But prayer, though heard, is not always instantly answered in the manner wished; and sometimes one has to wait a little to know the reason.
Morning dawned, and half of another slow day passed. How slow those unoccupied and dreary days were! Roy could do nothing but hang listlessly about. He could think of nothing but the coming nightfall, when, after dark but before they were ordered back into the souterrain for the night, he and his companions would steal softly away to that high outer wall, and would scale it. All details of the plan thus far had been carefully thought out and arranged. Beyond that most of them were trusting largely to what is called “the chapter of accidents.”
To be free again! O to be free!—free under the blue sky, free to breathe heaven’s breezes, free to sun himself in heaven’s smile, free to stretch his limbs, free to be a light-hearted English boy once more, instead of a careworn man before his time. Roy flung his arms out and clutched the prison wall, in that craving to be away.
Mid-day came, and the crowd of prisoners were ordered in. A hand touched Roy, and a rough voice ordered him to follow.
Roy faced the gendarme. “Where?” he demanded blankly, in a moment realising what this might mean.
No answer was vouchsafed. These gendarmes were for the most part surly fellows, though even among them gleams of kindness towards the prisoners were not wholly unknown.
Roy had no choice but to obey. Resistence would have done himself no good, and might have drawn suspicion upon his comrades. The man laid a grip upon his arm, and led him, not down but up, past the ground floor, ascending to the floor above. At the end of a long passage he paused at a door, opened it, and thrust Roy in. The door was shut, and the lock snapped.
Roy found himself alone in a small prison-like cell, with stone floor, stone ceiling, stone walls, one little iron-barred window, deeply embrasured, and a single wooden bench. On the bench lay a folded blanket. Beside the bench were a jug of water and a hunch of bread, with cheese.
Was he now to be condemned to solitary imprisonment—perhaps for weeks, perhaps for months, perhaps for years? And for what? What had he done to bring this upon himself?
Roy’s head seemed to be bursting. But for the planned escape, so near at hand, he might have welcomed almost any change from the dungeon and its horrors. Now, however, now, with freedom in sight, to be carried off, to be placed where he was debarred from every hope of liberty, this was heart-breaking.