THE REBEL DISAPPEARS.
I SAW at once that the moon was come, but for my enterprise’s sake I
wished it absent. Here she was, however, framed in cloud, with a star
or two about her, and a very tell-tale eye. The roof of the woods
freezing across the park was a mass of dusky silver that her beams had
thrown, and so bold and sharp her glow was on every twig that slept
that individual things stood forth and stared at me, and seemed endowed
with the hue of noon in the middle of the night. And I am sure the hour
was laid for an adventure, and crying for a deed. The light of the moon
was made of pale romance, and bade the princess bare her casement,
and the minstrel on the sward to sing. This was the disposition of my
thoughts as I looked out of the window, and I was so captive to their
poetry that a soft touch upon my shoulder startled me as greatly as a
blow. I glanced round quickly and found Emblem at my side.
“He hath drained it to the dregs, my lady,” says she, brandishing the
coffee-pot.
“Faith! you startled me,” says I. “Emblem, your foot is lighter than a
cat’s.”
“’Tis almighty cold under the moon, ma’am,” says the maid, “and you
would be well advised, I think, to put a stouter garment on.”
“Ha! sly minx,” says I, “you fear that my employment will be the enemy
of soft, white satin, and that it may take a soil or two.”
I followed her advice, however, and got into a winter dress, and sent
her meanwhile to seek a file in the region of the kitchen. This was
a tool I had forgot, but highly necessary, you will believe, when a
pair of stout handcuffs are to be encountered. I dressed and cloaked
myself with care, and pulled two pairs of stockings on, for slippers
on a frosty night are the tenderest protection. I had just perched the
vizard on my nose when Emblem brought the file. I picked the pistol
up, set it at her head, and made her deliver up that file with a
degree of instancy which hath not been excelled by the famous Jerry
Jones, of Bagshot. Thereupon I loaded that dark weapon, pocketed its
adjuncts, and, leaving the faithful Emblem white and trembling with
the excitement of the hour, set out upon a deed whose inception was so
simple, yet whose complex development was destined to commit a great
havoc in the lives of several, and to change entirely the current of my
own.
Had I foreseen these ultimate occurrences, I should not have set out
at one o’clock of winter moonlight in the spirit of an urchin on a
holiday. Should I have set out at all? Faith! I cannot say, for the
more beautiful a woman is the less restraint hath reason on her. But
this I’m sure of: had my Lady Barbarity only known the strange form
the business of that night was to take for herself and others, she had
certainly said her prayers before she embarked upon it.
Two clocks were telling the hour together in the hall when I rode down
the broad backs of the bannisters and attained the mat below without a
sound, this seeming the quietest and most expeditious way of overcoming
the obstinacy of stairs, who creak at no time no louder than at one
o’clock at night--that is, unless it is at two. I glided across the
tiles and entered the servants’ part without so much as waking up a
beetle, such is the virtue that resides in dainty slippers, wedded
to dainty toes. Emblem had left one of the scullery doors unbarred,
and through this I stole forth to the stable. The air was still as
any spectre, and I observed its sacred calm so implicitly that a fox
actually stalked across the yard, not twenty paces off, with his nose
upon the ground, inquiring for poultry.
I was much too wise to take the stable from the front, but by dodging
round divers of the kitchen offices, I was able to outflank it, and
could peep upon the sentry by the door under cover of a friendly wall.
Every beam of moonlight seemed gathered on that bayonet. When that
naked steel looked at me thus, and seemed to say “Come on if you dare!”
the spirit of my mischief was pretty badly dashed, and began to seek a
pretext to retire. There was Emblem, though, and who shall endure the
secret laughter of her maid? But while I paused, a gentle snore crept
out into the frost and soon was mingling with my ears. The coffee had
performed. In an instant what a lion I became! How promptly I stepped
up to the sentry’s side and took that bayonet from him, for I could not
be myself so long as that blade menaced me. I ran across the yard and
cast it in an ashpit--’twas the utmost indignity I could bestow upon
that weapon--and counted the feat a triumph for wit over insolence and
power. Mr. Sentry had been drugged so heavily and thoroughly that he
was now sleeping more deeply than the earth, as I doubt whether even
morning would have waked him. The posture of his body, though, was most
unfriendly to the scheme I had prepared. His head was jammed in the top
corner against one door post, whilst his heels resided in the bottom
corner of the other. The misfortune was that his ribs were in such a
situation that they covered up the keyhole. Now unless I could obtain
a fair access to that, my labours were in vain. But when engaged on a
dangerous escapade, ’tis a sterile mind that lacks for an expedient.
Therefore I gave back a yard or two into the stable’s shadow, and
looking up, saw precisely what I had hoped to find. Our stables I
had remembered were of two storeys, the second chamber being an open
hayloft, which was only covered by the roof, the sides being composed
of rails alone, and set wide enough apart for persons of an ordinary
stature to squeeze through with ease. How to reach it was the problem,
as the floor of it was suspended ten feet from the ground. It did not
remain a problem long, for I stole to a disused coach house a little
distance off, and groped among the odds and ends there collected for
a ladder. The brightness of the moon permitted me to find without the
least ado a short one, exactly corresponding to my needs. I bore it
to the prison, laid it against the coping stone of the second storey,
and hopped thereon as lightly as a robin hops on rime. I was soon at
the top and through the bars, and battling with the armies of hay and
straw assembled on the other side, that strove with might to thrust out
all intruders. This one was rather more than they could manage though.
Having made my footing good inside the loft, I began to search for one
of those trap-doors that are employed to push the fodder through into
the mangers underneath. This involved a deal of patient exploration,
for it was very little light that penetrated this encumbered place.
But I was now so eager and so confident that I was fit for deeds of
every character, and I do not doubt at all that had my task been to
find a lost needle amongst this endless mass of provender, I should
have discovered it in less than half an hour. Thus coming at last in
the course of my search to a spot well cleared of straw, one of my
slippers trod upon an iron ring, and, much as I regretted the pain
that act involved, I rejoiced the more, since I had stumbled on the
trap. Getting my fingers to this ring, I tugged the door up, and then
prepared to scramble through the hole into the manger. I calculated
that the distance I had to make was a comparatively short one. However,
I was compelled to be cautious in the matter of the hayrack, as should
I become involved in cages of that sort, I must experience many a
stubborn obstacle in getting out again. I should like the reader to
conceive at this point, if he is able, of Lady Barbara Gossiter, the
reigning Toast, whose imperious charms had played the deuce with every
embroidered waistcoat in the town; I say I want you to conceive, dear
Mr. Reader, if you have imagination equal to the task, this exquisite
young person scrambling through trap-doors into mangers in the middle
of the night! Yes, it staggers you, and you say it is impossible.
I quite agree with that, and confess that when I started on this
mischief, or this deed of mercy, call it what you will (for I certainly
will not pretend to be better than I am), I had not included feats
like these in my adventure. Now I had not, unfortunately, the faintest
claim to be called an acrobat, but when the hounds have got scent,
and the whole field is in full cry, one does not tarry for the widest
and greenest pond, or the quickest set of fences. Therefore clinging
tightly to the trap, I lowered myself with insidious care, inch by
inch, into the manger. ’Twas not possible to perform an act of this
sort without committing some little noise. Thus the poor lad pinioned
to the manger heard the creaks of my descent.
“What the devil!” he exclaimed, starting up as I could tell by the
brisk rustling of his straw.
“No, child, not the devil,” I says, “a person handsomer by far. But
hush! lad, hush! I am here to save your neck.”
He strangled a natural cry at this injunction, though an emotion of
surprise caused him to strain unconsciously against his bonds. The
rattle of the manger ring to which the unhappy creature was secured
cut me keenly to the quick. They prate of the cruelty of us women,
but I wish some of these men would consider their own gifts in this
direction, ere they tax us for our drawing-room barbarities. Now
Captain Grantley, in his haste to take me from the window on the
occasion of my visit earlier in the night, had forgotten to reshutter
it, and his omission was now a friend we could not well have done
without. It let a lively flood of moonlight in, which had the cunning
to show me not only my precise locality, but how one was affected to
the other, the work that was before me, and the fairest means by which
it could be done.
At first the poor prisoner dare not accept the testimony of his eyes,
nor could he trust his ears.
“I--I cannot understand,” he said.
“Men never can,” I whispered. “But if we are silent, speedy, and
ingenious I think I can save you from Tyburn, sir.”
For these words he invoked God’s blessing on me, which was quite a new
experience, as the invocations of his sex are much the other way in my
case. Then he tried to pierce my vizard with his eyes, and then rose
with slow pain to his feet and pushed his handcuffed wrists towards
me, for he had seen me take forth the file. I attacked at once the
stout chains by which they were clinched together, and in which the
cord was looped. ’Twas no light employ, let me assure you. The file
rasped without surcease on the steel for the best part of an hour,
and I put such an energy in the task that long before I had bitten
through the gyve my fingers ached most bitterly, and I could feel the
sweat shining in my face. Whoever it was that had put those fetters
on, ’twas plain he was no tyro in the art. But that winter night, had
my business been to reduce a castle with my single hand I could have
razed it to the earth, I think. Therefore, at last I overcame the
stubborn bonds, and in something less than a minute afterwards the
desperate rebel had all his members free. I am not sure but what a
bond was forged about his heart though. For in the stern assaults I
had directed on his chains the spring that held my vizard fell away,
the patch of velvet dropped into the straw, and lo! at the lifting of
my eyes, I stood unmasked before him. And perhaps I was not sorry for
it, since--the charming fellow!--no sooner did he discover that his
hands were out of durance than he uttered a low cry of pleasure and of
gratitude, and when he regarded his deliverer his eyes became so bright
that they must have been sensible of joy. But I was determined that in
this present instance, no matter how much beyond the common, my native
power should yet assert itself. Wherefore I drew myself to my fullest
inches, tipped up my chin and throat a little to let him see what snow
and dimples are, and what a provocation poets sometimes undergo. Then
I met those fine eyes of his fully with mine own. On this occasion
’twas his that did recoil. Nor was this at all remarkable, since Mr.
Horace Walpole had informed me but a week before, for the fifteenth
time, that if these my orbs should confront the sun at any time, the
sun would be diminished and put out. Thus the rebel’s own high look
yielded reluctantly to mine, and I judged by the twitching of his
mouth that ’twas as much as he could do to suppress his wonder and his
thankfulness. But he did in lieu of that a thing that was even yet more
graceful.
Without a word he fell on his knees before the feet of his releaser,
and when I deigned to give my hand to him that he might touch it with
his lips, as I thought his delicious silence not unworthy of reward, my
every finger thrilled beneath the one burning tear that issued from his
fine, brave eyes and plashed upon them softly.
“Madam,” he said then, with his voice all passion-broken and shaking so
that it must have given him an agony to speak, “a word can never thank
you. May I thank you some time otherwise?”
The moonlight was much our friend in this strange passage, here amongst
the straw of a cold, gloomy, and unclean stable at an unheard-of hour
of night. Pouring through the window it wrapped our figures in a sweet
vague hue that was as beautiful as it was subdued. It had a mellow
holiness about it too, I thought.
We lost scarce a minute, though, in matters of this character. There
was much to do if the rebel’s escape was to be effected and him to be
hence a mile or two ere his flight was known. Wherefore I commanded him
to leave his knees at once, and made him do so brisker than perhaps
otherwise he might have done by saying that his attitude was extremely
laughable. Next minute I had committed the loaded pistol to his care,
and had informed him that as the door of the ground storey was locked
and a sleeping sentry was huddled against it, egress was cut off
utterly thereby. I proposed, however, that we should get out along the
route by which I had arrived--namely, by climbing up into the manger,
scrambling through the trap into the loft, and descending thence by the
ladder I had left.
I was the first to make the trial, as I should naturally require the
most assistance in ascending to the second storey, and preferred to
be pushed up by the heels from underneath than to be hauled up by the
arms from overhead. ’Twas here that I was glad that the sun was not
about yet, since I do not doubt that in my attempt to overcome that
ugly trap, I was guilty of showing off a trifle more of petticoat and
stocking than consists with the gentility of Saint James’s Park. Still,
I was willing to pay a reasonable price for these present delightful
issues. Alas! I did not know that I was only at the threshold of this
affair, and that those that lay ahead were to hold more of terror than
enchantment.
We soon managed to swing ourselves from the manger to the loft,
and when we got amongst the straw I fell to further instructing my
companion. It was of the first importance that he should have a horse,
and I proposed to present him with Rebecca, a blood mare of my own, who
was stabled near at hand. However, as we were to discover all too soon,
we had reckoned without our host considerably.
Being the better acquainted with our bearings, I went ahead and led the
way through the hay and straw, and in the sequel ’twas quite as well
that I was foremost. For I was just come to the place where the ladder
rested, with Mr. Anthony pressing on my heels, when:
“Down, sir, into the straw!” I whispered, and smartly as that command
was breathed, I was but just in time.
A stream of light rising slowly higher from the ladder was the cause of
this alarm. The next thing that I saw was a lantern swinging from the
topmost rung, and immediately behind it the face of Captain Grantley
outlined dimly in the gloom. His eyes were fixed steadily on mine, yet
the keen though quiet smile of greeting with which he met my look, and
it must have been a guilty one, appeared to me a miracle of breeding
and propriety.
I had to admire this soldier. Not the quivering of a muscle, not
the quaking of a tone informed me of the depth of his astonishment.
As for me, after the first paralysis of bewilderment I met his gaze
with the large, wide look of innocence. I understand that I have a
genius for dissembling. But lord! ’twas needed now. I had gone so far
in the affair that I could not now withdraw. Besides, I had not the
inclination. The lad was handsome, never a doubt of that. He might
be the son of a baker, nevertheless he promised to make an extremely
proper man. Thus I felt my heart grow small with fear, while we
continued to survey each other with an ingenious and smiling care. As
for my poor terrified companion, I could tell by the soft rustling of
straw behind me that he was disposing his body as far beyond the ken of
that lantern and the pair of eyes that were the background to it as his
situation would permit.
At first the imperturbability of the Captain’s mien put me in some
hope that he had not as yet suspected the presence of his prisoner.
But he contrived to alarm as greatly as he reassured, since he pitched
his voice in the very key of drawling languor that only the fops of
Kensington routs and drawing-rooms employ.
“Lord! my Lady Barbara, a magnificent evening, don’t you think?” says
he.
“Do you suppose I would be out of my bed enjoying it unless it was,
my dearest Captain?” says I, with a countenance of the most simple
girlishness in the world.
The trembling prisoner burrowed the deeper in the straw.
Now it would have been a perfect piece of comedy, had not that poor
lad been breathing so hard and quick behind me. His life was suspended
on a hair, and this he knew, and I knew also. Otherwise I should have
enjoyed the acting of this play in a fashion that my jaded appetite
seldom enjoys anything. Therefore I continued to regard the Captain
with a gravely whimsical look; but if he twitched an eyelid, altered
the position of a finger, or shifted the altitude an inch at which the
lantern hung, I began to speculate upon the fact, and wrote it in my
heart. We played a game of cat and mouse, and for once the Captain was
the cat. Conceive me the grey and frightened little mouse, trying to
dodge the deathly paw that any instant might descend and mutilate it.
“Captain,” says I, “are you also interested deeply in the study of
astronomy?”
“Astronomy!” cries he, “why astronomy?”
He was a wonderfully clever cat, but trembling little mousie had got
him, by her cunning ways, a trifle off his guard you see.
“Why, my dearest man,” says I, putting a world of surprise into my
tone lest the moonlight should not properly reflect the amount that
was inserted in my face, “do you suppose for an instant now that a
woman wholly in possession of her wits would quit a warm bed at three
o’clock of a winter’s night to gaze at a full moon from a hay loft if a
question of the heavenly bodies had not summoned her. Do you think for
a moment, sir, that I am here without a reason? Or rank somnambulism
you may consider it?”
You would have laughed at the amount of indignant heat, as though I
were hurt most tenderly, that I contrived to instil into my accents.
“Oh dear no, dear Lady Barbara!” says the horrid creature as silkily
as possible; “that you are here without a reason I do not for a moment
think. You misjudge me there, dear lady.”
Captain Grantley was become the devil! I fairly raked his smiling face
with the fierceness of my eyes, but when they were driven from it by
the simplicity of his look, it was smiling still, yet inscrutable as
the night in which we stood. His language was so ordered that it might
mean everything; on the contrary it might mean nothing. This was the
distracting part. The man spoke in such an honest, unpremeditated
fashion that who should suspect that he knew anything at all? But why
was he here? And why could at least two interpretations be put upon
every word he uttered? These the ruminations of a guilty mind!
Hereabouts an idea regaled me. If I could but coax the Captain up into
the loft, it would leave the ladder free. The prisoner then might make
a dash for liberty, and if he had an athlete’s body and sound wind and
limbs to serve him in his flight, all was not yet lost, and he had
still a chance of life.
“Captain,” says I, taking a bearing cautiously, “is the supposition
right that a matter of the heavenly bodies hath also brought you into
the night at this unpropitious season?”
“Well, scarcely,” says the Captain. “’Tis my duty, madam.”
That word in its solemnity made me start. And it was spoken in a voice
so pregnant and so deep that it frightened the trembling prisoner too.
The violence of his emotion caused him to stir uneasily, and make the
straw crack.
“Dear me!” I cried, “did you hear that mouse?” And I gathered my skirts
up in my horror, and huddled my ankles one against the other in the
extremity of fear.
“A mouse?” the Captain says; “must have been a very big one, dear lady.
Say a rat now; liker a rat, I’m thinking.”
“Oh no,” I shivered, “’twas a mouse, I’m positive. I felt his little
tail against my shoe. I have no fear of rats--but a mouse, it is a
frightful creature.”
“That shoe must be highly sensitive, dear lady,” says the Captain, with
a laugh and holding down the light. “Ah! I see that shoe is a carpet
slipper. A carpet slipper on a frosty night. How odd!”
I repeat, the Captain was become the devil.
“Odd? They are indeed,” says I. “That careless maid of mine actually
crammed my feet in her haste into two rights instead of left and right.
But a carpet slipper is a very elastic article, you know.”
“Very,” says the Captain, “and very secret also.”
“I should think it is,” says I, with an air of simple candour. “I would
not use one else. You see my papa, the Earl, objects to these moonlight
trips of mine. I thus use carpet slippers that he shall not hear me
pass his door or walk across the hall. And I must implore you, sir, not
to betray me in this matter.”
Here I set such a wistful, pleading gaze upon the Captain that it
nearly knocked him backwards from the ladder.
“My dearest lady!” and he laid his hand upon his heart.
Meanwhile I had not forgotten my design.
“I daresay,” says I, “you would like to have one glimpse, sir, of
Luna and her satellites. I have an apparatus with me. See, here’s my
telescope. A little darling of a creature, is it not?”
Twisting half round to where the prisoner was, I began to fumble in my
pocket for it. Of course I must bend my head to do so.
“When he leaves the ladder,” says I to the lad, in the softest whisper
ever used, “leap out and down it like the wind; then it’s neck and
heels to Scotland!”
Thereupon I took the file forth from my cloak, and so disposed my hands
about it that in the insufficient light it became a very creditable
telescope. I fitted the point into my eye, and jutted forth the handle
with great nicety.
“Venus is in trine,” says I, with this strange telescope trained upon
the stars.
“And how is Mars to-night?” says the Captain, with a gallant interest.
“Mars is out of season, sir,” says I. “He is at no advantage. But
Saturn and some others are wonderfully bright. Come up and gaze, sir.
’Twill interest you rarely, I am certain, and I have here the finest
little instrument that was ever fashioned by the artifice of Italy;
besides, the situation of my observatory is most admirably good.”
But the very watchful cat upon the ladder betrayed no disposition to
come up and hunt minutely for the mouse.
“If you will lend me the telescope,” says he, “I think I shall find my
present station equally excellent for the purposes of observation.”
When he uttered the phrases “for the purposes of observation,” he
looked as simple as a child. But I had a desire to strike him from
the ladder all the same. Not by a single word had he let me know as
yet whether design or accident had brought him of all places to this
particular ladder at this particular hour. Long as I had fenced he was
as inscrutable as his solitaire. I was not wiser in one instance than
when I had begun. Yet I was entitled to a guess, and alas! it was a
gloomy one.
“Captain Grantley,” says I, with a foot-tap of petulance, “I have
invited you to my observatory.”
“In the middle of the night,” says he. It was so deftly couched that
for my life I was not certain whether it was intended for a stinging
insult or a very neat evasion. But though forced to admire a hit so
delicate and so palpable, I was extremely angry, too, for circumstances
had left me entirely to his tender mercies. Yet the rebel, having
heard his speech, jumped at once to the opinion that it was rather an
insinuation than a subterfuge, and being a boy and therefore hot with
his heroics, was mighty impetuous for what he considered the honour of
his champion. And although the act would certainly have involved his
life, he was quite prepared to retaliate upon the Captain’s person,
that I might be avenged.
Happily I divined his intention just in time. I caught the cracking of
the straw, gave back a step and screamed a little, drew my petticoats
together, and set one heel as heavily as I could on the uprising
rebel’s breast.
“The mouse!” I cried; “there it is again. Did you not hear it, sir? Oh,
I am in such horrid fear! Captain, do come up and catch it for me by
the tail!”
Now my mind was so involved in the escape of this staunch and honest
lad, that you will see it was quite heedless as to the degree these
requests might implicate myself. In the end, however, the Captain
himself proved sufficiently a gentleman to redeem me from this unlucky
situation. Grantley, the town-bred fop, had just pierced me keenly with
his wit; but next moment Grantley, officer of the King, and defender of
his country, came bravely to my aid.
“My Lady Barbara,” says he, mildly, but abating somewhat the mincing
accents of the exquisite, “I think this mummery hath gone on long
enough. ’Tis a very dangerous game for us both to play; and, madam, I
think the more especially for you, since the more beautiful a woman is,
the more perturbed the world is for her reputation. And, my dear lady,
you really should consider the limitations of us poor susceptibles;
we are very frail sometimes, you know. But let us have an end to the
acting of this play.”
“Play!” says I, with sweet surprise; “sir, to what do you refer?”
I gazed at him with perfect innocence, but I thought I heard sounds of
hard, deep breathing issue from the straw behind me.
“My Lady Barbara,” the Captain said, and setting the lantern a point
the nearer to my face to mark the effect of his words upon it, “your
conduct in this matter, I will confess, hath been exceeding creditable
to your heart. But in the name of the King I summon one Anthony Dare,
lying there behind you, to stand forth from that straw.”
Now there was not a word in this demand beyond what I should have
anticipated from the first; but my adversary had fenced and toyed with
me so long, that he had almost weaned my mind from thinking that he
knew of my attempt and the poor prisoner’s situation. And in the very
breath of this avowal he let me see that he had ordered his tactics
with so complete a skill that the prisoner’s doom was sealed. Before
the final word was uttered a cocked pistol was pointed at the straw.
The lad concealed amongst it, feeling that all was over, made an
attempt to rise. Perhaps his idea was to throw himself upon his wary
foe, but that, I saw, was certain death. He would have been shot down
like a dog. Thus by the renewed pressure of my heel upon his breast,
I was able to still restrain him. Indeed, I was already ploughing up
my wits to find another plan. It is a part of my character never to
surrender until I am compelled. Till my adversary wins, I have not
lost, and the nearer he be to victory, the greater the danger that
besets him.
“Captain,” says I, with a meek, sad smile, “I have played my game, and
I have lost it. Victory sits with you. Let me compliment you on your
superior skill, sir, and crave your leave to now withdraw.”
I said this as humbly as you please. I hung my head, and the limp
dejection of my form betrayed how utterly I was beaten. Every spark of
spirit was gone out of me, apparently. The Captain was not ungenerous,
and seeing me so badly gravelled and that I took thus sincerely my
reverses, was kind enough to say:
“My Lady Barbara, you have played a bold and skilful game, and I
tender you my compliments upon it.”
My cunning gentleman I could see had been taken off his guard a little
by my lowliness of bearing. He did not discern that ’twas in my mind,
despite the fact that both the prisoner and myself were utterly at the
mercy of his pistol, to attempt quite the boldest stroke of all.
It was now that I withdrew my slipper from the prisoner’s breast and
walked up in the most natural way one could imagine to within a foot
of where the Captain stood upon the ladder, smiling with something of
the air of Alexander. I took my steps with such discretion and feigned
a simple negligence so well that he suspected nothing. My Lady Barbara
being my Lady Barbara, he had of course nothing to suspect.
“I wish to descend if you will allow me, sir,” says I, “for I cannot
bear to stand by and see my unhappy friend retaken.”
He was preparing to accommodate me in this perfectly humane request
when, tightening my fingers on the file, I struck the butt of his
pistol with all my strength, and straight the weapon dropped from his
hand and clattered ten feet to the stones below. The prisoner at my
back was marvellously quick. In almost the same instant as the pistol
tinkled on the yard the lad was up. He flew at the astonished Captain
like a cat, and struck him full and neat just underneath the jaw.
’Twas a murderous blow, and the horrid thud it made quite turned my
stomach over. But it was not a time for niceties. The Captain tumbled
backwards down the ladder, neck and heels; his lantern was shattered
to a thousand atoms; and in two seconds he, the pistol, broken glass,
and much good benzoline were in a heap upon the stones. The prisoner
waited for no courtesies. He did not even give his foe the chance of a
recovery; for, disdaining to use the ladder, he jumped to the ground in
such a calculated way that he descended with his hands and knees upon
the Captain’s prostrate person.
Now it was evident that much more than this was required to provide the
Captain’s quietus, for so soon as the prisoner fell upon his body he
clasped him by the waist and clung to him with the tenacity of a leech.
For a full minute they fought and wrestled on the ground and felt for
one another’s throats. But the Captain underneath found the arguments
of the man on the top too forcible. Thus by the time that I was down
the ladder the rebel had managed to extricate himself, and was running
away as hard as he was able.
And here it was that Fortune treated him so cruelly. The hours he
had passed in prison with limbs cramped up and bound had told too
sure a tale. He was unable to move beyond half the pace a healthy
and clean-limbed youth should be able to employ. And the Captain was
a person of the truest mettle. Despite the several shocks he had
undergone and the bruises he had suffered, he was up without a moment’s
pause and running the rebel down with rare agility. In his haste,
though, there was a highly necessary article that he had failed to
regard. That was the pistol lying on the ground beside him. And it will
prove to you that I was still playing the prisoner’s game with all
my wits when I say that I pounced on it and threw it up into the hay
loft, where it could be no use to anybody. Then I sped after the pair
of runners to see what the outcome was to be. They were racing through
a gate that led into the park, which slept in a pale, cold silence
beneath the peaceful moon.
I had not run a hundred yards when, alas! the issue grew too plain.
Yard by yard the Captain bore down upon his foe. It was only a matter
of minutes ere he once more had him at his mercy. But observing their
movements eagerly as I went a thrill of horror trembled through my
heart, for I clearly saw the fugitive clap his hand into his coat,
and even as he ran, withdraw something from it secretly. He concealed
it with his hand. But in a flash it was in my mind that this was the
loaded pistol I had given him. And the Captain was unarmed.
If you give rein enough to mischief it may lead you into many and
strange things. But I think it should always draw the line at murder.
Much as I would have paid for the prisoner’s escape, ’twas more than I
could endure to witness a stark and naked murder. Mind, I did not enter
into the merits of the case at all. I would have the lad escape at
every cost, but none the less, murder must be prevented. And now I saw
that the holder of the pistol was tailing off in his speed so palpably
that he must soon be overtaken. There was a reason for his tardiness,
however. He was waiting till his pursuer should come within a yard or
two; then he would whip round and discharge the pistol straight into
his body.
This idea, together with the thought that I had armed him for the deed,
was more than I could suffer. A wretched sickness overtook me. But it
made me the more determined to save the Captain if I could. Therefore,
I knit my teeth upon the weak cries of my terror and ran, and ran,
and ran till I came within hailing distance of them, for both had
now much slackened in their running. Happily the Captain had at last
observed the weapon of his enemy and had interpreted his bloody motive.
Thus, while the one awaited the coming of his foe, the other warily
approached, but with no abatement of his courage: whilst I, profiting
by these manœuvres, was soon at the place where they had disposed
themselves for their battle.