CHAPTER XXI.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
That evening--or rather afternoon, when already the wintry night was at hand--Juan and I were in Lugo and once more making preparations to continue our journey--to go on west now, through the Asturias, Santander and Biscay, as our chart showed us, toward St. Sebastian and Bayonne, which would bring us into France. But also we hoped that, after we had passed by the former of these provinces, on reaching the sea, which we should then do, our journey by land might be at an end; that we might find, by great good fortune, at some seaside town a vessel, either English or Dutch, which would take us north to where we desired to go.
But, alas! 'tis useless to write down all the plans we concocted in the dirty parlour of the inn we had rested in--an inn dignified by the name of the "Pósada del Gran Grifon," since 'twas not to be our lot to make that journey, nor to set out upon it.
Let me not, however, anticipate, but write down all that now befell us; also let me now begin to tell of the strange marvels that I was destined to behold the unravelling of, as also the dangers which from this period encompassed me.
We were alone, had entered Lugo alone, Señor Jaime having bidden us ride ahead of him and leave him to find his way into the town by himself.
"And," he said, "be very sure I shall do it. Fear not for me. Only, if I come not by the time four o'clock has struck, believe that either I have fallen into the hands of the enemy or that, for some reason, I have not been able to get face to face with Eaton. Therefore, ride on without me. Remember my disguise will save me. You have both refused to be disguised. By consequence, look to yourselves. We shall meet again. I know your road."
And now four o'clock had struck from the cathedral hard by, and he had not come. Yet, why not? we asked each other. A peasant whom we had met on the road when but a league between us and Lugo had mentioned this inn as one where good accommodation for man and beast could be obtained, and ere we parted from Jaime we had determined that it should be our meeting place.
And still he had not come. And it was four o'clock and past.
"We must go," I said to Juan, "we must go. 'Tis courting frightful danger to remain here. Already I have observed half a dozen French and Spanish sailors pass this window, whom I saw on board some of the ships and galleons; also some officers. If I meet them face to face, and they remember me, as I do them, there will be----"
"What?" asked Juan, his face full of terror.
"Well--no Mervyn Crespin a few hours hence! that's all."
"Oh, come, come, come," he exclaimed, catching at my arm. "For God's sake, come! Why, why did we ever enter this town! 'Twas madness. We should have remembered they had fled hither."
"There is no other high road to France and Flanders," I said, "that justifies the risk. Yet, Juan, remember, even now it is not too late for you to part from me, if you choose. Your coming on here means nothing. You did not fight against the galleons; therefore you are in no danger----"
"Silence!" he said again, as he had said once before. "Silence! I will hear no word about leaving you."
Then suddenly he came away from the window, at which he had been standing, and crossed the room to me.
"Look," he said. "Look from out that window into the street; then say if it is not too late for us to part--if my danger is not as great as yours. Look, I say!"
Glancing first at him, in wonderment at his exclamation, and what the meaning of it might be, yet with some sort of understanding mounting to my brain also, I stepped across to the dirty, unwashed window and looked out into the street.
And then I understood.
Through the dim light cast on the now darkened street by oil lamps, swung across it at intervals, and also by the candles burning in. relicários, set into the walls, as well as by the feeble glare which emerged from curtainless and unshuttered windows, I saw a band of men slowly passing, their drawn swords in their hands, or with musketoons upon their shoulders.
And ahead of all this body, which was composed of perhaps a dozen, there marched two of those with whom we had fought on the road between Chantada and this place--the leader who had addressed us, and another. As they passed along they gazed at each man whom they encountered; halting opposite our window, they looked at an inn which faced ours directly, a little place on which was painted the name, "Pósada Buena Ventura."
"Open the window a crack," I said to Juan--doing so myself, however, as I spoke--"and let us listen. Hear what they say. Softly," and following my words we placed our ears to the inch-wide orifice.
And then we heard every word as it fell from their lips.
"That house opposite," the leader said, "is the last to be examined except this and another"--while Juan whispered: "I cannot catch its name--It sounds like the San Cristobal. Yes. Yes. 'Tis that. Ha! And, see, they enter the house opposite. Yet some remain in the street." And we both peered from behind the side of the window at them as they stood there in the road, a crowd of urchins gathered round.
"We are trapped," I said, "trapped. We can never get out. The horses are in the stables behind--also, the gates are shut."
"God!" exclaimed Juan, suddenly, even as I spoke, "they have finished there already--are coming here. Another five minutes and they will be in this room."
"What shall we do?" he wailed a moment later.
"Escape while there is time--from this room, at least. Loosen your sword in its sheath--follow me," and I drew him back from the window.
"But where? Where to go to?"
"Out of the house, at least. Come. The stairs lead down to the back part of the house; there is the yard and the stables--also a garden. I observed it when the horses were put up. Come. There is a wall at the end of the garden which separates it from another. If we can get over that we can at least escape into the town. By God's grace, there may be some way out of it besides the gates. And we have the cloak of night to help us."
All the time I was speaking I had been drawing Juan toward the door; also I had seen that my papers and money were bestowed about me safely--I doubted if we should ever see our valises again!--or, for the matter of that, our horses. It would be heaven's providence now if we ever got out of this town alive, and even that I deemed unlikely. And at this crisis that was all we had to hope for, if so much.
"Lift your porte epée by the hand," I whispered. "If the scabbard clanks on the stairs we are undone. Follow me."
In another instant we were outside the door of the room. For precaution and as a possible means of gaining time I drew the key from the inside of the lock, then placed it in the keyhole outside, made a turn and, again withdrawing it, dropped it into my pocket. This would take up some moments, while they clamoured without, bidding us open. It would take some few more to break down the door, which they would very probably do. They might be precious moments to us.
It was quite dark outside in the corridor, but at the farther end there glimmered a faint light from an oil lamp set upon a bracket, though its rays scarcely reached here, namely, to the head of the deep oak stairs opposite where the door of the room we had just quitted was. But from below, which was a stone-flagged passage running from the front of the house to the back, there was another light--thank God, 'twas nearer the street than the exit to the yard!
We descended seven steps, then the stairs turned sharply from a small landing--we ourselves did not dare, however, to turn them.
For below, in that cold stone corridor, we heard and recognised the voice of the man who had challenged us in the forest ere the fight began, a night ago.
"Here, are they?" we heard him say. "Here--so the birds are caught. The one, big, stalwart, brown--that is the English demonio--the other, younger, dark, handsome, might play the lover in one of Vega's spectacles. Ha! And the third who joined in the murder--an elder one, swart and grimy, black as the devil himself--is he here, too?"
"Nay," said the woman, whose voice told us she was the landlady, "there are but two, the bronzed one and the youth. You will not hurt him! Nay! Nay! Diôs! he is young and beautiful."
"Have no fear. We will not hurt either, if they do not resist. If they do, we shall cut them down. But--otherwise--no! no!" and he laughed a fierce, hard laugh. "Oh, no. There are others to hurt them--the governor, the Regidórs, the judges. Ho! They will hurt them through the garrote--or--or--the flames. The brasero! The wheel! Now lead up to them. Where is the room they harbour in?"
"I will fetch another lamp," the woman said. "This one is fixed. Wait." And we heard her clatter down the corridor on her Spanish pattens. Yet she paused, too, a moment, and turned back, saying:
"Spare him--the young one. Heavens! his lips and eyes are enough to madden an older woman than I am."
"Quick, then, quick," the other answered. "They sleep in the prison to-night, and our supper waits at the gatehouse. Quick."
"Shall we dash through them?" Juan whispered; and now I noticed that, as before in the hour of danger, his voice was firm and steady. "One might escape even though the other is taken." And I heard him mutter, in even lower tones: "Pray God it is you."
"No," I said. "No. We go together. Together escape or--die."
Then, even as I spoke, I saw what I had not observed before, owing to the dim light in which all was surrounded; saw that opposite to us on the landing--where the stairs turned--there was a door. Closed tight into its frame, 'twas true, yet leading doubtless into some room opening off the stairs which led up to the other one we had quitted.
I was near enough to put my foot out quietly and touch it with my toe and--God be praised!--it yielded, opened inward.
"Into it," I said in Juan's ear, "into it. They will pass it as they go up to where we have come from. When they have done so we may creep down. In!"
A moment later we had entered that room, had quitted the stairs--and the woman had come back and rejoined the men, was leading them up those very stairs, across the very spot where a few instants before we had been standing.
Yet our hearts leapt to our mouths--mine did, I know!--when we who were standing on the other side of the door heard him stop outside it, and, striking the panel with his finger--the rap of his nail upon it was clearly perceptible to our eager ears--say to the woman:
"Is this the room--are they here?"
The woman gave a low laugh in answer; then she said:
"Nay. Nay. 'Tis mine. By the saints! what should they do there! That handsome Inglés, devil though he be!--or that lovely boy? Heavens, no!" and again she laughed, and added: "Come. They are here. Up these stairs."
Even as we heard their heavy, spurred feet clatter on those stairs we were seeking for some mode of escape, and that at once.
Alas! 'twas not to be out of the door again and down into the stone passage, as we had thought.
For one glance through a great crack, and we saw, by peering down below, that these Spanish alguazils had some method in their proceedings. They had left two of their number behind; they stood in the passage waiting for what might happen above; waiting, perhaps, to hew down the two fugitives whom those others were seeking for, should they rush down; waiting for us. There was no way there!
Then, for the room--what did that offer?
It was as dark as a vault--we could distinguish nothing--not even where the bed was--at first. Yet, later, in a few moments--while we heard, above, the rapping of sword hilts upon the door of the chamber we had just quitted--while we heard, too, the leader shouting: "Open. Open--Bandidos! Assassinatóres! Espias! or we will blow the lock off"--we saw at the end of the room a dull murky glimmer, a light that was a light simply in contrast to the denser gloom around--knew there was a window at that end.
Was that our way out?
Swiftly we went toward it--tore aside a curtain drawn across a bar--the noise the rings made as they ran seemed enough to alarm those men above, must have done so but for the infernal din they themselves were making--opened the lattice window--and, heaven help us!--found outside an iron, interlaced grate that would have effectually barred the exit of aught bigger than a cat!
We were trapped! Caught! It seemed as if naught could save us now!
"Lock the door," I whispered to Juan. "They will come here next. The moment they find we are not in the other room!--ha! they know it now, or will directly."
For as I spoke there rang the report of a musketoon through the empty passages of the house. They were blowing the lock off!
Desperately, madly, exerting a force that even I had never yet realized myself as possessing, I seized the cross-bars of that iron grating; I pushed them outward, praying to God for one moment--only one moment--of Samson's strength. And--could do nothing! Nothing, at first. Yet--as still I strained and pushed, as I drew back my arms to thrust more strongly even than before--it seemed as if the framework, as if the whole thing, yielded, as if it were becoming loosened in its stone or brick setting. Inspired by this, I pushed still more, threw the whole weight of my big body into one last despairing effort--and succeeded! The grate was loosened, torn out of the frame; with a clatter of falling chips and small débris it fell into the yard ten feet below.
My prayer was heard!
"Quick, Juan," I said, "quick, come. Out of the window, give me your hands. I will lower you. 'Tis nothing."
From Juan there came in answer a cry, almost a scream of terror.
"Save me! Save me!" he shrieked, "there is another man in the room!" and as he so cried, I heard a thump upon the floor--a thump such as one makes who leaps swiftly from a bed--a rush across that floor. Also a muttered curse in Spanish, a tempest of words, a huge form hurled against mine, two great muscular hands at my throat.
In a moment, however, my own hands were out, too, my thumbs pressing through a coarse beard upon a windpipe. "Curse you," I said in Spanish, as I felt that grasp on me relax. "Curse you, you are doomed," and drawing back, I struck out with my full force to the front of me.
Struck out, to feel my clenched fist stopped by a hairy face--the thud was terrible even to my ears!--to hear a bitter moan and, a moment later, a fall--dull and like a dead weight!--upon the floor.
"Come, Juan, come," I cried. "Come."