Voices sounded through the cottage, in the garden,—the dog’s angry bark retreated up the ravine, the whole camp was roused, and the cry went along the lines—“The prisoner has escaped.”
With his usual tact and presence of mind, though death stared him in the face, Jasper Lyle had contrived to conciliate the young sergeant on guard so far, that the latter did not turn a deaf ear to the man who, though he knew him to be a rebel, he believed to be brave and adventurous. Lyle asked but few questions, and these in a careless way. He ascertained that Sir John Manvers was “like to die, he was so ill;” that Sir Adrian was in command, and that the family of the Commissioner, Mr Daveney, was living in a cottage within five hundred yards of the guard-house.
Sir John Manvers ill—delirious! Had the blow told? Sir Adrian in command! He was the last man to punish by death, if it was possible to avoid such an extremity. Life might be spared, but there would be no more freedom for Jasper Lyle. Gray convicted—condemned!—how, then, could he expect favour? Something like a spasm of remorse touched his heart as he thought of the young deserter. His wife!—was she so near?
There are moments in the lives of evil men over which good angels hold their sway. Gray and Eleanor!—were they not his victims? He would fain have said a good word for one,—a strange desire arose to see the other.
He had not been an hour in his prison ere his quick eye had descried a possible means of escape.
The walls were of stone, the roof of shingles, the loop-hole a mere narrow slit high up in the wall. Lyle drew his bedstead near it, he stood up and looked out; he could see the southern plains and part of the encampment, he could hear the reliefs passing too and fro; he listened and distinguished the parole, “Albany.” He rubbed his hands with glee, he examined the loop-hole, and discovered that no coping-stone supported the roof. A bar of iron from his bedstead would remove the shingle overhanging the loop.
He sat down upon the bedstead in a desponding attitude. When the sergeant entered with the afternoon meal, the prisoner was weeping.
Fortune favoured Lyle. The sun set in heavy clouds, torrents of rain began to fall, the sentry who paced below the loop-hole retired to his box in the angle of the building, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the convict worked amid the din of the elements. Every now and then he listened at the door; in the pauses of the storm he could hear the sleepers in the guardroom breathing hard; he went to work again, the roof had rotted from the effects of the rainy season, it gave way, and Lyle raised his head through the aperture.
In another instant he had slid down the wall, and was on the turf.
The sentry was within a few paces of him, but the wind, coming from an opposite direction, blew the blinding rain in the soldier’s face. He was wide awake, though, and, on finding something was astir not far off, uttered the usual query, “Who goes there?” The steady reply of “Friend,” and the countersign “Albany,” were sufficient; the sentry imagined it was some officer passing from one tent to another; the convict plunged below the bank in rear of the guardroom, which was on a line with the Daveneys’ cottage; and, scrambling on till he came to the group of willows, sprang into the garden, and saw before him a window. A light shone through the muslin curtain.