It was a longer walk this time. He was not taken back to the go-down where he had expected to pass the night, but to a tower or keep built on the wall by the riverbank. It was now too dark to see anything clearly; but as he was led into the building one of his guards struck a light, and as he mounted the narrow stairway to the fourth story he noticed several padlocked doors, showing that here were other prisoners besides himself. He was taken into a small room at the top of the building, a thick rug was thrown in after him, the door was slammed, bolted, and padlocked, and he was left to his meditations.
CHAPTER XII
At Midnight
Waiting—A Russian Offer—A Farewell Letter—What the Case Held—Kite-flying Extraordinary—Prison-breaking—Free
Bob was so exhausted that he fell asleep at once, notwithstanding the gravity of his position. When he awoke some hours after daylight, he found some black bread and a plate of preserved beef and a jug of vodka by his side.
"To keep up my courage," he said to himself. He was hungry, and the bread and meat soon disappeared; but he found the vodka too fiery for his palate, and wondered if he would be allowed some water. He was to be shot, of course; when would that be? Shot! For the first time the reality of last night's scene forced itself on his mind. He had been so tired, and so strung-up in the determination to say nothing that would betray Yamaguchi, that the matter as it affected himself had not troubled him. But now—the thought of death struck him for the first time. It was a strange idea. He was well and strong; rather stiff and cramped, indeed, but that could easily be cured. Yet in a short time he was to be dead. He could not realize it; on board the Japanese vessels, in the poisonous box-battery on the Mikasa, on the Kasumi's shot-pelted deck, the idea of death had never been present to his mind. The oddness of it struck him most of all. It seemed absurd that he should die, and for what reason? His explanations had been too simple to be believed! He thought over the past days; there was nothing in his actions he could have altered, even if he had known that death was to come so soon. "Well, it can't be helped," he concluded. "I only hope I sha'n't funk it at the end."
Life was so vigorous in him at present, that he looked round his narrow room in an instinctive quest for some means of escape. It was about twelve feet square. The outer wall was of stone, some eighteen inches thick, pierced by a single unglazed splay window, narrowing from twenty inches broad on the inside to seven on the outside. The bottom of the window was about three feet above the floor, and it extended upwards for about an equal distance. Below it, embedded in the wall, projected a narrow platform about a foot high, which, Bob guessed, was intended to accommodate a watchman or possibly a marksman, for the tower had evidently been built as a watch-tower. Clambering up into the window-recess, Bob looked through the open slit, and saw that it commanded a view across the river, which flowed past at a depth of some eighty feet. The water-course was obstructed by ice; to plunge into it was impossible.
Returning to the floor, Bob noticed that the inner walls were of brick, comparatively new in contrast with the mouldering stonework of the outer wall. He concluded that at one time the whole story had formed a single chamber, and that it had been partitioned off recently, though in all probability before the advent of the Russians. The door was of massive make, and hung on ponderous iron clamps; it opened inwards, and there was no keyhole on the inner side.
"Things look black," thought Bob, as he convinced himself that there was no means of escaping from his dungeon. He tramped up and down with bent head, idly speculating on the scenes the old tower must have witnessed. How often in bygone days, he wondered, had Chinese, Korean, or Japanese flotillas passed under its walls up and down the Yalu? What romances might be woven about the spot, going back into ages long anterior to ironclads and machine-guns! He wished he knew something of the history of these far Eastern countries, and was resolving to look it up on the first opportunity when he suddenly remembered that he was to die, and the remembrance brought him to a stand-still and gave his imagination pause.
Looking again through the narrow opening, he saw in the distance a troop of Cossacks picking their way across the hills. He watched them with idle interest as they gained the summit and disappeared at a trot over the crest. He followed them in fancy; they were soldiers going perhaps to their death; and he wished that he too might meet with death in some active, heroic way, instead of tamely as the target of a firing-party. He was drawn from his reverie by the entrance of a soldier with a plate and jug. The man set the food down on the stone platform and left without a word.