CHAPTER X.
THE CONDEMNED CELL—MATHIAS ESCAPED—WHERE HAS HE GONE?—THE
BLOOD ON THE HEARTH—A TALE OF TERROR.
The schemes set on foot by the friends of Mathias for his release were so many and so unceasing that the greatest precautions had to be taken to keep him in safety.
Rules were made, and for awhile most rigidly enforced, that not a soul was to be permitted to visit the prisoner; but the exception proves the rule, and there was an exception made in favour of a lady who came and pleaded so earnestly to the governor of the prison that he could not find the courage to refuse her.
The lady was shown into the cell which Mathias had lately occupied.
Lately? Yes.
The bird had flown.
But how had he got free?
Where had he gone?
Not a soul in the prison had the vaguest notion.
The gaoler stared and gaped like one in a dream.
"Where is Mathias?" demanded the woman.
"That's more than I can guess," responded the gaoler, rubbing his eyes as though he could not believe their evidence.
"Have you mistaken the cell?"
"Not I."
"Has he been removed?"
"No."
She stared him straight in the face for a moment or two, and then she burst out into a fit of laughter.
"Ha, ha, ha! Why, he has escaped. He has escaped. He has beaten your vigilance—baffled you all in spite of locks, bolts and bars, and all your watching."
The gaoler scratched his head.
"Let us look."
"Look! why, you can see everything here at a glance—everything. There are four walls. There is the bedstead; you can see under it. There is not room for a man to creep under there. There is the fireplace, and there is the window."
"Ha!" ejaculated the gaoler, "the window."
"What then?"
"There is no other way; he must have escaped that way, undoubtedly."
"Nonsense," said the woman; "don't you see that is too high up from the ground."
"He has found a way to climb up there, then."
"But the iron bars are all in their places still."
"True," said the gaoler, thoroughly puzzled, "true. Where can he have got to?"
"It is simple enough."
"How so?"
"He never attempted the window. He has walked out through the door being left open."
"Never!"
"Money can do more than that, and I rejoice at his freedom."
She moved to the door.
But the gaoler held her back rather roughly.
"Stop you here," he said, rudely; "I shall have to report this to the governor, and you had better remain until the job has been investigated."
And before the startled woman could divine his intention, he swung to the door and shot the bolt.
Then pushing back the trap in the door, he added a few words through the grating.
"You'll be safer there," said he, "unless you can manage to get out as Mathias did. But the devil himself must have a compact with Mathias!"
"At least leave me the light," she said, imploringly.
"Against orders," was all the answer vouchsafed.
The trap was shut.
The woman was left a prisoner, in total darkness.
* * * * *
There is always something unpleasant in darkness, and this woman was by no means iron-nerved.
No sooner was she alone, than a painful sensation of uneasiness stole over her.
"They can not keep me long here," she kept murmuring to herself; "I have done nothing; I am accused of no offence. The governor will set me at liberty as soon as he knows. Could any thing be more unfortunate? Mathias was a prisoner, and I was at liberty. Now Mathias is free, and I am a prisoner. Cruel fate to separate us. We are destined to be parted."
The gloom grew oppressive now.
She stood still, listening in painful silence for five minutes together—five minutes that appeared to be as many hours.
A silence so solemn, so death-like, that she could hear the very beating of her heart. This grew unbearable.
She groped her way around the cell to find the bed, and approaching the fireplace, she was suddenly startled by a sound.
A very faint noise, as of something dripping on the flagstones by her feet.
In the tomb-like silence then reigning, the faintest sound caused her to feel uncomfortable.
She listened awhile intently, asking herself what it could mean.
Drip, drip, drip.
It was strange.
When the light was there, she had not noticed it at all.
What could it be then, that was only to be heard in the dark?
Was it fancy?
No.
It was too real.
There was no mistaking it.
If the oppressive gloom of the cell started strange sounds or strange fancies in her head, why should it take such a shape as that?
Why, indeed?
"Would to Heaven they were back with the light," she said. "Will they never come?"
Just then, as though her earnest wish were heard and answered, a faint thin streak of light was shot into the cell through the grated window above.
This was reflected from a chamber in the prison whose window was close by the window of this cell, and where a lamp had just been lighted.
The welcome ray shot straight across the cell where she stood by the fireplace, and she remarked that the dripping did not cease.
Drip, drip, drip!
She looked down.
"I see, I see," she shudderingly exclaimed, "it is raining, and the rain is falling down the chimney. How foolish of me to get alarmed about nothing."
Now the light, we have said, shot across the hearth, and here it was that the drip, drip, drip, fell.
"Same as I thought."
As she muttered this to herself, she stretched forth her hand under the chimney, and the next drop fell upon it. It was not water.
No, imperfect as was the light then, it sufficed to show her that upon her hand was a curiously dark stain.
Raising it nearer to her eyes, she examined it eagerly.
Then she shuddered, and exclaimed in a voice of terror—"Blood!"
Yes, it was blood.
Pen can not describe the terror of that wretched woman upon making this alarming discovery.
"Blood! Whose? Hah! whose blood? Whose but his—whose but the blood of my darling—my own Mathias?"
For a moment the thought completely unnerved her, and it was little short of a miracle that she kept from fainting.
But she fought bravely with the deathly horror stealing over her.
And kneeling on the hearth, she called up, yet in gentle voice, lest she should give the alarm—
"Mathias! Mathias, my own! Do you not know me? Mathias, I say!"
She listened—listened eagerly for a reply.
And presently it came—a dull, hollow moan, a cry of anguish that chilled the blood in her heart, that froze the very marrow in her bones.
"Mathias, darling Mathias! answer me for the love of mercy; I shall die else."
Another moan was heard.
Fainter and fainter even than the first.
Yet full of pent-up suffering.
A sound that told a whole tale of anguish.
"Mathias, come to me," she called again.
"Oh-h-h!"
A fearfully prolonged groan came down to her, louder than before, as if the sufferer had put all his remaining strength into the effort.
Then all was silent.
Eagerly she listened, straining forward to catch the faintest breath.
But the voice above was stilled for ever.
And yet the drip, drip, drip continued, and as she stretched forward beneath the chimney, she caught the drops upon her face.
Then she could no longer thrust back conviction.
With a wild cry of terror she drew back, and groped her way round the room towards the door.
Her hand rested upon the grated trap, and she pushed it back with all her force, crying aloud for help as she did so.
"Help, help!" she shouted with the energy of despair; "Mathias is dying."
But that wretched man would not trouble the authorities more—His last breath had been drawn as she stood there listening to those awesome sounds.
What could be the solution of this mystery!
This would be known soon now, for the sounds of footsteps were distinctly heard now in the long stone corridors of the prison.
The gaolers had given the alarm at once of the prisoner's escape, and the outlets of the prison were guarded in all directions, while a party was sent to the cell to investigate the matter thoroughly.
At the head of this party was the governor himself.
The time had appeared ten times as long to the unhappy woman as it was in reality.
"Help, help! oh, help!" she cried.
At each effort she grew weaker and weaker. Her voice died away, and when they reached the door of the cell, they found her hanging by the bars of the grated window or trap more dead than alive.
"Show the light," ejaculated the governor.
And then, as the rays fell upon that face, pallid as the flesh of a corpse, save where the dark blood stains had settled, there was an involuntary exclamation of horror from all the beholders.
"Father of mercy," cried one of the men; "she has destroyed herself."
Such was the general idea.
She had committed suicide.
In this, however, they were speedily undeceived.
To burst open the door and rush into the cell was but the work of a moment.
At this the woman rallied a little and recovered herself.
"What is the matter?" asked the governor.
"The chimney!" gasped the woman faintly.
"The chimney! Speak—explain."
"His blood—Mathias's," she said; "see the chimney. I dare not look."
Two of the men by now had approached the chimney, and lowering the light they carried, one of them discovered a dark ominous pool upon the hearth.
"Call the doctor; there is something more than meets the eye in this."
This order was promptly obeyed, and a surgeon was speedily in attendance. A mere cursory glance convinced the man of skill that the blood upon the woman's face was not her own, and just as he arrived at the decision, drip, drip, drip it began again upon the hearth.
The men looked at each other half scared, and the governor himself was scarcely more self-possessed.
The surgeon alone retained his presence of mind.
Snatching a lamp from one of the men, he thrust it as far as his arm could reach up the chimney and looked earnestly up.
"As I thought!" he exclaimed.
"What?" demanded the governor, eagerly.
"He is there."
"Who?"
"Who but the prisoner? Mathias is there—hopelessly stuck—wedged in. He has been trying to escape and has hurt himself."
The woman looked up at these words.
"Is it no worse?" she asked. "Is he badly hurt?"
"I can not say yet," said the surgeon; "we must get him down first."
This proved a very difficult matter indeed.
The flue was so narrow that it was sheer madness to attempt climbing it.
Eagerly Mathias had pushed on, and finally got himself wedged inextricably.
He could neither move up nor down.
It was when he made this alarming discovery that his struggles became desperate, and in his wild efforts to free himself from his self-set trap, he tore and mutilated his flesh most cruelly.
The wounds and the want of air had done their work.
An hour's hard work succeeded in setting the prisoner free—or rather his body, for it was found that life had been extinct, according to the surgeon's report, before they had entered the cell.
And when they came to examine the clothes, they made a discovery which threw a light upon the whole affair.
A small scrap of paper, dirty and crumpled was found in his pocket, upon which was some writing that was with great difficulty construed in this wise—
"The only hope is from the waterside. If you can but reach the roof, and have the courage to make the plunge, freedom will be your reward."
How this note came there was never discovered.
With this dire catastrophe ended the efforts of the brigands to free their unhappy leader.