CHAPTER VI.
SUNDAY RUBS OFF AN OLD SCORE—THE BRIGANDS—WHAT HAPPENED AT
THE PORTER'S LODGE—A STRANGE BLIND BEGGAR.
"Hurrah!"
"Give them another."
"Load again."
"Another volley."
A rapid, irregular discharge followed, and the Greeks, with cries of fear and rage, dropped their arms and fled precipitately, panic-stricken.
The gendarmes followed them up, and several were knocked over and secured; and behind them the brigands had left no less than seven of their number who had not been able to get off.
Amongst those seven were two men that it was no small gratification to the Harkaway party to see once more in their power.
These two men were Hunston and Toro the Italian.
Sunday stood over the latter, leathering into his half insensible carcase in a way that threatened to cover it with bruises; and at every blow he had something fresh to say.
"Take dat!" he exclaimed, punching into Toro's ribs, "you dam nigger."
Toro, dazed with what he had suffered in his shaking, could offer no resistance.
"And dere's another, you ugly tief!" said the virtuous Sunday. "I'll gib you what for; you shall hab what Paddy gib the drum, you 'fernal black skunk; I show yar what John up the orchard is, you—you Italian organ-grinding sweep—You chestnut-munching beast!"
Sunday had never forgotten his first acquaintance with Toro.
The reader will doubtless bear it in mind, since with it is connected one of the most startling episodes of Jack Harkaway's history, in his voyage round the world with young Jack.
It was at the hotel in New York that the Harkaways first met with Sunday, too, for here they were the means of rescuing him from the brutal violence of the ruffian Toro.
It was, in fact, this which led up to that scene of terror—the firing of the hotel by Hunston and Toro.
Sunday had suffered at Toro's hands, but had never had his whack back.
But now the darkey showed the half insensible Italian the full signification of "John up de orchard," and likewise of "what for," and "what Paddy gave the drum."
* * * * *
Hunston and Toro were thrown into prison, with the few brigands captured and their discomfited chieftain Mathias.
Such was the end of their exploit.
When once they were in prison, however, it required some exertion on the part of the authorities to keep them there.
The gang were unceasing in their endeavours to release them.
Artifices of every kind were tried to accomplish it, but the Harkaways had foreseen that no stone would be left unturned by the murderous friends of the captured robbers; and they knew the good old-fashioned saying—"forewarned, forearmed.'"
The prison in which they we re confined was situated at the waterside, and it was approachable by boat, where the entrance was beneath a low, vaulted archway.
The day after the capture of the notorious robbers, a poor cripple hobbled up to the porter's lodge, dragging himself painfully along by the aid of a stick in one hand and a crutch under his other arm.
"Move off," said the porter gruffly; "we have nothing to give away here."
"I don't ask your charity," replied the cripple humbly; "accept this, good sir, as a peace offering."
And then, to the porter's surprise, he dropped a coin into his hand.
The porter looked hard at the coin in his hand, and then at the cripple.
He was a man of no sentiment, this porter, and so he asked the generous donor bluntly what he wanted for the money.
"I only want you to show some consideration and kindness, if possible, to some of the unfortunate inmates of this place," was the reply.
"Prisoners?"
"Yes."
"If you expect that," said the porter "you had better take back your money, for I have nothing to do with the prisoners."
The cripple looked grave, and he muttered to himself—
"This fool is beastly conscientious. If he had only proved a bit of a rogue, there was a chance—the ass!"
But he did not mean to yield the point yet.
"You are a very good man," he said to the porter, "a worthy honest fellow, and you will know that I don't mean to offer you any thing like a bribe."
The porter started.
"A bribe!" he said, with an expletive. "You had better not."
"Ahem!" coughed the cripple. "My friend, I have confined in this prison my son, a poor misguided boy—"
"They are mostly that," said the porter shortly.
"But he is innocent."
"They are all innocent," said the porter.
"All?"
"According to their own showing."
"But my boy is."
"No doubt"
"And I only want to beg you to do what you can to soften his lot—a hard lot it is, too."
"I can do nothing, I tell you," said the porter; "I never see the prisoners."
"I thought—"
"At least, when I say never, I mean only when they are allowed to walk in the prison yard."
"That is here?"
"Yes."
"When is that?"
"Once a day; sometimes more than that, if the doctor orders it."
"The doctor must order it, then?" said the cripple to himself.
"What is your son in for?" asked the porter.
"For an unfortunate resemblance he bears to a notorious brigand."
"Bah!" exclaimed the porter. "They don't imprison a man for being like another."
"Yes, they do; my unlucky son has been taken for Mathias the brigand."
"What," ejaculated the doorkeeper, "do you mean that Mathias is not Mathias?"
"I mean that my son has been taken for Mathias, to whom, indeed, he is so like that nothing but the capture of the real culprit can save my son."
The doorkeeper eyed the cripple sharply.
But the latter stood it coolly enough.
"Well," said the door porter, "if that is the case, it is certainly a very hard job for your son. What do you want me to do for him? I can't let him out."
"My friend," exclaimed the cripple, "think you I would suggest such a thing? No, all I would ask of you is to soothe him with a kind word."
"I'll tell him when next he comes out."
"At what time did you say?" asked the cripple, looking on the ground as though he only put the question casually.
"At twelve."
The cripple's eyes glistened as he heard this.
"Well, well," he said, pressing some more money into the door porter's hand, "I'll call again, and perhaps you may have seen my boy, and comforted him with the assurance that I'll save him, in spite of all the ill these accursed English people can work by the aid of their money."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the porter. "The English are at work in it, eh?"
"Yes. They owe him some spite, and money, you know, can buy any thing—any thing." And blessing the gatekeeper, he hobbled off.
* * * * *
Near the prison he overtook a blind man begging by the roadside, and while stopping to drop a coin in his hat, the cripple contrived to whisper a few hurried words to this effect—
"I have made a step—almost made a breach in the fortress."
"You have!"
And the blind man turned his head to the right and to the left, almost as though looking out to see if they were unwatched.
"Yes; the prison yard is only the other side of the gate. Now that gate is kept by a porter who is already in our interest."
"Good, good, Tomaso!" quoth the blind man.
"Now, listen."
"Go on," returned the blind man, in an eager tone.
"At noon the prisoners are in the yard. If we could but get that gate open for an instant, and have our men ready hereabouts for a rush—"
"Yes, yes."
"Who can tell what may happen?"
"Good again—good again! ha, ha, ha! that's brave, that is. Why, the mob of idle sightseers who crowd about the prison gates at noon to watch the prisoners might all be poor blind wretches or helpless cripples like you and I."
"Of course."
"And if the gate is left open but one instant—a single inch, no more—why, worlds might be done."
"A horse ready saddled near at hand might be worth thinking of."
"True."
"And a small keg of gunpowder blown up under the archway by the waterside entrance would divert attention."
"Tomaso," ejaculated the blind man, "you're born to be a captain of brigands some day!"