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While John Lee carried his experience of the night to
Grace at the first opportunity, Malherb told no man
of the nocturnal meeting with Lovey. He turned his secret over,
and between intervals of hunting and of work, held deep speculation
with himself how best to circumvent the miser. Vaguely he
dreamed of cunning traps and surprises, but such warfare was
foreign to Maurice Malherb, and his mind lent itself to no subtlety
in that sort. Nor would he ask assistance of any man; for,
though he thought upon Peter Norcot more than once, and might,
indeed, have made no better choice, yet pride rebelled before the
spectacle of himself seeking aid to outwit a woman. That he
would recover Lovey's stolen treasure the master felt positive;
but no means of doing so immediately appeared.
John Lee, meanwhile, had less than Malherb's knowledge in
one direction, much more in another. That the amphora was
actually in his grandmother's possession he did not guess; but
the locality of her hidden haunt he had discovered. All that
he knew Grace now learnt, and her mind awoke into great
enthusiasm.
"'And then she vanished'! No, no, dear John; people don't
vanish--not even mysterious, savage old misers like Lovey. She
went somewhere out of your sight and out of your reach for
the present; but flesh and blood cannot vanish," said Grace very
seriously.
"There were witches in the Bible, and there may be on
Dartmoor," he answered. "Not that I'm afeared any more. I'm
going to hunt Hangman's Hollow every moment of my spare time
henceforth. All the future depends on it for me, and for you,
and for Mr. Malherb also, since you say that without money
things must fall out hardly in a year or so."
Yet, despite John Lee's great resolutions, a chance unforeseen
came now to thwart them, and it was many weeks before any
human foot explored the desolate ravine that hid Lovey Lee's
secrets. As though to convince the master of Fox Tor Farm that
the moor-men did well to fear winter, terrific weather fell upon the
upland waste. Long weeks of sulky black frost ended in white
frost. From lowering skies the sun crept forth above the
undulation of Cater's Beam; but his direct rays proved powerless to
thaw the ground. Each night the frost bit deeper; each morning
the cattle byres were coated with ice from the frozen breath
of the kine. Work was suspended, and the world seemed a
thing perished and insensible to any further touch of life. Then,
alter a cloudless week, the wind, that had puffed fitfully as it
listed, yet never found a cloud to drive along the pale azure floors
of heaven, went north and stopped there. Now the frost abated
by a degree or two, but still remained severe and, from day to
day, feathers and films of cloud swept southerly. For some time
these vanished before nightfall; then they increased and a few
light snow-showers fell. They heralded a notable and terrific
blizzard, whose sustained fury burst upon the Moor, swallowed
its boundaries, buried its lonely heart and piled mighty barriers
of snow between the central waste and all civilisation. Fox
Tor Farm was well equipped for such a siege; but many an
isolated homestead, now surprised by weather beyond man's
memory to parallel, found itself much straitened until the
thaw.
At one place above all others this avalanche of snow brought
with it deep concern and anxiety. In the War Prison,
Commandant Cottrell and his staff, with ten thousand men to feed,
found great problems threatening their peace. Supplies promised
quickly to run short, and even the store of sealed provisions set
aside for any possible emergency, represented little more than
a week's fare for the hosts of Americans and French. Within
three days of the great isolation food was being nursed and rations
were decreased--a hardship terrible at such a time. But
unutterable suffering and woe beyond words marked these black
weeks at Prince Town. Infinite cold settled upon the waste,
and thousands of prisoners stuck all day to their hammocks,
leaving them only at the hour of meals. All buying and selling
had been suspended, for the country-folk now possessed nothing
they could part from. Within the War Prison order and
discipline were scarce maintained beneath the strain; death reigned
at the hospital, and nimiety of human misery found an end in
the frozen earth.
The tempest that followed upon this arctic weather deeply
affected the fortunes of the Seven. After some weeks of
imprisonment in the cachots, Cecil Stark and his companions
rejoined their compatriots in Prison No. 4. What had happened
to defeat their scheme they knew not, and no thought of treachery
amongst their comrades darkened a single heart, because every
man supposed that Lovey Lee had betrayed them. For a time
after their failure each held aloof from the rest, since suspicious
eyes now closely marked their actions. Then came a meeting
with Captain Cottrell, and immediately after their liberation, the
three officers, Miller, Stark and Burnham, were summoned before
the Commandant.
They appeared and for the first time learnt that Peter Norcot
had availed with the authorities.
"But those who break prison would break parole," said Cottrell
drily. "Therefore upon my report, gentlemen, and as the result
of your own folly, the privileges that a generous Government was
prepared to extend to you are now denied."
Commodore Miller answered for the Americans.
"Little need be said to what you tell us, Captain Cottrell.
We stand under a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Norcot, for his
generous and disinterested effort on our behalf; and our failure
to make good escape will not unnaturally be punished by a
withdrawal of the privilege of parole. One other point only of
your remarks challenges my comment, and that I would willingly
avoid, since it is no wish of ours to quarrel personally with any
man in authority. But when you say that those who would break
prison would break parole, I declare that you speak for yourself,
and not for these gentlemen, or for me. We are honourable men
and the prisoners of an honourable country, but you--by these
words you have proclaimed yourself a mean and base soul, not
worthy either to have the control of gentlemen, or to mingle with
them."
The Commodore spoke with calm self-restraint, and upon the
silence that followed his rebuke struck Stark with somewhat less
careful choice of words.
"Every man has a right to regain his liberty at any cost; but
no man has a right to tell a lie and break a solemn oath. You
are much to be pitied, Commandant, in that you, who call yourself
an officer and a gentleman, can confuse such widely different
issues."
The soldier gnawed his moustache and grew red.
"I stand corrected," he said. "So many of your countrymen
have committed this crime of breaking their parole, that I assumed
the issues were not regarded as opposite in the American mind.
Commodore Miller, I pray that you will accept my apologies, and
I shall be very happy after the war is ended, to give you every
satisfaction."
"It is enough," said Miller. "I would that you could extend
your ready sense of justice to the parole now tended to us by
authority; but that, of course, is a question for your personal
judgment."
"In that connection no apology is needed nor will be offered,"
returned the other. "Had you escaped, the onus of the achievement
must have fallen upon my shoulders. I had possibly been
cashiered."
"Since we are on it, Captain Cottrell," said Stark, "may I, as
a sportsman and in good faith, inquire how you discovered our
enterprise and knew so punctually both when and where we
should endeavour to depart?"
"What! the informer's name? Surely you know that informers
are sacred in this world, whatever may be their fate in the next?"
"This much at least I beg you to tell us, if you hold it square
with duty. Was it from within or from without that we were
struck? We may desire to try again, and it is well to know
friend from foe."
Captain Cottrell laughed at the bold question. He reflected
a moment, then made reply.
"You've preached me a sermon on honour, and I'll pay for
it with a word of advice. A man's worst foes shall be they of his
own household. There's a seed to sow in your heart, Mr. Stark!
But since you will have it, then take it. At least I trust that it
may serve to break up a little family party of Seven which I
hear about. It will be better for all concerned that you respect
the prison regulations henceforth. Now, gentlemen, I wish you
a very good day."
In darkness and indignation they departed before this cynical
speech. Stark and Burnham were for disbelieving it utterly;
Commodore Miller, more cautious and more experienced, deemed
the assertion not one to ignore without serious reflections.
"'Tis a patent lie," declared Stark. "I marvel that you cannot
see it, sir. He actually dared to declare his object in uttering it.
He wishes to separate the Seven and scatter them finally. What
more certain way of so doing than by making each distrust the
rest?"
"We shall only doubt each other, however, if we believe him,"
said William Burnham.
"Yet I will not say offhand that he lied," answered the
Commodore.
Thus the cloud worked to bitterness from the outset. Four of
the Seven, their hearts fouled by racial prejudice, swore that
Cuffee was the culprit; while the Commodore supported poor
Sam, and Stark staked his own honesty and honour upon the
negro's. Acrimonious conversations passed among them, and
it seemed that Commandant Cottrell had fully effected his
purpose; but then came the awful weather, and certain necessary
relaxations called for by its severity, now drew the old friends
together again in hope of escape.
The cold had long reduced all exercise in the open, and through
the greater part of every day the prisoners collected by thousands
in the chambers immediately beneath the roof of each main
building. Here, through the windows, a wide survey of the
surrounding country offered, and Stark and his friends often
noted the visible contours of the land, and realised to some
extent the accuracy of Lovey Lee's maps. They learned also
of a matter more interesting and nearer at hand. The boxes
upon the inner wall were empty, for one soldier had already
perished of frost-bite on sentry-go, and two others were at the
door of death. To stand in the open air for half an hour was a
proceeding so dangerous that the inner wall now remained
unguarded save by its automatic protection of bells and wires.
Upon the occasion of the blizzard, while yet nature waited in
frozen silence and the north grew black at midday, six of the
Seven, taking their lives in their hands, made a second effort to
escape. David Leverett alone had no share in the enterprise,
for he was sick of a chill and kept his bed in the hospital.
Burnham and Stark demurred whether they might in honour repeat
their attempt without him, but Commodore Miller decided that
the greatest good to the greatest number must determine their
action. They were all sailors, and failing the apparatus of a wire
ladder, employed in their first experiment, they designed a living
ladder that could be quickly built up of their own persons. The
manoeuvre was not difficult, and they practised it out of sight of
the sentries until each man well knew his place and part in it.
At the fall of evening, while yet faint grey light marked the
western sky and the snow had only just begun to fall, many men
went into the yards for water. This, in the shape of ice, they
conveyed to the prisons, and each party in turn broke a portion
from their frozen conduits and fled back shivering into the fetid
warmth of the great buildings. The guards and the guarded
alike shrank from the open air, and in that hour before the storm,
a hundred men might have climbed out of the prison with no eye
to mark their going. But the weather made escape suicide; the
north wind and the snow were the gaolers of Dartmoor for many
a day henceforth.
Separating themselves from the throng, Commodore Miller and
his companions departed one by one and presently assembled
behind the angle of an empty cachot. From here they approached
the inner wall, and, while the blood was still warm in them, set
about their task. The square and solid shape of James Knapps
came first, Sam Cuffee leapt to his shoulders, Stark followed, and
then came Burnham, while the Commodore next worked his way
up the living ladder; and the light and weakly person of Caleb
Carberry brought up the rear. Once the warning bells jangled,
but the wind swept the sound away, and no turnkey heard them.
The darkness began to close in quickly, while far above ruddy
splashes of light blazed like fierce eyes from the squat windows
of the prison.
The difficulty of the ascension was quickly tackled and mastered.
With Knapps centred the chief strain, but despite his weight the
man proved nimble enough, and though he bruised both Cuffee
and Stark not a little as he clambered over them, soon Jimmy
reached the top. Then the negro, full of muffled regrets at his
clumsy feet and hands, also went aloft, and within three minutes
of the start the whole six had safely passed the inner wall.
Descent from this was easy, for steps rose upon the outer side of
it and communicated with the sentry-boxes along the top. Now
snow fell upon them in great solitary flakes, and they got a
glimpse of inky cloud-banks swallowing the Moor to windward;
then they hurried down into the great fosse beneath them, crossed
it and prepared to scale the outer wall.
Up they went, though more slowly than before, for the cold
began to touch them. Soon they crowded in a row aloft like
forlorn birds; then they felt the full force of the wind, and stood
aghast at the grim desolation spread beneath.
"Get to earth, lads, while we can use our hands," shouted
Miller. "Once free, we'll speak a word or two as we move south.
When we are down, each man must determine for himself his
course of action. We can either follow the wall round to the
main entrance and give ourselves up to the guard again, or we
can turn our faces to the night and trust in God."
No man answered, but the living ladder was formed, and
Knapps, taking a firm grip of the wall, lowered himself half over.
Cuffee slipped down and held the sailor's ankles, and the others,
one by one, thus lowered themselves to the ground. Then
Knapps, hanging to the full extent of his reach, let go, and those
on the ground stood by to break his fall.
Now, face to face with night and tempest, the character of
each among that little throng appeared, stripped bare by
circumstance.
Cuffee was the first to speak. He already wept and whined, as
the wind cut him to the bone, and the snow sweeping horizontally
over the heath stung through his rags.
"For de lub ob Gard, sars, I'se go back afore I've froze into
one lump ob black ice! Oh, gemmen, we run quick, else we
nebber run no more!"
"The chances of life are small," said Miller, "and no man
will think the worse of another if he turns to the gates. The
storm promises to be terrific, and though we might have reached
Lovey Lee's cottage in weather still and clear, 'tis but a forlorn
hope now. We are to hold on until we strike young plantations
of larch and beech. These we leave on our left, and then keep
south-east. 'Tis seeking a needle in a bottle of hay, and failure
must mean death. Let no man start in ignorance."
"For God's sake be moving, sir," pleaded Burnham. "Whatever
happens, we must get abreast of the main gates. Then
those who will may go to the Moor. We shall freeze here while
we stand. For my part I return. Life is sweet."
"An' me too," said Carberry. "I'm fearsome of this weather.
My lungs will fail me in a mile. 'Tain't no manner of use killing
myself for nought. I wants ter see the gate again. T'other side
the wall's only prison, but this side's death."
"I'se with you, Marse Burnham and Marse Carberry," chattered
Cuffee. "My legs is gwine so funny, like as if dey belonged
to some udder gemman."
"It's suicide, Stark," said Burnham, as they bent forward and
followed the wall. The wind now shrieked past them, and the
snow began to change its character. It had been very thick and
heavy, and the Moor was already an inch deep under it; but the
flakes ceased to fall, and dwindled into an icy dust that stabbed
like a rain of needles. Darkness increased; only by the wall
upon their right hands did they know their road.
"My cheek him froze hard!" cried the negro. "Oh, my poor
mammy!"
Stark, with his head down, spoke to Miller.
"What do you do, sir?" he asked. "I'm going to make a
fight for it; but dare you?"
"I'll come, lad, on one condition: that you do not stay a
single step for me. 'Tis each for himself. My life matters to no
man. And I take it into my hands with all reverence for the
Giver. If I die, I die a free man."
"'Tis so with me," answered the younger; "none will mourn
me, for sorrow of heirs is only laughter under a mask. But we'll
win, not lose. And 'tis victory either way, whether we live or die."
There remained James Knapps, and now Stark asked him his
purpose.
"Waal, I reyther guess I'll hold on," he answered. "I ain't
frightened of snow and never stopped hum nights when I could
go out. I was a trapper in the Rockies once. This weather is
old company, and no man kin tell what's behind sich a smother.
Death or life, 'tis no great odds to me; so I'm for going ahead."
"I hope it don't displeasure you us turning back," panted
Caleb Carberry to Stark; "but I'm very wishful ter get home
again some day. I've got a wife and family in Vermont----"
"Then you'd be a knave to hold on," said the other. "I've
got nothing in Vermont but a good solid chunk of the State
itself. The beavers won't miss me, nor yet the maple trees, nor
yet my cousins, I'll swear."
When the glare from a great lamp above the main entrance
was seen across the snow, three men huddled together in an
empty sentry-box near the gates, and three struck strongly
forward into the south-east. They held a steady course, and walked
in Indian file, with the storm on their left sides.
Sam Cuffee sobbed and screamed.
"Poor tings, dey got der marching orders! I nebber see
Marse Stark any more. I wish I born dead!"
"Shut your mouth, you black scorpion," said Burnham savagely.
His heart was with his friends, and now he smarted to think that
he had turned. If they lived, they would never respect him more.
So he believed. He had always entertained a lively jealousy
where Stark was concerned. He knew that his messmate was a
better man than himself and, eaten by envy, could not pardon
his superiority. Now in his heart there sprang a base and fleeting
hope that Stark had departed to die.
"I'se no scorpion," answered Cuffee. "I'se only berry dam
miserable nigger, sar."
"Be silent! Do you want the men in the guardhouse to hear
us? We're to give Commodore Miller as much law as we dare
without getting ourselves frostbitten. Then we can ring the bell
and sneak back to kennel--like the hounds we are."
"To the cachot," said Carberry. "I kinder guess we'll sleep
on granite to-night. Snow's softer and warmer, after all's said.
But if we sleep here, you bet we shan't wake no more."
"They'll have a pretty down on us now," answered Burnham.
"We were fools not to go and die with the others."
"De cachot--wid de snow coming in to bury us froo de naked
windows! Oh, I wish I dead and in hell--it warm dar. I no
care for twenty million debbils so long as dey take me into de
warm place."
"You'll be warm enough to-morrow. They'll flog us for this
when we refuse to say anything about the others," returned
William Burnham.
"Flogging's better'n dying. Durn the silly monkeys--they
might just as well have cut their throats as go," declared Carberry.
"I dare say every doodle of 'em's dead by now. Miller's a loss
to the country for sartain."
In silence they waited another minute; then Burnham
addressed Sam Cuffee.
"Ring the great bell, nigger; I can't lift my hand to it."
Soon the three were back again within the prison walls, and as
Carberry had expected, a cachot opened frozen jaws for them.
Untold misery they endured, although a soldier at his own risk
fetched them a bundle of straw to spread between their bodies
and the stones. Commandant Cottrell himself directed the
punishment.
"As for the others," he said, "we are well quit of the troublesome
rascals. They'll be out of further mischief before dawn.
Nothing could live in this, for Satan and all his angels are loose
to-night."