Clinton drew near the door. It opened, and Arthur Hazleton entered the cell. The jailer stood on the outside, fumbling at the lock, turning the massy key backward and forward, making a harsh, creaking sound. His head was bent close to the lock, in which there appeared to be some impediment. The noise which he made with the grating key, the stooping position he had assumed, favored the escape of Clinton.
As Arthur entered, he glided out, unperceived by him, for the jailer had brought no light, and the prisoner was standing in the shadow of the wall.
“There,” grumbled the jailer, “I believe that will do—I must have this lock fixed to-morrow. Here, doctor, take the key, I can trust you, I know. When you are ready to go, drop it in my room, just underneath this. I mean drop in, and give it to me, I am sick to-night. I am obliged to go to bed.”
Arthur assured him that he would attend faithfully to his directions, and that he might retire in perfect security. Then locking the door within, he walked towards the pallet, where the supposed form of the prisoner lay, in the stillness of dissembled sleep. His face was turned towards the straw, the bed cover was drawn up over his neck, nothing was distinctly visible in the obscurity but a mass of dark, gleaming hair, reflecting back the dim light from its jetty mirror.
Arthur did not like to banish from his couch, that
“Friend to the wretch, whom every friend forsakes.”
He seated himself on the bench, folded his cloak around him, and awaited in silence the awakening of the prisoner. He had come, in obedience to the commands of his Divine Master, to visit those who are in prison, and minister unto them. Not as Mittie had done, to assist him in eluding the just penalty of the offended majesty of the laws. He did not believe the perpetrator of such a crime as Clinton’s entitled to pardon, but he looked upon every son of Adam as a brother, and as such an object of pity and kindness.
While he sat gazing on the pallet, watching for the first motion that would indicate the dispersion of slumber, he heard a cough issuing from it, which his practiced ear at once recognized as proceeding from a woman’s lungs. A suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind. He rose, bent over the couch, and taking hold of the covering, endeavored to draw it back from the face it shrouded. He could see the white hands that clinched it, and a tress of long, waving hair, loosened by the motion, floated on his sight.
“Mittie—Mittie Gleason!” he exclaimed, bending on one knee, and trying to raise her—“how came you here? Yet, why do I ask? I know but too well—Clinton has escaped—and you—”
“I am here!” she cried, starting to her feet, and shaking back her hair, which fell in a sable mantle over her shoulders, flowing far below the waist. “I am here. What do you wish of me? I am not prepared to receive company just yet,” she added, deridingly; “my room is rather unfurnished.”