“If this keeps on I’ll go crazy myself,” said Henry. “The food is not fit for a dog to eat.”
Strange to say, he had not seen or heard of Jean Bevoir since the French trader had threatened him through the bars of the prison door. As a matter of fact, Bevoir had attempted to have the youth brought before the military court as a spy, but the French commander had refused to listen to his plea.
“You are too anxious in this, sir,” said the officer sternly. “I think you must have a grudge against the young fellow. I have no official report against him, and in such a prison he is probably suffering as much as he deserves.” And Jean Bevoir sneaked away from headquarters feeling very much as if somebody had kicked him.
Truth to tell, the French commander felt that a crisis was at hand, and that it would not now do to hang or maltreat any of the English prisoners. He even ordered that the prisoners be given better rations, but this order, in the case of the jailer at Henry’s jail, was disobeyed, the jailer selling the extra rations to the outsiders in the town at a handsome profit.
On the night following the disappearance of the jailer, matters reached a climax in the prison. There was a fight for some water that still remained in a keg in one corner, and this quickly changed to a revolt, in which the jail door was broken down. The prisoners ran forth and scattered in all directions; and although a French guard soon came on the scene and shot down two of the men, the others got away.
With the escaping ones went Henry, almost as reckless as were the leaders. For a while he remained with two of the soldiers who had been quite friendly, but when the shooting began he ran through a back yard, leaped over a stone wall, and made his way along a street that was almost deserted. He was now entirely alone, and, coming to an open hallway, he slipped into a house. He heard sounds of voices in a lower room, and, without stopping to think twice, bounded up the stairs to the second floor.
“Perhaps I’m running into a trap, but I’ve got to risk it,” he told himself; and after a slight hesitation opened a door near the head of the stairs. The room was a bedchamber, and in the center stood a large, square, “four-poster” bed, with the top hangings partly drawn. A man lay on the bed, tossing uneasily, as if in something of a fever. On a chair rested a French uniform, showing that the sleeper was an officer.
“Stand where you are,” ordered the sick man.—Page 297.
“It won’t do for me to stay in such hot quarters as these,” thought Henry. “I had better get out just as fast as I came in.”