"Ods bobs, then, we'll nab 'em; for they can't muster half so many. Have you chained the prisoner?"
"Yaw; and he turned pale, and fainted afay. Then I put polts on Tancy Parkins; and now I fill go fix the t'oder, Shterling."
"Never mind him; he's safe. Now, Hans, you must fight like a bull-dog, if there's any fighting at all. But not a word about the lawyer here. Here's a pistol: take a swig at the bounce, and we'll carry it down to the boys, to warm their hearts a little. If we catch that Oran, ods bobs, I don't know what the reward is, but it will be the making of us."
"Yaw," said Hans; and picking up the pitcher, he followed the jailer into the yard. Here they found five stout men, with whom the jailer conversed in whispers, and then, after all had drunk of the pitcher, he led them towards the gate, saying, as he bade them lie down on either side of it,—"Now mind ye, men; I hold to the lock, and here's my cue: If any enters, why I claps the gate to behind them, and then outs with the key; and then you're to jump up and on 'em, taking 'em alive, if you can. But mind ye, you're not to stir, till you hear me give the signal to fall on; and the signal is, You're welcome, gentlemen. Don't forget it. Now, 'taint sure they'll come; but if they do, ods bobs, we've got 'em!"
Having thus received their instructions, the whole party squatted down on the ground, and awaited the issue of their adventure in silence. The village jail was a small, though strong, building of stone, and the yard, therefore, on the rear, in which the prisoners were sometimes allowed to air themselves, was of no great extent. It was surrounded, however, by a high and strong wall, the gate to which was of heavy double planking, strengthened with bars of iron; and the lock was of weight sufficient to make any prisoner despair of forcing it.
It was perhaps midnight, when these silent guards,—seven in number, including the jailer and his assistant,—took their places. The night was perfectly clear, and so far unfavourable to the assailants, if assailants they really were; of which, it must be confessed, honest Lingo could not affect to be certain, his whole information amounting to no more than the few ambiguous phrases he had caught from Affidavy. But then this fellow, under a stupid countenance, concealed an astonishing fund of quickness and cunning, of which the attorney little dreamed; and long before Affidavy had opened his lips on the subject, Lingo had seen and noted enough to give edge to the native suspiciousness of his character. The appearance of Affidavy himself, claiming to be one of the prisoner's counsel, instantly set his wits to work; he marvelled who had retained him, since he knew he had not yet seen the prisoner. Then the appearance of the guinea, a rare coin in such hands, and devoted with such magnificent nonchalance to the purpose of doing honour to him, was not without its virtue in stirring his conjectures, especially when it came to be added to the invitation Affidavy so coolly gave himself to repeat his visit, and spend the night in the jail. He ascertained without trouble, that the attorney soon after leaving the prisoner, had ridden into the country, where he remained all day, without once seeking a conference with either of the prisoner's original counsellors; and one or two other little circumstances he discovered, which prepared him to understand, and make the most of what Affidavy afterwards divulged in the form of supposition.
All his discoveries, however, went no further than to induce a belief that some design for rescuing the young Gilbert was on foot; but where, and in what manner, the enterprise was to be attempted, he was left to infer as he could. He did not doubt, indeed, that the attempt was expected to be made with his connivance, and that Affidavy had been bought to bribe him into compliance; though the covetousness of this unworthy and degraded limb of the law had led him upon a device for dispensing with the jailer's services, and so clapping the additional reward into his own pocket. This circumstance convinced him the force of the conspirators could not be very great; and besides, he had good reason to suppose that not more than two or three could succeed, whatever might be their boldness, in making their way to the village, while the band was so closely beset at a distance. "At all events," he muttered to himself, as he sat by the gate, listening for the sound of footsteps, "if there should come even a dozen of them, and there's not so many left in the gang, I can let in just as many as will serve my turn, and then slap the door to on the rest.—Hist! It sounded like the tramp of a horse; yet 'twas only the splash of the river over the stones. Well now, if they shouldn't come, here's so much trouble for nothing, and the lord knows how much cherry-bounce. Silence there, you Hanschen! you're asleep. Ods bobs, men, don't scratch your heads so hard!"
He kept watch for perhaps the space of an hour, without hearing the stir of man or beast, or indeed any other sound besides the rush of the river, which rolls down a pebbly declivity hard by, and the chirping of numerous field-crickets on the trees of neighbouring gardens; when suddenly one of these insects, tired, as it seemed, of its dewy perch, which it had exchanged for the dry planks of the gate, or perhaps just waked up in the key-hole, began its nocturnal cry with a zeal and energy that instantly captivated the jailer's attention. It now struck his recollection that the attorney had, in some way or other, drawn these minstrels of the night into his suppositions; and he began to fancy the sound might be a signal made by the tories, though he could not imagine how the organs of a human being could be ever taught to imitate a cry so peculiar. He felt his own inability to answer it in the same tone; and not knowing how otherwise to bring the affair to a point, he replied by a goodly whistle, which his companions supposed to be the signal of the enemy, and therefore prepared to start up at a moment's warning. The whistle was instantly followed by a slight tap on the gate, and Lingo, waving his hand to his backers to be silent, boldly turned the key. Then slipping the bolt aside, he saw three human figures on the outside, ready to enter. "Two to one," he muttered to himself, opening the gate wide enough to admit one to pass at a time. One actually entered, and was moving aside, without speaking, to make way for the others, when Lingo's scheme was defeated by a sudden rattling of chains at the window of Hyland's cell, and by a voice crying out, "Beware! beware! you are betrayed!"—"Up and on 'em!" cried Lingo—"Gentlemen, you are welcome!" and as he spoke, he made a grasp at the first comer, which was answered so effectually, that he instantly found himself sprawling on his back, with such a blaze of lights dancing in his eyes, that he thought his whole brain had been converted into a ball of fire. The next instant, there was a loud cry of voices, and a roar of pistols, which, reverberating from wall to wall, filled the narrow yard with the most dreadful din; and Lingo started up just in time to behold a tall figure darting through the gate into the open air.
"Fire and furies!" he cried, rushing after the fugitive; "I'll pay you for that touch of the tomahawk, you bloody tory!" and the next moment coming up with his chase, he struck him a blow with his heavy sword, that brought him to the ground. Then pouncing upon him, and assisted by another who ran to his assistance, crying that 'all were taken,' he dragged the prisoner into the yard and secured the gate. "Lights, Hanschen!" he cried, "Yaw," said Hanschen; "but fat's the use? Here's one teadt, and anoder tying. And here's Sturmhausen has his headt proke; and here's me mit my finkers chopped off by the tamt schelm rogues. But I have kilt vone, mine Gott be thank'd! and I fill hang the t'oders!"
Before Hanschen had wholly delivered himself of his private ills and triumphs, a loud huzza was set up by the others, upon hearing that all the three assailants were secured. Lights were instantly brought into the yard, and, sure enough, there lay three men on the ground, one of whom was stone dead, his head blown to atoms by Hanschen's pistol, a second writhing to all appearance in the agonies of death, and a third—but what were the surprise and mortification of the jailer, when in this third, the man he had cut down with his own hands, he beheld the visage of his prisoner, Sterling.