CHAPTER XXIV.
A BARRED WINDOW.
ow the next fortnight passed, Roy never afterwards could recall. He was sick and dazed with the shock he had had, grieving for Will Peirce, and all but hopeless. He had ceased to care for food, and, though he slept much, passing hours at a time in heavy doze, it was not the kind of sleep to rest him. Life at this time seemed awfully hard to live. Sometimes he envied little Will.
The Colonel, who had spoken to him that day, spoke to him again often when they met in the yard; and Roy was grateful, but he could not rouse himself. He had lost all interest in what went on around him. He hated the yard, and he always kept as far as possible from the spot where that terrible exposure had taken place.
His one longing was to know how the other poor boys in the hospital were; but accounts in that direction were uncertain and not to be relied upon.
About a fortnight later, one cold afternoon, he was leaning against the wall at the further end, hardly thinking, only drearily enduring. He became aware of a man coming across the yard, carrying a large basket, or hotte, piled up with loose wood—not a gendarme, but evidently one employed in the fortress on manual work.
Something about the fellow arrested Roy’s attention, though why it should be so Roy had no idea. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered and long-limbed, and he walked in a slouching manner. As he drew near the basket tilted over, raining the whole mass of wood at Roy’s feet.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Roy.
The man muttered something, and went slowly down upon his knees to pick up the wood. No one else was near. A body of prisoners had been that morning removed elsewhere, and the yard was not so full as usual. Roy, after a moment’s hesitation, good-naturedly bent to help; and as he did so, their faces came close together.
“Hist!” was whispered cautiously.
Roy started.
“Hist!”—again. “Does monsieur know me? But not a word—hist!”
Roy drew one quick breath. Then he picked up more pieces of wood, tossing them into the hotte. He cast another glance at the man, his whole being on the alert. In an instant he saw again the small French town, the crowd in front of the hôtel de ville, the released conscript, the old mother clinging to Denham’s hands, and Denham’s compassionate face. All was clear.
“Jean Paulet,” he breathed.
“Hist!”—softly.
“But—you are he?”
“Oui, M’sieu.”
Jean piled some of the wood together, with unnecessary fuss and noise.
“Will M’sieu not betray that he has seen me before? It is important.”
“Oui.”
Roy tossed two more bits of wood into the hotte. Then he stood up, yawned, and stared listlessly in another direction. After which he hung lazily over the hotte, as if to play with the wood, and under cover of it a touch of cold steel came against his left hand.
“Hist!”—at the same instant.
Roy grasped and slipped the something securely out of reach and out of sight, without a moment’s hesitation. His right hand still turned over the wood.
“Bon!” Jean murmured, making a considerable clatter. Then, low and clearly—“Listen! If M’sieu will file away the bar of his window—ready to be removed—I will be there outside, to-morrow night after dark. When M’sieu hears a whistle—hist! But truly this weight is considerable—oui, M’sieu—and a poor man like me may not complain.”
Jean hitched up the big hotte, now full, and passed on, grumbling audibly, while Roy strolled back to his former position. His heart was beating like a hammer, and he dreaded lest he might betray his change of mood in his face. To return to his former dejected attitude was not easy when new life was stirring in every vein; but he managed to shirk observation, and when two o’clock came it was a relief to be alone in his cell. He could safely there fling his arms aloft in a frenzy of delight.
If only little Will might have escaped with him! That thought lay as a weight of sorrow in his joy.
But there was little leisure for regrets. He had a task to accomplish in a given time, and it might not be an easy task. Many a time he had examined the stout iron bar wedged firmly in across the small window. If that could be taken out, he would be able to squeeze himself through; but to take out the bar, or at least to move it on one side, meant first to file nearly through it—quite through, indeed, for the noise of breaking it might not be risked. What might lie on the other side, down below, he could only guess, since the deep embrasure within, and the thickness of the wall without, prevented him from seeing.
The gendarmes visited him at stated intervals, and he could pretty well reckon upon their visits; yet he knew well that he was never secure against a sudden interruption at any moment. He had to work at the bar in a difficult and cramped position, supporting himself in a corner of the slanting embrasure and filing lightly, so that no sound should reach the ears of any passer-by outside, while his own hearing had to be incessantly strained towards the cell-door to catch the faintest intimation of anybody entering.
One narrow escape of detection he had. Absorbed in his toil, he failed to hear the first preliminary click of the lock, and the door began to open. Roy flung himself to the ground, reckless of bruises, and the noise of his fall was happily drowned in the creak of the door. When the gendarme entered, he found a sleepy prisoner, lying with head on folded arms. Roy wondered that the thumping of his heart did not betray him.
Thoughtful Jean had provided him with three files; and but for this the plan would have proved a failure. Two of them broke. The third held out to the end.
A good part of the night he worked, growing terrified lest the task should not be done in time. In the dark, by feeling instead of sight, silently and persistently, despite aching muscles, he kept on at it. His hands were strained and bleeding, and next day he had carefully to guard them from notice. In the morning he was again up in the embrasure—after the usual visit from a gendarme—filing, filing, softly and steadily. By mid-day he had worked his way through the heavy bar.
Roy stirred it cautiously. Yes, it yielded. The other end alone would not hold it firm. One good wrench, and it could be forced aside.
That was all he had now to do. The bar would have to remain in position till the last moment. He cleared away every speck of iron filing, and then he had to go into the yard. What if the gendarmes should examine the cell during his absence and find out what he had done? What if, any hour before night, they should take it into their heads to test the bar? What if, before Jean came, Roy himself should be removed elsewhere? Then came another question. What if his mother’s prayers were being answered?
And by-and-by the afternoon had waned away without any mischance, and the gendarme’s evening visit had been safely paid. Roy’s allowance of food lay upon the floor, the window had not been examined, and Roy was left alone for the night. He wisely disposed of the food, knowing that he would need all his strength. Then he waited, minute after minute, in a suspense hardly to be imagined, not to be described.
A slight faint whistle, close to the window.
In a moment Roy was up in the slanting embrasure, where for hours he had clung, getting through his task.
Jean’s hand met his, and together, noiselessly, they wrenched the bar aside.
“Hist! Be still as death!” whispered Jean.
Roy squeezed himself through the opening, Jean’s grasp steadying him. He found his feet to be resting on the topmost rung of a ladder. Jean whispered one or two directions, then himself went down and held it firm below while Roy followed. Little need was there to bid the boy be quiet in his movements. The slightest sound might betray them, destroying every hope of escape.
The moment Roy reached the bottom, Jean’s hand grasped his wrist and led him away. The ladder had to remain where it was. Its removal would have meant too great a risk. Roy could not see where they were, for pitch darkness surrounded them; but Jean moved with confidence, though with extreme care.
Soon they had to pass near a sentry, and a sharp challenge rang out. Roy’s heart leaped into his mouth, and Jean promptly replied with the password for the night. Veiled by the darkness, which was increased by a drizzling rain, they went by in safety.
The outer wall at length was gained—that same wall which the middies had reached in their attempted escape, though at a different part of it. Jean had chosen this mode of escape, not daring to take Roy under the eyes of sentries at the gates, where, despite his command of the password, the prisoner must almost inevitably have been found out.
In a quiet corner, where nobody was or seemed to be near, Jean drew down the end of a stout rope, already secured at the top of the wall, the loose end having been knotted up out of easy reach. This had been his doing after dark, before he went to Roy’s cell. With the help of the rope they made their way to the top, Roy first, Jean next, pulling it up after them, and lowering it on the other side. Then, together, they trusted their weight to it once more.
As they hung over the depth, Roy could not but recall the cold-blooded act of two or three weeks earlier and its dire consequences. If any man had obtained an inkling of Jean’s intentions, or had discovered the rope placed in readiness, the same tragedy might now be repeated on a smaller scale. One clear cut would do the business. He and Jean would fall heavily downward, and, in an instant, he too, like little Will, might be in that land where battles and dungeons and cruel separations are things of the past.
These thoughts came to Roy—unbidden—even while his whole attention was bent to the task of working himself, hand under hand, swiftly and noiselessly, down the rope. Already his hands were torn and strained, yet, under the excitement of the moment, he felt no pain.
The rope remained taut. There was no sudden yielding from above—no abrupt and helpless plunge earthward. He and Jean arrived in safety on firm ground.
Again Jean gripped his wrist.
“Now, M’sieu, hist!” he whispered; and as fast as might be, yet with extreme caution, avoiding even the sound of a footfall, they hurried away from that grim surrounding wall. Roy could not see in the darkness where they were, or whither they were going. He could only trust himself blindly to Jean’s guidance, and Jean seemed to be in no doubt. He never paused or faltered.
Running at full speed, then slackening for breath, running again, and halting anew, walking at a brisk swing, then breaking into a fresh race side by side, only to come to another short pause—so they passed the hours of that night. During the first twenty or thirty minutes extreme care was needful; and more than once Jean had to make use of the password, which he had somehow learnt. When once thoroughly away from Bitche, however, immediate discovery became less likely; and the chief aim then was to put as wide a space as possible between themselves and the fortress before morning. That was as much as Roy had in mind. Jean’s object was more definite, including arrival at a particular hiding-place within a given time; but at present he attempted no explanations.
So soon as Roy’s disappearance should become known, and the gendarmes should have started in pursuit, Roy’s danger—and, for the matter of that, Jean’s also—would be intensified a hundred-fold. At present they had a clear field, favoured by darkness and by the fact of a world mainly asleep.
Few words were spoken by either. While in the vicinity of Bitche even the lightest whisper meant a risk of being overheard; and when the fear lessened, breath and strength were too precious to be wasted.
Roy’s powers were severely taxed. Excitement kept him going. But he had slept and eaten little, and had worked hard, during the last thirty hours; and after six months without proper exercise, he was direfully out of training. His muscles had grown flabby, and he so soon began to pant as to become angry with himself. Still, he fought doggedly onward, making no complaint.
At first they followed by-paths or kept to fields for greater safety; but by-and-by Jean struck into the high road, and here advance was easier. It was unlikely that Roy would be missed before early morning; and, even if pursued now, they would see the approaching gendarmes before they could be seen, and to hide in the darkness would not be difficult.
As hour passed after hour, and still they made uninterrupted progress, Roy grew light of heart. Breathlessness, aching limbs, sharp cold, growing hunger—all these were as nothing compared with the fact that he was free! No stone walls, no iron-bound and padlocked doors, shut him ruthlessly in!
From time to time a brief halt became necessary, and Roy was allowed to fling himself flat on the icy ground for ten minutes, after which he could always start with redoubled energy.
“Wonder what happened to take you to Bitche, Jean?” he said, after one of these breaks.
“M’sieu, I had a friend at Bitche.”
“A gendarme! A soldier?” asked Roy, with quickness.
“Oui, M’sieu. Un soldat. M’sieu will perhaps refrain from putting many questions. It is a friend whom I have known from boyhood. He was taken, like others, in the conscription, and no kind Messieurs were at hand to help to buy him off. And his mother, M’sieu, his poor mother became imbécile.[1] La pauvre femme? See what might have come to my mother also, but for the goodness of ces Messieurs.”
“She became imbécile because he had to go to the war?”
“Oui, M’sieu. What wonder? For see—it was not a common parting. Hundreds, thousands, go thus, and never return. They vanish from their homes, and no more is heard of them. Here or there, far away, they have died and have been buried—hélas!—and that is the end.”
“A soldier’s end, Jean!” the boy said proudly.
“Oui, M’sieu. Sans doute. But not all men have a taste for soldiering. I myself, for one——”
“You didn’t want to fight?”
“I had no wish to leave my home, M’sieu. Of late, it is true, I have had other thoughts—some thoughts of entering the army, after all. Le petit Caporal is no such bad leader for a man to follow, when he is not held by ties which bind him down.”
“But your mother, what would she say? Would she be pleased? Did she mind your coming away now?”
“M’sieu, I have not left my mother. It is she that has left me. Le bon Dieu has called her away to another place.”
Roy gave one glance of sympathy, which he could not easily have put into words. He was forgetting himself, walking faster, and panting less. Jean saw that it might be well to encourage a little talking now and then.
“But till the last she had her Jean. And she was content. She did not die alone, forsaken and desolate. For that I shall be eternally grateful to ces deux Messieurs, that her last days were in peace.”
“I remember now, Jean, you said you would like some day to do something for my father and for Captain Ivor. Yes—I know—and this is for them. If they could thank you——”
“M’sieu, if I could thank them——” interjected Jean.
Then for a while they pressed on in silence.
Morning had begun to break, and they plodded forward still. Roy had pleaded for one more little break, for the boy was nearly at an end of his powers; but Jean refused.
“Courage, M’sieu! Courage! But a little farther, and we will rest. To stop here, if the gendarmes come quickly, would be fatal. Does M’sieu wish to be re-taken? See, the day dawns, and we have made good advance; but soon the gendarmes will scour the country round. And here, where could we hide, if overtaken? Courage! A little further yet!”
“All right,” panted Roy, dragging along his leaden-weighted limbs. “I’ll keep it up—as long as you wish. Wonder how many miles we’ve done.”
“Not so many as M’sieu would think. In the darkness one must walk with care.”
“And are we to hide all day?”
“Mais oui. It is safer to be in hiding than to journey on. There is a cottage in a wood, which belongs to a friend of mine, and he has made ready for our coming. A little way ahead still. The danger increases each minute. For if any man should see us now, and the gendarmes coming here should learn that we have lately passed—voyez-vous? Can M’sieu increase his speed?”
Roy made a vehement effort, and Jean grasped his arm, urging him along. Presently they neared the wood, and turned in thither, Jean’s look of anxiety lessening as the trees closed round them. He consented then to a slight relaxation of their pace, though reiterating his “Courage, M’sieu—one more half-hour, and the worst is done.”
The half-hour seemed a very long one to Roy.
“Eh bien, a little slower—oui—but we are nearly there, and M’sieu will be able to rest. At night-fall we shall start again, refreshed.”
“Will you come with me still? Jean, you are a good fellow!” gasped Roy.
“If I can see Monsieur safe off French ground, then I will let ces Messieurs know at Verdun, and it will gladden their hearts.”
“But what made you think of it? Did you come to Bitche only to see your friend?”
“M’sieu will not ask too many questions. No one at Bitche knew that we were friends. If M’sieu should be re-taken, it is well that he should know nothing.”
“You don’t think I’d betray you, Jean!”
“Non. But for the sake of M’sieu himself——”
“And I hope I’m not going to be re-taken.”
“The good God grant it, M’sieu.”
“Then you came there just to see him,” persisted Roy.
“Non. To see M’sieu.”
“You knew I was there?”
Jean assented.
“Who told you?” Roy was again interested, and walked the better for being so.
“M’sieu, it was a young lady—not English. She is French, and she lives under the same roof with Monsieur’s friends—le bon Colonel et Monsieur le Capitaine.”
“But how did she come across you?”
“I was at St. Mihiel, M’sieu.”
“I know. We drove there once, to see the place. My father had to pay a pretty big douceur, but we went.”
“Naturellement. St. Mihiel is but seven leagues from Verdun, and on the river. And this Demoiselle——”
“Mademoiselle de St. Roques——”
“M’sieu has the name—precisely. Mademoiselle de St. Roques had some affair in the place, claiming her attention; and she was there for some days. Mademoiselle and I chanced to meet—it matters not how at this moment—and when I learnt that she was from Verdun, I asked her, had she ever seen M. le Colonel and the tall Monsieur le Capitaine, and the young gentleman with them? Then she asked me questions, and I found that she knew them—ah, very well indeed, as M’sieu is aware. And she told me of M’sieu being sent to Bitche, and of the great trouble it was to those others.”
“Did she say—were they all well, Jean?”
“Monsieur le Capitaine had been ill. Mademoiselle de St. Roques said that doubtless it would make him well, and would comfort greatly Madame votre mère, could they but hear of your welfare. Then I said to Mademoiselle that I would myself go to Bitche, and would in time bring word of Monsieur to Verdun. And she emptied her pocket of all the money that she had—cette bonne Demoiselle—and said I might have what more I wanted, so that only I could bring word of Monsieur.”
“But Captain Ivor—what was wrong with him? Ill, you said.”
Jean discreetly did not repeat all that Lucille had said.
“Monsieur le Capitaine had fallen ill after his march from Valenciennes, and he was so troubled about Monsieur at Bitche, that it retarded his recovery, so Mademoiselle informed me. And I thought, if I might but compass Monsieur’s escape from that terrible Bitche, and could take word that he was gone to England, then Monsieur le Capitaine would have a light heart, and would grow strong once more.”
“Jean, you’re the best fellow that ever was!” muttered Roy. “Won’t they be glad!”
(To be continued.)
A GROUP OF GALLICIAN EGGS.