CHAPTER XXV
We were condemned to death without a hearing by a military court sitting at Fort Hill, before which we appeared in chains. The 19th of April was set for our execution; we were taken back to the south battery in a coach escorted by light horse, and from there conveyed through the falling snow to the brick prison on Queen Street.
This time, however, we were not led into the loathsome "Pirates' Chapel," but the jailers conducted us to the upper tier of the prison, recently finished, and from the barred windows of which we could look out into Long Acre and School Street across the eight gibbets to the King's Chapel. It appeared that England treated condemned highwaymen with more humanity than coast pirates, for our cells were clean and not very cold, and our food was partly butcher's meat. Besides this, they allowed us a gill of rum every three days, an ounce of tobacco once every twenty-four hours, and finally unlocked our irons, leaving us without manacles, in order that the sores on our necks, wrists, and legs might heal.
It was now the 1st of January, 1775. The New Year brought changes to the prison, but the most important change, for us, was the appointment of Billy Bishop as warden of our tier, to replace Samuel Craft, now promoted to chief warden in the military prison on Boston Neck.
The warden, his wife, and his children occupied the apartment at the west end of our corridor; and the day that Craft, the former warden, moved out, and the Bishop family moved in, I believed firmly that at last our fighting chance for life had come.
All day long I watched the famous thief-taker installing his family in their new dwelling-place; doubtless Mount also noted everything from his cell, but I could not communicate with him without raising my voice.
Mrs. Bishop, a blowsy slattern with a sickly, nursing child, sat on a bundle of feather bedding and directed her buxom daughter where to place the furniture. The wench had lost her bright colour, and something, too, in flesh. Her features had become thinner, clean-cut, almost fine, though her lips still curved in that sensual pout which so repels me in man or woman.
That she knew Mount was here under sentence of death was certain; I could see the sorrowful glances she stole at the grating of his cell as she passed it, her bare, round arms loaded with household utensils. And once her face burned vivid as she stole by, doubtless meeting Mount's eyes for the first time since he had bent in his saddle and kissed her in the dark mews behind the "Virginia Arms"—so long, so long ago!
All day the thief-taker's family were busied in their new quarters, and all day long the girl passed and repassed our cells, sometimes with a fearful side glance at the gratings, sometimes with bent head and lips compressed.
My heart began singing as I watched her. Surely, here was aid for us—for one of us at all events.
The early winter night fell, darkening our cells and the corridor outside; anon I heard Bishop bawling for candle and box, and I looked out of my grating into the darkening corridor, where the thief-taker was stumping along the entry bearing an empty candle-stick. Mrs. Bishop followed with the baby; she and her husband had fallen to disputing in strident tones, charging each other with the loss of the candles. As they passed my cell I moved back; then, as I heard their voices growing fainter and fainter down the corridor, I stepped swiftly forward and pressed my face to the grating. Dulcima Bishop stood within two feet of my cell.
"Will you speak to me?" I called, cautiously.
"La! Is it you, sir?" she stammered, all a-tremble.
"Yes; come quickly, child! There, stand with your back to my cell. Are you listening?"
"Do you still love Jack Mount?" I asked.
Her neck under her hair crimsoned.
"Will you help him?" I demanded, under my breath.
"Oh yes, yes," she whispered, turning swiftly towards my grating. "Tell me what to do, sir! I knew he was here; I saw him once in the 'Chapel,' but they boxed my ears for peeping—"
"Turn your back," I cut in; "don't look at my grating again. Now, listen! This is the 1st of January. We are to die at dawn on the 19th of April. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"You are to get us out, do you understand, child?"
"Yes—oh yes, yes! How, Mr. Cardigan? Tell me and I'll do it; truly, I will!"
"Then go to Jack's cell and let him talk to you. And have a care they do not catch you gossiping with prisoners!"
The girl glanced up and down the corridor; a deeper wave of red stained her face, but already I heard Mount calling her in a cautious voice, and she went, timidly, with lowered eyes.
I laid my ear to the grating and listened; they were whispering, and I could not hear what they said. Once an echoing step in the entry sent the girl flying across the corridor into her room, but it was only a night keeper on his rounds, and he went on quickly, tapping the lock of each cell as he passed. When the glimmer of his lanthorn died away in the farther passages, the girl flew back to Mount's grating. I listened and watched for a sign of Bishop and his wife.
"Jack," I called out in a low voice, "tell her to find Shemuel if she can."
"Quiet, lad," he answered; "I know what is to be done."
Before I could speak again, a distant sound warned the girl to her room once more; presently Bishop came stumping back, holding a lighted candle and still disputing with his slattern wife.
"You did! I tell you I seen you!" he grunted. "You left them candles in the wood-box."
"Well, why didn't you say so before you tore up all the parcels?" demanded his wife, shrilly.
"Oh, quit your nagging!" he snarled. "All the rogues in the prison will be laughing at you!"
"Let 'em laugh! Let 'em laugh!" she panted, waddling along furiously beside him; "I can't help it. I know I married a fool. Bishop, you're a fool, and you know it, and everybody knows it, so don't pick on me, for I won't have it!"
I saw the termagant as she passed my door, tagging after the thief-taker, who looked surly enough, but evidently was no match for the dirty shrew at his heels. How pitiful and petty their anger to a man in the shadow of death! But their wrangling voices were presently shut out as their door slammed. I waited a while, but heard nothing more, so took myself off to the corner, there to lie on my iron cot and try to think.
A young moon hung over King's Chapel, shedding a tremulous light on the snowy parade. Very dimly I could make out the tall shapes of eight gibbets, stark and black against the starry sky. There was no wind; the pendent bundles of bones and chains which hung from each gibbet did not sway as they had swayed that morning in a flurry of wind-driven snow, while the brazen drums of the marines played eight souls into hell eternal.
I watched the stars, peacefully, thinking of the stars that lighted our misty hills in Johnstown; I thought of Silver Heels and my love for her, and how, by this time, she must deem me the most dishonourable and craven among men. I thought of this calmly; long since I had weathered the storms of grief and rage impotent, which had torn me with their violence night after night as I lay in chains in the "Chapel."
No; all would yet be well; some day I should hold her in my arms. All would be well; some day I should hold the life of Walter Butler on my sword's point, and send his red soul howling! Yes, all would be well—
A ray of light fell on my face; I turned and sat up on the edge of my cot as the key in the cell door gritted.
Full under the flare of a lanthorn stood a man in a military uniform of scarlet and green. Behind him appeared Warden Bishop, holding the lanthorn.
"This is the Weasel, sir," he said, "at least he goes by that name, although the Weasel I have chased these ten years was a different cut of a rogue. But it's all one, captain; he was took with Jack Mount, and he'll dance a rope-jig the 19th of April next."
"Why not sooner?" asked the officer, gravely.
I started, quivering in every limb.
"Why not hang him sooner?" inquired Walter Butler, moving back a step into the corridor. He limped as he walked and leaned on a cane. My mark was still upon him.
"Well, sir," said Bishop, scratching his ears, "we hung eight coast-scrapers in November, and two sheep-thieves in December. We've got three pickpockets to swing this month, then Symonds, the wharf-robber, is to go in February. There's no room in March either, because the Santa Cruz gang goes up the 13th—seven o' them in chains—and the gallows yonder ain't dropped last year's fruit yet, and the people hereabouts complains o' the stench of a hot day and a south wind—"
"Can't he change places with some other rogue?" interrupted Butler, impatiently.
"Lord, no!" cried Bishop, horrified. "Leastways, not unless the court-martial directs it, sir. They don't do no such things in Boston, sir."
"They do in Tryon County," observed Butler, eying me coolly. Presently a ghastly smile stretched his pallid face, but his yellow eyes glared unchanging.
"Well, well," he said, "so you are to sail to glory at a rope's end, eh? You wouldn't burn, you know. But the flames will come later, I fancy. Eh, Mr.—er—Mr. Weasel?"
"Are your broken bones mended?" I asked, quietly.
"Quite mended, thank you."
"Because," I said, "you will need them some day—"
"I need them now," he said, cheerfully; "I am to wed a bride ere long. Give me joy, Weasel! I am to know the day this very night."
I could not utter a sound for the horror which froze my tongue. He saw it; fastened his eyes on my face, and watched me, silent as a snake with its fangs in its paralyzed prey.
"Would you care to see the famous Jack Mount, captain?" asked Bishop, swelling with pride. "I took him myself, sir. All the papers had it—I have the cuttings in my room; I can fetch them, sir—"
Butler did not appear to hear him.
"Yes," he continued, thoughtfully, "I ride this night to Lexington. She's a sweet little thing—a trifle skinny, perhaps. I think you have seen her—perhaps picked her pocket. When we are wed we shall come to Boston—on the 19th of April next."
I sprang at him; I had gone stone-blind with rage, and knew not what I did; the steel door crashed in my face; the locks rattled.
Outside the door I heard Butler's cool voice, continuing: "But if she pleases me not, to-night, I may change my mind and take her for my mistress—as Sir William took your aunt—as my friend General Gage has taken your old sweetheart, Mrs. Hamilton. One wench is like another in silken petticoats. Sleep soundly, Master Weasel. If I find her too thin for my taste I'll leave her for Dunmore."
All that night I lay on the stone floor of my cell, by turns inert, stupid, frantic.
When Bishop came to me in the morning he thought me ill and summoned the prison apothecary to cup me; but ere that individual appeared with his pills and leeches, I was quiet and self-possessed, ready to argue with the pill-roller and convince him I needed no nostrums. All that day I watched for Dulcima; twice I saw her go to Mount's cell, but could hear nothing of what they whispered.
Now as I was standing, looking out of the grating, I chanced to glance down, and saw that the apothecary had left his case of herbs and drugs on a bench which stood just outside my cell door.
Idly I read the labels on the bottles and boxes: "Senna, Jalap, Brimstone, Es. Cammomile, Saffron Pills, Tinc. Opium—"
Opium? An easy death.
I gazed at the dark flask, scarcely a foot below me, but as safe from me as though under lock and key. Presently I turned around; my cell contained a cot, an iron table, a bowl for washing, and a towel.
After a moment's thought I caught up the coarse towel, drew from it some threads, twisted them, tied on more threads, and then, greasing the cord with a bit of soap, made a running noose at the end.
There was nobody in the corridor. I heard voices in Bishop's room, whither the apothecary had gone to examine the baby at Mrs. Bishop's summons. Very carefully I let down my thread, fishing for the bottle's neck with my slip-noose; but the neck was so placed that I could not snare it, and I drew up another bottle instead, bearing the label: "Ex. S. Nigrum."
What Ex. S. Nigrum might be I did not know, but hid the tiny flask under a loose fragment of stone in my flooring where a black beetle had his abode. Scooping out for it a little hole in the damp earth, I buried it, not harming my friend the beetle; then I returned to fish for my opium flask, but could not snare it. Finally I drew in my string just as the apothecary came out with Mrs. Bishop at his heels.
He stood a moment, talking, then picked up his cow-hide case, closed it, and took himself off.
That night, when the corridor was dusky and Bishop sprawled outside his door to smoke his evening pipe, I called to him and asked him for a jug of water. He fetched it and seemed disposed to linger and chat a bit, but I was uncommunicative, and presently he left me to my own devices, lighting the lanthorn in the corridor ere he retired to his room with his long pipe.
I now unearthed my flask containing the Ex. S. Nigrum, poured a single drop into my basin, filled it up with water, and then returned the flask to its hiding-place.
"We shall see," I muttered, "whether there be any virtue of poison in my Nigrum," and I caught the poor little black beetle who had come out to enjoy the lamplight.
Now as the drop of Ex. S. Nigrum had been diluted many hundreds of times by the water in my bowl, I argued that, if this solution dealt death to the beetle, a few drops, pure, would put Jack Mount and me beyond the hangman's hands.
Poor little beetle! how he struggled! I was loath to sacrifice him, but at last I dropped him into the bowl.
He did not swim; I watched him for a moment, and finally touched him. The little thing was stone dead.
That I had a terrible and swift poison in my possession I now believed; and my belief became certainty when the apothecary came next day in a panic, crying out to Bishop that he had lost a flask of nightshade syrup, and feared lest the infant might find it and swallow the poison.
I watched Bishop and his wife rummaging their rooms in a spasm of panic, and finally saw them go off with the puling pill-roller to report the loss to the head warden.
Later that day a turnkey searched my cell, but did not see the cracked corner of the stone slab, which I covered with one foot.
When all was quiet, I called to Dulcima and bade her tell Jack Mount that I had the poison and would use it on us both if we could not find other means to escape the gallows.
The poor child took the message, and presently returned, wiping her tears, to say that Jack had every hope of liberty; that I must not despair or take the life which no longer was at my own disposal, and that she, Dulcima, had already communicated with Shemuel.
She handed me a steel awl, telling me to pick at the mortar which held the stones on my window-ledge, and to fill these holes with water every night, so that the water might freeze and crack the stones around the base of the steel bars.
I had never thought of such a thing! I had often seen the work of frost on stones, but to take advantage of nature in this manner never occurred to me.
Eagerly and cautiously I set to work with my little steel pick, to drill what holes I might before Bishop came. But it was heart-breaking labour, and so slow that at the end of a week I had not loosened a single bar.
The next week the weather was bitterly cold. I had drilled some few holes around the base of an iron stanchion, and now I filled them with water and plugged them with a paste of earth from beneath my flooring, threads from my towel, and some soap.
At dawn I was at my window, and to my delight found the stone cracked; but the iron bar was as firm as ever, so I set to drilling my holes deeper.
At the end of that week Dulcima let me know that Jack had loosened one bar of his window, and could take it from its socket whenever I was ready. So I worked like a madman at my bar, and by night was ready to charge the holes with water.
It was now the middle of March; a month only remained to us in which to accomplish our liberty, if we were to escape at all.
That night I lay awake, rising constantly to examine my work, but to my despair the weather had slowly changed, and a warm thaw set in, with rain and the glimmer of distant lightning. In vain I worked at my bar; I could see the dark sky brighten with lightning; presently the low mutter of thunder followed. An hour later the rain fell hissing into the melting snow in the prison yard.
I sent word to Mount that I could not move my bar, but that he must not wait for me if he could escape from the window. He answered that he would not stir a peg unless I could; and the girl choked as she delivered the message, imploring me to hasten and loose the bar.
I could not do it; day after day I filled the cracks and holes, waiting for freezing weather. It rained, rained, rained.
Weeks before, Mount had sent the girl to seek out Mr. Foxcroft and tell him of my plight. I also had sent by her a note to Silver Heels.
The girl returned to report that Mr. Foxcroft had sailed for England early in November, and that nobody there had ever heard of a Miss Warren in Queen Street.
Then Butler's boast came to me, and I sent word to Shemuel, bidding him search the village of Lexington for Miss Warren. I had not yet heard from him.
Meanwhile Mount communicated, through Dulcima, with the Minute Men's Club, and already a delegation headed by Mr. Revere had waited on Governor Gage to demand my release on grounds of mistaken identity.
The Governor laughed at them, asserting that I was notorious; but as the days passed, so serious became the demands from Mr. Revere, Mr. Hancock, and Mr. Otis that the Governor sent Walter Butler to assure these gentlemen that he knew Mr. Cardigan well, and that the rogue in prison, who pretended to that name, was, in fact, a notorious felon named the Weasel, who had for years held the highway with the arch-rogue, Mount.
At this, Shemuel came forward to swear that Mr. Butler and I were deadly enemies and that Butler lied, but he was treated with scant ceremony, and barely escaped a ducking in the mill-pond by the soldiers.
Meanwhile Mr. Hancock had communicated with Sir John at Onondaga, and awaited a reply to his message, urging Sir John to come to Boston and identify me.
No reply ever came, nor did Sir John stir hand or foot in my behalf. Possibly he never received the message. I prefer to think so.
Matters were at this pass when I finally gave up all hope of loosening my window bars, and sent word to Jack Mount that he must use his sheets for a cord and let himself out that very night. But the frightened girl returned with an angry message of refusal from the chivalrous blockhead.
The next day it was too late; Bishop's suspicions somehow had been aroused, and it took him but a short time to discover the loosened bars in Jack Mount's cell.
How the brute did laugh when he came on the work accomplished. He searched Mount's cell, discovered the awl and a file, shouted with laughter, summoned masons to make repairs, and, still laughing, came to visit me.
I had not dared to leave my poison-flask in the hole under the stone. What to do with it I did not know; but, as I heard Bishop come chuckling towards my cell, I drove the glass stopper into the flask firmly as I could, then, wiping it, placed it in my mouth, together with the small gold ring I had bought in Albany, and which I had, so far, managed to conceal.
It was a desperate move; I undressed myself as he bade me, and sat on my bed, faint with suspense, while Bishop rummaged. He found the hole where I had hidden the flask. The awl lay there, and he pouched it with a chuckle.
When Bishop had gone, I drew the deadly little flask from my mouth, trembling, and chilled with sweat. Then I placed it again in its hiding-place, hid the ring in my shoe, and dressed slowly, brushing my shabby clothes, and returning the pockets and flaps which Bishop in his careful search had rifled. He did not search my cell again.
And now the days began to run very swiftly. On the 18th of April, towards five o'clock in the evening, a turnkey, passing my cell, told me that General Gage was in the prison with a party of ladies, and that he would doubtless visit my cell. He added, grimly, that the death-watch was to be set over us in an hour or two, and that, thereafter, I could expect no more visitors from outside until I held my public reception on the gallows.
Laughing heartily at his own wit, the turnkey passed on about his business, and I went to the grating to listen and look out into the twilight of the corridor.
Mrs. Bishop, whose sick baby was squalling, lighted the lanthorn above the door of her room, and retired, leaving me free to converse with Mount.
"Jack," I called, hoarsely, "the death-watch begins to-night."
"Pooh!" he answered, cheerfully. "Wait a bit; there's time to cheat a dozen gibbets 'twixt this and dawn."
"Yes," said I, bitterly, "we can cheat the hangman with what I have in this little flask."
"You must give it to the girl," he said. "She will flavour our last draught with it if worst comes to worst. She will be here in a moment."
At that instant I caught sight of Dulcima Bishop, her cloak all wet with rain, passing quickly along the corridor towards Mount's cell; and I called her and gave her my flask, glad to have it safe at least from the search which the death-watch was certain to make.
The poor child turned pale under the scarlet hood of her witch-cloak when I bade her promise to serve us with a kinder and more honourable death than the death planned for us on the morrow.
"I promise, sir," she said, faintly, raising her frightened white face, framed by the wet cloak and damp strands of hair. She added timidly: "I have a knife for—for Jack—and a file."
"It is too late for such things," I answered, quietly. "If it is certain that you cannot get the keys from your father, there is no hope for us."
Her face, which in the past month had become terribly pinched and thin, quivered; her hands tightened on the edge of the grating. "If—if I could get the keys—" she began.
"Unless you do so there is no hope, child."
There was a silence; then she cried, in a choking voice: "I can get them! Will that free Jack? I will get the keys; truly, I will! Oh, do you think he can go free if I open the cell?"
"He has a knife," I said, grimly; "I have my two hands. Open the cells and we will show you."
She covered her eyes with her hands. Jack called to her from his grating; she started violently, turned and went to him.
They stood whispering a long time together. I paced my cell, with brain a-whirl and hope battering at my heart for the admittance I craved to give. If she could only open that door!—that rusted, accursed mass of iron, the very sight of which was slowly crushing out the last spark of manhood in me!
"Are you listening?" whispered Dulcima at my grating again.
"Yes," I answered.
"Watch our door at seven to-night!" she said. "Be ready. I will open your door."
"I am ready," I answered.
At that moment the sound of voices filled the corridor; the girl fled to her room; a dozen turnkeys shuffled past, bowing and cringing, followed by Collins, the chief warden, an old man whom I had not before seen. Then came a gentleman dressed in a long dark cloak which hung from twin epaulettes, his scarlet and gold uniform gleaming below. Was that the Governor?
He passed my cell, halted, glanced around, then retraced his steps. After a moment I heard his voice distinctly at some distance down the corridor; he was saying:
"The highwaymen are here, Mrs. Hamilton—if—if you would care to see them."
I sat up in my cot, all a-tremble. Far down the corridor I heard a woman laughing. I knew that laugh.
"But," persisted the Governor, "you should really see the highwaymen, madam. Trust me, you never before beheld such a giant as this rogue, Jack Mount."
The voices seemed to be receding; I sprang to my grating; the Governor's bland voice still sounded at some distance down the passage; Mrs. Hamilton's saucy laughter rang faintly and more faintly.
Half a dozen keepers were lounging just outside of my cell. I summoned one of them sharply.
"Tell General Gage that Mrs. Hamilton knows me!" I said. "A guinea for you when she comes!"
The lout stared, grinned, and finally shambled away, pursued by the jeers of his comrades. Then they turned their wit against me, begging to know if I had not some message for my friends the Grand Turk and the Emperor of China.
I waited in an agony of suspense; after a long time I knew that the keeper had not delivered my message.
In the fierce returning flood of despair at the loss of this Heaven-sent chance for life, I called out for Bishop to come to me; I struck at the iron bars until my hands were bathed in blood.
At length Bishop arrived, in a rage, demanding to know if I had lost my senses to create such an uproar when his Excellency, Governor Gage, had come to inspect the prison.
In vain I insisted that he take my message; he laughed an ugly laugh and refused. Mrs. Bishop, whose infant was now very sick, came out, wrapped in her shawl, carrying the baby to the prison hospital for treatment, and a wrangle began between her and Bishop concerning supper.
My words were lost or ignored; Bishop demanded his supper at once, and his wife insisted that she must take the child to the hospital. The precious moments flew while they stood there under my grating, disputing and abusing each other, while the sick child wailed ceaselessly and dug its puny fingers into the sores on its head.
Presently a keeper passed, saying that the Governor wished to know what such indecent noise meant; and Bishop, red with rage, turned on his wife and cursed her ferociously until she retreated with the moaning child.
"Draw me a measure o' buttry ale; d'ye hear, ye slut?" he growled, following her. "If I'm to eat no supper till you get back, I'll want a bellyful o' malt to stay me!"
But Mrs. Bishop waddled on contemptuously, declaring she meant to go to the hospital, and that he could die o' thirst for aught she cared.
Dulcima, who stood in her doorway across the corridor, watched the scene stolidly. Bishop turned on her with an oath, and ordered her to draw his evening cup; she unhooked the tankard which hung under the lanthorn, hesitated, and looked straight at her father. He gave her a brutal shove, demanding to know why she dawdled while he thirsted, and the girl moved off sullenly, with flaming cheeks and eyes averted.
When she returned from the buttry I saw the warden take the frothing tankard, brush the foam away with his forefinger, and drain the measure to the dregs.
He handed the empty tankard to his daughter, smacking his lips with a wry face, and drawing the back of his hand across his chin. Then he became angry again.
"Ugh!" he muttered; "the ale's spoiled! What's in it, you baggage?" he demanded, suddenly swinging around on his daughter. "Draw me a cider cup to wash this cursed brew out o' me!"
There was a crash. The girl had dropped the tankard at her feet.
Quick as a flash Bishop raised his hand and dealt his daughter a blow on the neck that sent her to her knees.
"Break another pot and I'll break your head, you drab!" he roared. "Get up or I'll—"
He choked, gasped, lifted his shaking hand to his mouth, and wiped it.
"Curse that ale!" he stammered; "it's sickened me to the bones! What in God's name is in that brew?"
He turned and pushed open his door, lurching forward across the threshold with dragging feet. A moment later Dulcima passed my cell, her trembling hands over her eyes.
I went to my cot and lay down, face buried, teeth set in my lip. A numbness which at moments dulled the throbbing of my brain seemed to settle like chains on every limb.
Dully I waited for the strokes of the iron bell sounding the seventh hour; a lassitude crept over me—almost a stupor. It was not despair; I had long passed that; it was Hope, slowly dying within my body.
A few moments afterwards a strange movement inside my cell aroused me, and I opened my hot eyes.
In the dusk I saw the figure of a man seated beside my cot; peering closer, I perceived his eyes were fixed steadily on me. I sat up on my bed and asked him what he desired.
He did not answer. A ray of candle-light stealing through the barred window fell on the bright barrel of a pistol which lay across his knees.
"What do you wish?" I repeated, the truth dawning on me. "Can you not watch me from the corridor as well as in my cell?"
There was no reply.
Then at last I understood that this gray shape brooding there at my bedside was a guard of the death-watch, pledged never to leave me, never to take his eyes from me for an instant until the warden of the prison delivered me into the hands of the sheriff on the morrow for my execution.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! The prison bell was at last striking the seventh hour. I lay still in my blanket, counting the strokes which rang out in thin, peevish monotony, like the cracked voice of a beldame repeating her petty woes.
At the last jangle, and while the corridor still hummed with the thin reverberations, I rose and began to pace my narrow cell, head bent on my breast, but keeping my eyes steadily on the grating.
The guard of the death-watch observed me sullenly. I drank from my pot of water, bathed my feverish face, and walked to the grating.
The lanthorn above Bishop's doorway burned brightly; the corridor was quiet. No sound came from Mount's cell. I could hear rain drumming on a roof somewhere, that was all.
Bishop was due at seven o'clock to inspect our bolts and bars; he had always arrived punctually. I watched his door. Presently it occurred to me that I had not seen Bishop since six o'clock when he had gone into his room, cursing the ale which his daughter had fetched him. This was unusual; he had never before failed to sit there on his threshold after supper, smoking his long clay pipe, and blinking contentedly at our steel bolts.
Minute after minute passed; behind me I heard my guard beating a slight tattoo with his heavy boots on the stones.
Suddenly, as I stood at my grating, I saw Dulcima Bishop step from the warden's door, close it behind her, and noiselessly lock it on the outside. The light of the lanthorn fell full on her face; it was ghastly. The girl stood a moment, swaying, one hand on the door; then she made a signal towards Mount's cell; and the next instant I saw Jack Mount bound noiselessly into the corridor. He caught sight of me, held up a reddened, dripping knife, pointed to my cell door, and displayed a key.
Instantly I turned around and sauntered away from the grating towards my tumbled bed. As I passed the death-watch, he rose and walked over to the outer window where my pot of water stood to cool.
Eying me cautiously he lifted the jug and drank, then set the pot back and silently resumed his seat, laying his pistol across his knees.
How was I to get at him? If Mount made the slightest noise in the corridor, the guard was certain to go to the grating.
Pretending to be occupied in smoothing out my tumbled bedding, I strove to move so that I might get partly behind him, but the fellow's suspicions seemed to be aroused, for he turned his head as I moved, and watched me steadily.
To spring on him meant to draw his fire, and a shot would be our undoing. But whatever I did must be done now; I understood that.
As I hesitated there, holding the blanket in my hands as though I meant to fling it on the bed again, the lamp in the corridor suddenly went out, plunging my cell in darkness.
The guard sprang to his feet; I fairly flung my body at him, landing on him in a single bound, and hurling him to the stone floor.
Instantly the light of the lanthorn flooded my cell again; I heard my iron door opening; I crouched in fury on the struggling man under me, whose head and arms I held crushed under the thick blanket. Then came a long, silent struggle, but at last I tore the heavy pistol from his clutch, beat him on the head with the steel butt of it until, through the blanket over his face, red, wet stains spread, and his straining chest and limbs relaxed.
Pistol in hand, I rose from the lifeless heap on the floor, and turned to find my cell door swinging wide, and Dulcima Bishop watching me, with dilated eyes.
"Is he dead?" she asked, and broke out in an odd laugh which stretched her lips tight over her teeth. "Best end him now if he still lives," she added, with a sob; "death is afoot this night, and I have done my part, God wot!"
I struck the man again—it sickened me to do it. He did not quiver.
She lifted the lanthorn from the floor and motioned me to follow. At the end of the corridor Mount stood, wiping his reeking knife on the soft soles of his moccasins.
"The trail's clear," he whispered, gayly; "now, lass, where is the scullions' stairway? Blow out that light, Cardigan! Quiet, now—quiet as a fox in the barn! Give me your hand, lass—and t'other to the lad."
The girl caught me by the arm and blew out the light, then she drew me into what seemed to be an impenetrable wall of darkness. Groping forward, I almost fell down a steep flight of stone steps which appeared to lead into the bowels of the earth. Down, down, then through a passage, Mount leading, the girl fairly dragging me off my feet in her excitement, and presently a wooden door creaked open, and a deluge of icy water dashed over me.
It was rain; I was standing outside the prison, ankle-deep in mud, the free wind blowing, the sleet driving full in my eyes.
"Oh, this is good, this is good!" muttered Mount, in ecstasy, spreading out his arms as though to take the world to his sick heart once more. "Smell the air, lad! Do you smell it? God! How sweet is this wind in my throat!"
The girl shivered; her damp, dishevelled hair blew in her face. She laid one shaking hand on Mount's wet sleeve, then the other, and bowed her head on them, sobbing convulsively.
Mount bent and kissed her.
"I swear I will use you kindly, child," he said, soberly. "Come, lass, gay! gay! What care we for a brace o' dead turnkeys? Lord, how the world will laugh at Billy Bishop when they hear I stole his girl, along with the prison keys! Laugh with me, lass! I mean honestly and kindly by you; I'm fit for a rope at the gibbet's top if I use you ill!"
"Would—would you truly wed me?" she stammered, raising her white face to his.
He swore roundly that he would wed her and end his days in serving her on his marrow-bones for gratitude.
And, as he made his vow, a startling change passed over her face; she laughed, turned her bright, feverish eyes on us with a reckless toss of her head, and drew the poison-flask from her bosom.
"You think," she said, "that we no longer need this little friend to sorrow? You are wrong!"
And, ere Mount or I could move, she raised the tiny flask betwixt forefinger and thumb, and dropped the dark scarlet contents between her teeth.
"I drink to your freedom, Jack," she said, blindly, reeling into Mount's arms. "Your—freedom—Jack," she gasped, smiling; "my father drank to it—in ale. He lies dead on the floor of it. All this—for—for your freedom, Jack!"
Mount was kneeling in the mud; she lay in his arms, the sleet pattering on her upturned face.
"For your freedom," she murmured, drowsily—"a maid must burn in hell for that. I burn, I burn! Oh, the fire in me, Jack!"
Her body writhed and twisted; her great bright eyes never left his. Presently she lay still. A moment later the prison bell broke out wildly through the storm, and a gunshot rang from the north guard-house.
We placed the dead child under a tree in the new grass, and covered her face with willow branches, all silky with the young buds of April. Then, bending almost double, we ran south along the prison wall, turning west as the wall turned, and presently came to the wooden fence of King's Chapel.
Mount gained the top of the fence from my shoulders, and drew me up. Then we dropped.
There were lights moving in Governor's Alley and the mews; through the sleet great snow-flakes whirled into the slush of the filthy street. The prison bell rang frantically behind us.
"It's the alarm, Jack!" I whispered.
He gave me a dull look, then shivered in his wet buckskins.
"She can't lie out there in the sleet," he muttered, blood-shot eyes roving restlessly in the darkness. "I am going back!"
"For God's sake, don't do that!" I begged; but he cursed me and brushed me aside.
Back over the wall he dropped. I started to follow, but he shoved me roughly and bade me mind my own concerns.
I leaned against the foot of the wall; the sleet pelted me; I bared my throat to it. After a while I heard Mount's labouring breath on the other side of the wall, and I climbed up to aid him.
He held the dead child in his arms; I took the body from him; he climbed over, and received it again, bearing it as though it were but a snow-flake's weight in his great arms.
"Go you and find a pick and spade in the mews, yonder," he said. There was a fixed stare in his eyes that alarmed me. "Damn you," he said, "it is the least we can do!"
"Jack," I said, "we cannot stay here to be taken again! You cannot bury her now; the ground is frosted; people will hear us!"
He glared at me, then swung his heavy head right and left. The next moment he started running through the storm, cradling the burden in his arms. I followed, not knowing what he meant to do.
At the King's Chapel gate he turned in along a dim gravel path, hedged with dripping box. Around us lay the headstones of the dead, with here and there a heavy tomb looming up in the storm around us.
For a moment he halted, peering about him. A square white sepulchre surmounted a mound on his right; he motioned me to hold the dead child and stepped forward, laying his hands on the slab. Then, with a heave of his powerful back, he lifted the huge stone, laying open the shadowy sepulchre below.
Again he took the dead in his arms, wiped the rain-drops from the face, laid the limp form in the sepulchre, and smoothed the clothing. Together we replaced the slab; it taxed all my strength to lift one end of it. The bell of the prison clanged frantically.
Mount stood back, breathing heavily, hands hanging. I waited in silence.
"What a little thing she was!" he muttered; "what a child—to—do—that! Do you think she will lie easy there?"
"Yes," I said.
At the sound of my voice Mount roused and turned sharply to me.
"The thief and the thief-taker's daughter!" he whispered, with a ghastly laugh. "They'll make a book of it—I warrant you!—and hawk it for a penny in Boston town!"
He touched the slab, all glistening with sleet, gripped the edge of the sepulchre, turned, and shook his fist at the prison. Then, quietly passing his arm through mine, he led the way out of the chapel yard, guiding me between the soaking hedges to the iron gate, and so out into the black alley.
Almost immediately a man shouted: "Stop thief! Turn out the guard!" and a soldier, in the shadow of the wall, fired at us.
Mount glared at him stupidly, hands dangling; the soldier ran up to him and presented his bayonet, calling on us to give up.
The sound of his voice appeared to rouse Mount to fury; he seized the musket, wrenched it from the soldier, and beat him into the mud. Then swinging the weapon by the barrel, he knocked down two bailiffs who were closing in on us, and started after another, with a yell of rage.
"Jack! Jack!" I cried. "Are you mad? Follow me; quick! We can't stay here, you great fool!"
He heard me, halted, hurled the musket after his flying foe, and broke out into a harsh laugh.
"Come on, lad," he said. "I did but mean to warm my blood and purge it of the prison rust. Truly I think we must make for the purlieus till they lose our trail!"
Through reeking lanes, foul alleys, and muddy mews where gaunt dogs battled over scraps with gaunter children, we ran, or lurked to listen, shunning the bleared lanthorn-light, shining through the storm.
At times the horror of that flight even now appalls me—that flight through the starving town o' Boston, where old women mouthed at us with their scurvy-cankered gums; where, slinking along dead walls, we stumbled over old men patiently picking with skinny fingers in the rotted herbage for roots to stay their starved stomachs' craving; where, in doorways, naked children, with bellies bloated by famine, stared at us out of hollow eyes.
The town appeared to be alive with British soldiery; mounted pickets roved through the streets; parties of officers passed continually; squad after squad of marines crossed our path, and at first we thought that all this show of troops was due to us and our escape, the hour being late for so many troops to be abroad.
"There's something else in the wind," muttered Mount, as we hid in Belcher's Lane to avoid a party of dragoons; "all this pother is never made on our account. There's deviltry a-brewing, lad. We had best start for the 'Wild Goose.'"
Through the mud of Cow Lane, Flounder Mews, and Battery Marsh we crept on, on, along back roads and shiny lanes, then, alarmed by a galloping dragoon, we threaded the marshy alleys to the north, from Hancock's Wharf clear around the peninsula to Back Street and Link Alley.
From thence through Hog Alley and Frog Lane south towards the Neck, only to be frightened north once more by the mad gallop of dragoons, and so to hide in Mackerel Lane.
And I am minded, as I recall that night's skulking flight, of a bandy little watchman who, at the mere sight of us, did drop his lanthorn and make off, bawling for aid, until Jack came up with him and fetched him a clip which knocked him and his noisy rattle into the mud of Mackerel Lane.
We fled as though all Boston ran snapping at our shin-bones, and at last we turned, unmolested, into Green Lane, and so came in sight of the "Wild Goose Tavern." Then, as we dropped into a breathless trot and began to plod across Chambers Street, a man, standing in the shadow of a tree, started forward as we came up.
Mount halted and drew his knife, snarling like a jaded wolf.
"Mount! Cardigan!" cried the man.
"Paul!" exclaimed Mount, eagerly.
The goldsmith wrung our hands with a grip of iron.
"It is the beginning of the end," he said. "The Grenadiers are to march. I've a horse on the Charlestown shore. Gage has closed the gates on the Neck."
"What do the Grenadiers want?" asked Mount, all on fire again, fagged and exhausted as he was.
"They want the cannon and stores at Concord," replied Revere, in a low, eager voice. "I'm waiting for Clay Rolfe. If the Grenadiers march by land, Rolfe hangs a lamp in the steeple of the Old North; if they take boats, he hangs two lamps. I guess they mean to cross the bay. The boats have been moored under the sterns of the war-ships for a week. I've a good horse across the water; I'll have the country-folk out by daylight if the troops stir an inch to-night. Wait; there's Rolfe now!"
A dark cloaked figure came swiftly out of the mews, swinging two unlighted lanthorns. It was Clay Rolfe, our landlord at the "Wild Goose," and he grasped our hands warmly, laughing in his excitement.
"Your boatman is ready under Hunt's Wharf, Paul," he said. "You had best row across the bay while the rain lasts. It will clear before midnight, and the Somerset is moored close to the Lively to-night."
"Yes," said Revere, "I've no mind to run the fleet yonder under a full moon." And he offered his hand to us, one after another, giving our hands a terrific squeeze.
"Don't forget, Rolfe," he said—"one if by land; two if by sea!"
Rolfe turned to us.
"Gage has officers watching every road outside of Boston; but Paul will teach them how fast news can travel." He glanced at the sky; rain fell heavily. "It won't last," he muttered; "there'll be a moon to-night; Paul, you had best row across now. The oars are muffled."
They saluted us and walked rapidly down Green Lane, wrapped to the eyes in their riding-cloaks.
"If Shemuel is at the 'Wild Goose,'" I said, "perhaps he has news for me."
We entered the inn and found it deserted by all save a servant, who recognized us and bade us welcome.
"The Grenadiers are out to-night, sir," he said to me. "All our company has gone to join the Alarm Men at Lexington and Concord. There is not a soul here, sir, except me."
"Where is Shemuel?" I asked.
"He is watching the Province House, sir; General Gage entertains to-night. It is all a ruse to quiet suspicion, sir. But we know what is on foot, Mr. Cardigan!"
Mount had dropped into a chair; the rain dripped from the red thrums of his buckskins; his fox-skin cap was soaked. There was blood on his hands; the servant brought a basin and towel.
"God knows what will happen at Concord," he said; "Mr. Hancock has gone there; Mr. Revere is to ride through Middlesex to raise the farmers. Have you seen the dragoons, sir? They do be riding and capering about town, stopping all mounted travellers. They stopped the Providence coach an hour since, and there was a fight with the towns-people in Beacon Street. The tents of the marines are down on the Mall; some say the storm tore them down."
So gossiping, the lad served us with bread, cheese, pickled beef, and a noggin of punch, and we listened, tearing at our food, and gulping it like famished beasts o' the woods.
He brought me my clothes of buckskin, and I tore my rotten prison rags from me—alas! the shreds of that same silver-velvet suit which I had put on six months since, to wed with Silver Heels.
We stripped to the buff; the lad soused us well with steaming water and again with water like ice.
Mount encased his huge frame in his spare buckskins. I once more dressed in my forest dress, refreshed and fortified by food and water which seemed truly to wash away the prison taint from our skins as the hot bowl of spirits washed the stale prison cheer from within.
The lad brought us our arms, and I could have shouted aloud my joy as I belted in my knife, hatchet, and bullet-pouch, and flung my rifle across my shoulder.
"Where is my horse?" I asked. "Have you looked to him, lad? By Heaven, if aught of mischance has come to him—"
"The great black horse Warlock, sir?" cried the lad. "He is stabled in the mews, sir. Mr. Rolfe has had him cared for like a baby; the head groom takes him out every day, Mr. Cardigan, and the horse is all satin and steel springs, sir."
"Where is he? Get a lanthorn," I said, huskily.
A moment later, in the mews, I heard a shrill whinny, and the tattoo of shod hoofs dancing.
"Warlock!" I cried.
The next instant my arms were around his neck.