
such objects as happened to be in my immediate vicinity; and the first
thing I noticed was that there was another window at no great distance
from me, but it was pierced in the _end_ wall of the building, and
consequently overlooked the piece of ground which I took to be a
cemetery. The next thing which attracted my attention was a sort of
ledge about a foot wide on the inner side of the wall, which had
apparently, at some time or other in the history of the building,
supported a floor. This ledge seemed to offer an easy and safe approach
to the other window; and I at once scrambled in through the opening
wherein I was perched, and, lowering myself cautiously down on the
inside, soon had the satisfaction of finding my feet firmly planted on
the ledge. Somewhat restored in strength, and my nerves steadied by my
short rest, I set forward once more; and at length, without much
difficulty, gained the other window.
Peering anxiously out through it, to see what facilities might exist for
enabling me to effect a descent, I was overjoyed to find that the time-
worn wall was covered with a thick growth of ivy. A descent by means of
this was, after my perilous climb and passage along the face of the
wall, a mere trifle; and in a couple of minutes more I was standing,
safe and sound, in the burial-ground, and _outside_ the boundaries of my
prison. I wasted no time in looking about me; but rapidly crossing the
enclosure, and stumbling over the graves as I went, I soon reached a
high railing, which was easily surmounted, when I found myself in a dark
and lonely road, bounded on one side by a wall and on the other by a
steep descent thickly planted with trees.
Pausing here for a moment, I rapidly recalled to mind the route by which
I had arrived at the barracks on the previous day, and was by this means
enabled to decide upon the direction which I ought to take in order to
reach the harbour. This point settled, I stepped quickly out; and after
two or three turns and windings, found myself in a street which I
remembered passing through before.
The rain was still pouring down in torrents, and not a soul was to be
seen in any direction, nor a sound heard; and if any one had seen me
flitting noiselessly along the silent and deserted street, I should
assuredly have been taken for a washed-out ghost, for I had left my
boots behind, and my feet gave only a faint, scarcely audible, pit-pat
on the flooded causeway.
Half an hour of sharp walking brought me down to the harbour; and I at
once proceeded to the slipway where I had moored the boat on the
previous night. The previous night? Ay; it was only some twenty-four
hours since I had entered Bastia; but it seemed as though I had been
there at least a month.
The boat was still there, with several others; and as my own safety was
just then of more importance to me than any one else's convenience, I
did not hesitate, on finding a much smaller and lighter boat among them,
to help myself to her.
Casting the little craft adrift, I shipped the oars and paddled
leisurely down the harbour until I approached the pierheads, when,
noiselessly laying in my oars, I shipped one of them in the notch at the
stern; and, sheering close in under the walls of the pier from which I
had been hailed on the previous night, I sculled gently out to the open
sea. I almost held my breath until I had gone far enough to lose sight
of the pier altogether in the darkness, when I once more shipped my oars
and pulled steadily out toward a line of twinkling lights which
indicated the position of the fleet.
The dawn was just breaking, grey, cheerless, and chill, as I reached the
cutter and stepped in on deck over her low bulwarks, wet to the skin,
nerveless from exhaustion and hunger, and with my feet, elbows, and
knees lacerated and bleeding from my battle with the rough stone walls
of my prison.