CHAPTER XLII. A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE, AND PREPARATIONS FOR ESCAPE.
“Arthur. Mercy on me!
Methinks, nobody should be sad but I; .
* * * By my Christendom,
So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I would be as merry as the day is long.”
King John.
Nearly a month had passed—a month of dreary captivity. It is true there was not a prisoner within the walls of San Sebastian who had less reason to complain, but still I felt myself a prisoner. Cammaran. as far as means allowed, anticipated every want. I was under no surveillance—the city was open to me—I wandered where I pleased—and every sentry I passed saluted me. The voltigeur was a general favourite,—the story of his deliverance had been told in the garrison, and even with more romance than had attended it; and every French soldier we passed pointed out the fosterer and myself as the preservers of a gallant comrade. If we met a group of officers, the moniteur, the cigar-case, or the snuff-box were hospitably presented to me; and could Mark Antony have drank “pottle deep,” he had only to turn into a French guard-house, and every flask it contained would have been placed at his disposal.
Such were my relations with the enemy; but the bearing of my host was sometimes hard to understand. It was professedly kind; but the manner was forced, and repulsive. His habits were retired—no overture to intimacy had been made—beyond the detached portion of his mansion where I had been located at the first, the rest of his domicile was to me a terra incognita. Of his establishment I had never seen but two—a particularly dark-visaged youth, with a cutthroat cast of countenance, and a woman of seventy who was deaf, or pretended to be deaf. Still, our wants wire carefully attended to, and at times Senhor Francisco asked after my health in a tone of voice that would lead a person to imagine the man was sincere in the inquiry.
“Upon my conscience,” observed the fosterer, as he presented himself one morning at my bed-side, “I have a fancy this house isn’t over good. If banshees played upon the fiddle, I would swear that I heard one these three last nights in the garden that we see behind the window of my room. Arrah—do you think the place was formerly a madhouse? Except Newgate—and, blessed be God, I can only spake of it from description, the devil a such a place for locks and bolts I was ever in before. Has the ould gentleman, do ye think, much money? Every window barred up like a watchhouse—but they would require, for all that, to be looked over, for I have managed to remove two of mine,—and if I live till to-night, I’ll have a walk in the garden.”
“No—no—Mark; that will never do. We must not intrude upon Don Francisco. He may have some secret to conceal.”
“Troth! and ye’r right,” returned the fosterer. “May be he has a private still at work, or does a little in the coining. But, faith, no matter—I’ll have a peep to-night. But if he’s forging notes, or making bad dollars, what can he want with the music?”
“Music!” I repeated.
“Yes; I hear a guitar every night, and two nights ago saw something very like a ghost—”
“Or rather very like your grandmother”—and I burst into a loud laugh.
“Oh—I knew you would make fun of me. Well—no matter. She was the height of Serjeant Antony, and he’s six-feet-six without his shoes—and as white as your own shirt—not, in truth, that that’s anything remarkable, for worse washerwomen than we meet with here you could hardly find if you were on the look-out for a fortnight. But there’s no use in talking. There’s a tall white woman parades the garden; and if I live till the old Don is fast asleep, I’ll be through the window, if I break my neck.”
I confess, that although I could not listen without a smile, to Mark Antony’s description of the lady-like spectre that honoured the garden with her presence, and then and there discoursed “most eloquent music;” I felt, notwithstanding, a more than common curiosity on the subject,—and while I reprobated the fosterer’s removal of the bars which obstructed his communication with the spot she haunted, as an act but slightly removed from burglary itself, still my scruples were easily overcome when he proposed that I should keep watch with him that night. The retreat was beaten in the fortress—supper-hour came—the host, as usual, presented himself, to make inquiry whether aught was wanted that had not been already provided—and then, after wishing us “Good night,” we saw him secure his gate, and retire to that portion of his premises, from which, with all the jealous reserve observed in an Eastern harem, we had been, as we were pleased to call it, inhospitably excluded.
“Well,” said Mark Antony, “I suppose the man intends to be civil, but he has the quarest way of showing it. Although it’s his own wine we’re drinking, the divil a drop he would ever take in company. Give me that Empecinado, after all! God forgive me! I did’nt value him at the time, as I should have done. What, though he had an offhand way of shooting Frenchmen and hanging justices of the peace, the moment the job was over he was as pleasant a gentleman as ever stretched a boot under mahogany, But as to this dark-looking divil—why, we’re here well on to a month, and he was never the person to say, ‘Mister O’Toole, have ye a mouth upon ye?’”
An hour passed—we finished a second flask of the surly Spaniard’s montilano—and the fosterer proposed, that while we apparently retired for the night we should extinguish the lamps, and then commence our vigil.
It was accordingly done—and, gliding into Mark Antony’s dormitory, we began our “watch and ward.”
An unbroken stillness permitted the slightest sound to be heard distinctly; and we therefore conversed in whispers. The contrast that night in San Sebastian presented to the day, was singularly imposing. The deafening roar of the allied batteries had ceased, and the city was wrapt in a calm but ominous tranquillity. Too distant from the breaches, we did not hear the working-parties, who sedulously employed the hours of darkness in erecting new defences, and restoring others which the daily fire of the besiegers had destroyed. Another hour passed—no guitar was heard—no sprite “wicked or charitable,’’ flitted past the casement. We heard the reliefs go round—the sentries changed—and all again was silent.
“All—Mark!—Mark!” I whispered in the fosterer’s ear—“The senhor’s montilano has been uppermost in your brain, I fancy, on these same night* when this musical apparition was afoot. Are you sure that your imaginary guitar was anything but wind whistling through the window?”
“By all the crosses in a highlandman’s kilt, the music I heard,” returned the fosterer; “but whether it was a guitar or a fiddle I’ll not take on me to swear. Stop—hush!—Holy Mary! If that’s not music, the divil an ear has Mark Antony!”
The fosterer was right. It was the distant tinkle of a stringed instrument—and at times I fancied that I heard voices talking in suppressed tones, and in the direction of that part of the building which senhor La Pablos had reserved so exclusively to himself.
“Now, Hector,” said the fosterer, “maybe you’ll call me drunk after this? What’s to be done? ‘Pon my conscience, I think Mister Pablos is anything but neighbourly, with his tea-party every evening, and not say to people who have done him the honour to take up their quarters in his house, Mr. O’Halloran, will you, and that young gentleman along with you, meaning myself, step over, in the family way, and take share of what we have?”
“Why, then, upon my soul, I think it is, Mark!” was my reply.
“Then I may as well take the loose bars out?” said the fosterer, suiting the action to the word—and before I could put in a feeble remonstrance, he established an aperture in the casement, through which any one of slighter dimensions than a common-councilman could easily slip out. “Hush!—the guitar again!”
“Ay—and by Saint Patrick! some company to listen to it!—Oh! the divil a one of me will remain longer without hwing a peep at the party, if I can.”—And as he spoke, the fosterer popped through the casement, and—I lament to make the confession—next moment I was after him.
We found ourselves in a small garden thickly planted with shrubs and fruit-trees, and encompassed by a lofty wall; several narrow walks intersected it, and the termination of one was bounded by a wing of the Spaniard’s domicile. Through a chink in the shutters, a stream of light escaped; and thither the fosterer moved silently, I bringing up the rear.
There was no doubt that from this apartment the voices and the music had proceeded which we heard in the fosterer’s dormitory. I peeped in. A party was grouped about a table covered with game, fruit, and wine—and a lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, enabled us to examine the company.
Five men were seated round the board, which was also graced by the presence of two personages of the softer sex. I never saw a party collected at a supper table whose appearances and pursuits were evidently so opposite. A burly monk sat directly in front of the treacherous fissure in the window-shutter. He was of no ascetic order; but a Christian man, on whom good fare was not thrown away; and, even if the lamp went out by accident, one on whose honour you could place reliance, and drink with in the dark. Two others of the party wore the costume, and had the general air, of Spanish traders. The fourth was a man of wild and formidable exterior; his arms, his dress, his bearing, all betrayed that his was no peaceable profession—and Mark Antony hinted, in a whisper, “that if the Empecinado had a brother in the world the dark gentleman with the pistols was the person, and no mistake.” The fifth was an English seaman—at least his costume and carriage would infer it. He seemed a fine athletic man, and, though his back was turned to the casement, the fosterer observed in an under-tone, that the sailor would thrash the company collectively.
In years and appearance the females were still more dissimilar than the men. One well advanced in life was tall, slight, deeply pockmarked, and generally forbidding. The other—she sate beside the priest—had scarcely numbered twenty summers, and on a lovelier face, a finer form, the eyes of two interloping Irishmen never peeped through a split in a window-shutter. “Och! murder!” ejaculated Mark Antony, sotto voce—“That’s the Ghost—and is’nt she a darling?”
One seat was unoccupied. To whom did it appertain? Our host, no doubt, and wherefore was he absent?
“What an ould troublesome thief he is!” whispered Mark Antony, pointing to the vacant chair. “Where the divil do ye think he’s scouting to? when every body’s asleep or better employed, as they are within. I only wish that we were of the company—Isn’t it a comfort to see his reverence set such an elegant example? How beautifully he raises his elbow—that’s what I call honour bright! No skylights, and he fills to the top every time the bottle passes him.”
“Hush! I thought I heard something move behind us.”’
“Well, upon my soul, I fancied, myself, that I heard a rustle in the bushes,” returned the fosterer—“If old surly is on the ramble, and drop upon us unawares, what a pretty figure we should cut!”
“Come, Mark, let us return to our old quarters; we risk the unpleasant consequences attendant on discovery, without any object to be found—”
“See—the sailor rises!—and the sooner we’re off the better. May God bless that pretty face of her’s—if I could not stop here all night to look at it; but, come along.”
We retired as quietly as we had advanced—the fosterer leading the retreat. No sound occasioned alarm—no ghost of Patagonian proportions crossed our path. We reached the lattice through which we had invaded Don Francisco’s garden. Mark Antony pepped his head and shoulders through the aperture; but never did a man withdraw both more rapidly. A dark-visaged Spaniard pointed a pistol from within, while, without, a person immediately at our elbow, in a low, but peremptory voice, ordered us “to stand.” The tones were perfectly familiar; indeed, there was no doubt touching the identity of the speaker, for Senhor La Pablos stepped from behind one of the thick shrubs.
[Original]
“So, gentlemen,” he commenced, while every word came hissing ironically from between his teeth—“Methought it was only Englishmen who were forced upon my unwilling hospitality. I was mistaken, it would seem, and appearances favoured the deception. I believed my house; was occupied by men of honour; but I have harboured French spies, it would appear.”
“Oh—stop—Mister Pablos, if you plase,” exclaimed the fosterer, “divil a bigger mistake ye ever made in yer life. Arrah—what puts that into yer head?”
“I judge men not by their assertions, but their acts,” returned the Spaniard coldly—
“Senhor,” I said, addressing the angry host, “you certainly have reason to question the motives of our midnight intrusion; but I declare, upon the honour of a British officer, it was entirely a silly trespass—one that I cannot justify, but one from which, towards you, no mischief was designed. Let it be overlooked, and I promise, that while we remain beneath your roof, we will confine ourselves to whatever portion of your premises it may be your pleasure to restrain us.”
“Captain O’llalloran,” returned the Spaniard, coldly, “whatever your intentions may have been, your conduct warrants me to draw very different conclusions than the motives you have been pleased to assign. The safety of myself—-my family—those who are connected with me—all require me to guard against treachery. True, it has rarely come concealed beneath an English uniform—and, I am half persuaded, you harboured no evil against me and mine; but you came here under a suspicious introduction. I am a devoted man, and now completely in your power. You have seen too much—and yet too little. In one brief sentence I speak your doom—a stern necessity compels me to be severe—cruel—if it please ye better. One course alone remains to be pursued; I must secure myself, my friends, my wife.”
“That’s her I took for the ghost,” said the fosterer, apart—“and the divil a foot I would have put into the garden but for the same lady.”
“Hush! Proceed, sir,” I answered.
“Nothing can make us safe, but death or deportation. Walk with me, sirs. ‘Twere idle to remonstrate here, or to refuse obedience to my order”—and, with the perfect confidence that he had made no statement which he could not effectually support, the Spaniard stalked on, and the fosterer and I followed.
“Well—Mr. O’Toole,” I said, as, like two convicted culprits, we sullenly retraced our steps. “A pretty kettle of fish you have made of it!”
“Oh!”—groaned the fosterer—“the game’s up. The curse of Cromwell light upon the country! Is’nt it hard that a man can’t slip out of a window to take a little air without having his throat cut?”
As he spoke we reached the extremity of the garden. La Pablos unclosed a door. We entered the same chamber where, two or three minutes since, we had witnessed a scene of social comfort. There the remnant of the supper stood—but the company were gone, and their places had been filled by personages of a very different, and a very dangerous exterior.
It was hard to define their appearance. Their garb was that of mariners; in all besides, they looked banditti. My impression was not singular,—for the fosterer, in a whisper, declared that, “compared with these villains, the guerillas were regular gentlemen.” All were armed—and I should say, there was not a member of this respectable community, who, like Friar Tuck, would hesitate on resorting to the “carnal weapon,” were it needed.
Our trial was shorter, even, than a drum-head court martial. Senhor Francisco stated the offence, and then simply inquired what the safety of the commonwealth demanded. The twelve judges were never so unanimous. In the multitude of counsellors there was but one opinion—and that, though differently expressed, resolved itself into one pithy adage, namely—that “dead men tell no tales.”
From the apparent character of those around me, I certainly considered that I should be defunct to a moral before morning; but Mark Antony boldly demurred to the sentence: and put forward the reasons why death and execution should be stayed; but as the fosterer’s plea involved a confused story about ghosts and music, I question whether it would have carried an overwhelming conviction of our innocence to the dread tribunal before whom we stood. As it turned out, however, we were not on the verge of death, but, happily, on the eve of deliverance—and in a brief space, the colour of our fortunes changed.
While the senhor was listening, and with marked incredulity, to the fosterer’s defence, a noise was heard without, and the personage who bore the appearance of an English seaman, but who, from his position at the table had eluded our former espionage, burst suddenly into the apartment.
“What the devil is all this I hear about spies, and land-loupers?” he exclaimed. “Are these the chaps?—Egad—this here one,” and he pointed to me, “looks too honest to play traitor. But, what!—Do my eyes deceive me?—why, dash my buttons—it can’t be possible—but it is—an old messmate by heaven! What, Mark—am I so changed, that William Rawlings is forgotten?”
It was indeed the brother of the fosterer’s mistress; and the next moment, like Homer’s heroes, their hands were locked together, and the pleasure of an unexpected meeting, was expressed in sea parlance on the one part, and an eloquent admixture of English and Irish on the other, which must have been perfectly unintelligible to the auditory, as I could but partially comprehend it.
With the host, a brief conversation put matters in excellent train. As regarded felonious designs, we received an honourable acquittal; and better far, the welcome assurance was made, that before two suns rose, if luck were on our side, we should be clear of the fortress and free as the ocean-bird itself.
We returned to our own apartments, accompanied by William Rawlings. The senhor was full of mystery and business; and, I presume, the gentlemen of the spado school were equally engaged; and, consequently, from the sailor we learned the particulars not only of our host’s domestic relations, but, what was of more importance, the means and the probability of effecting an immediate escape.
Senhor La Pablos, it appeared, was a contrabandista, and did business on a most extensive scale. His principles were neither considered particularly nice, nor was he a patriot of the purest water; albeit, he hated the French with an intensity which Dr. Johnson himself would have admired. The senhor’s antipathy to the invaders, arose rather from private than from public considerations. He had acquired much wealth as honestly as smugglers generally do, and, year after year, the invading commanders laid him under heavy contributions, and obliged him to disgorge extensively. Senhor La Pablos had also been blessed with a very young and a very pretty help-mate; and on a short excursion to the frontier in the course of business, on his return he received the unwelcome intelligence that the lady of his love had levanted the second day after he had bidden her a tender, but as he, “good easy man,” believed, only a temporary adieu. He had replaced her loss as speedily as it could be effected—and as the successor of the lost one was equally fair, and might prove, “alas! for womankind” equally frail, he secluded her as much as possible from common gaze; and, certainly, he had never intended that we, during our brief sojourn in his hospitable mansion, should have been introduced to the family circle. “But now for more important matters,” said the sailor; “it would waste time to tell you by what course of events I got connected with these contrabandistas, and shut up for the last month in this confounded fortress. I think escape tolerably secure—but could we but command one hundred dollars, it were certain. These Spanish smugglers are cold, calculating scoundrels—every movement is made for a mercenary object—but if they receive the consideration for their services, they are proverbially faithful, even to death itself, in a punctual performance of what they have undertaken.”
“How unfortunate!” I exclaimed. “Thrice the sum required is lying with my baggage outside, and all I am at present master of is this valueless ring, and a holy keepsake from my lady mother. Would your friends, Rawlings, deal in relics of marvellous value? for I doubt not that this I bear upon me is such.”
The sailor smiled.
“They are true Catholics, I have no doubt; but I fancy they would prefer plain silver after all.”
“Blessed Mary!” said the fosterer, “I wonder where the old lady got this charm,” for I had drawn my mother’s amulet from my bosom. “She told you,” he continued, “never to open it.”
“Oh, no, Mark, I was directed when necessity pressed me, to use a free discretion.”
“Why, then,” returned the fosterer, “we will never be in a greater mess, Mark. Open it, Hector, dear! Not that I believe in charms, although I remember an old man at home that would cure cows when they were fairly given over by the smith.”
“Well, Mark, your curiosity shall be gratified.” I opened the silken envelope, unfolded a sealed paper—no relic was there—but, what answered our present necessities far better—an English bank note for fifty pounds.
“Ah—long life to her ladyship!—wasn’t she considerate?” exclaimed Mark Antony. “Talk of relics—isn’t that a beautiful one!”
“But will it answer our purposes, Rawlings?” I inquired.
“Senhor La Pablos would tell you not; but you will see how soon he will discover more dollars than we require, and take his chance. But no time must be lost—‘tis past midnight;—and within three hours we must succeed or fail. Get ready. When the time comes for the trial, minutes may crown or mar it,” he said—left us to ourselves:—and while the fosterer made up a change of linen, I sate down, and conveyed, my parting adieus to my friend the voltigeur.
Rawlings was not long away. He returned, having completed every arrangement, as he said,—and the following night was named as that on which we should make the attempt that would ensure our liberty, or rivet our fetters if we failed. The fosterer and I retired, but not to sleep; and we were early afoot, and waiting for some more intelligence from the honest sailor regarding our nocturnal enterprise, when the captain of voltigeurs, as was his custom, dropped in to make his morning inquiries.
“Am I to congratulate or condole?” said Captain Cammaran, when he made his morning call. “You are pronounced fit for service by the surgeon; my parole consequently has expired—and no doubt you will be required in a day or two to interchange it for your own.”
“I won’t give it,” I returned.
‘“You are wrong, my friend,” replied the voltigeur: “nothing can result from your refusal but personal annoyance. You will be sent into La Mota, and, I regret to say, there the prisoners are miserably inconvenienced. Think of it well, O’Halloran; escape from the fortress is nearly hopeless; why, then, add to the desaremens of captivity? Courage!—an application has already been made in your fwour: why not, at least, wait patiently until an answer is returned by the minister of war?”
“My dear Cammaran,” I replied, “the reasons why I should not be patient are manifold. In the first place. I am in love, and wish to return home; in the second place, I am sick of San Sebastian, and very weary of contemplating the surly features of my host Senhor La Pablos, agreeably diversified, it is true, with an occasional visit from an old Leonora, deaf as a door-post, and the attentions of an interesting male attendant, who, if he be not hanged within a twelvemonth, why I’ll forswear physiognomy for ever.”
“Oh! indeed, and you’ll have no occasion,” observed Mark Antony: “the gallows is written in his face, and, as they say in Connaught,—Master Pedro is sure ‘to spoil a market.’”
“Bah! my good friend, I have a remedy for all,” returned Cammaran; “one poison neutralizes another—you must find another mistress: and if you are tired of your quarters, why we can look out for others which may prove more agreeable.”
I shook my head.
“Well—well—don’t refuse rashly. Tell them you will consider it for a day or two—and trust to the soldier’s best dependence,—you call it, happily, in English,—‘the chapter of accidents.’ Farewell!—I will call early to-morrow.”
“And the birds will be flown,” added the fosterer, as Cammaran closed the door and bade us, as we then believed, “a last good morrow.”
I never felt so impatiently as on that last day when I remained a prisoner in San Sebastian. The sun went gloomily to the ocean, the sea began to rise and break upon the beach, and with the evening as it closed, the weather became worse, and a very skyey appearance heralded a coming storm. Darkness came—the lamps were lighted—the ill-favoured attendant laid supper on the table, uncorked a flask of wine, and, as he always did, vanished without making a remark.
“I never will have anything but a poor opinion of that Senhor Pablos,” observed the fosterer; “he’s an inhospitable divil, or on the last night he had the honour of entertaining two gentlemen, he would have had the common manners to have introduced them to his wife, and taken a dock an durris with them afterwards. No matter—here’s luck!—and who knows where we’ll drink the same toast to-morrow evening?”
“It were, indeed, difficult to say, Mark. But, hark!—footsteps are in the court-yard.‘Tis unusual. But, see!—the door opens. Is it possible? Why, Cammaran! This is a late hour for a visit.”
“It is,” said the voltigeur; “but I have a presentiment that you and I are about to part.”
I felt the blood mount to my cheeks. Were then our plans known, and our intended escape discovered?
“What mean ye, my friend?” I returned, assuming an air of indifference. “No, no,” I continued evasively. “Warmly as, through your kindness, I may have been recommended to the War-Minister’s consideration, I must not hope the application will prove successful.”
“You mistake me. It is another chance that probably may end our acquaintance. I am on duty to-night.”
“And so are we,” observed the fosterer, in Irish.
“The fact is, we are going to try a sortie. The general has most handsomely put the detachment under my command. If I succeed, I shall gain promotion—and if Fortune favour me, I’ll sweep your works extensively before I re-enter the fortress. Well, these things are not effected without broken heads—and I have come to have a parting glass with two friends I estimate so dearly.”
The occasion of the visit relieved me from desperate alarm. The Frenchman sate for an hour and then took his leave, to make the necessary arrangements for the intended sortie, which was ordered to commence at two o’clock.
Before the voltigeur had cleared the court-yard, Rawlings, attended by La Pablos, presented themselves by a private door which communicated with the garden. The sailor’s looks told that affairs went prosperously.
“All is ready for our attempt. The French sally before daybreak—and in the noise and confusion on the land-side, we shall be enabled to lower ourselves from the curtain, and gain the beach. All depends upon ourselves—and for the fidelity of our associates, Senhor La Pablos holds himself responsible. You must shift your rigging, however—and here come your traps.”
The ill-visaged attendant brought me two suits of clothes of such anomalous cut and composition, as left it impossible to say for which element they had been especially intended. The host and sailor drank to the success of the expedition—the bell from the tower of San Sebastian beat twelve—the fosterer told each stroke—and then put up a pious supplication to Heaven, that this might be the last time he would ever count the same!