In ship and prison

by William P. Chipman

“How long have you been in here?” I now asked.

“Two weeks,” he responded; “but come over here,” he added in a low whisper, and, taking me by the arm, he led me down the cell to its one narrow window, through which so little light came that I had not noticed it until then.

Once at the aperture he raised my hands with his own to the window frame, and then I became aware that he was removing it. Placing it noiselessly on the floor, he carried my hand up to the iron grating, which I soon found he was taking down bar by bar.

“There,” he said at length in a tone so low I could scarcely hear him, “you see the way is clear for our escape. This is why I was so anxious to find out if you were an American. I wanted no one here to thwart my plans. We shall go at midnight, so you will not be long within these walls, Master Dunn,” and again he chuckled.

“But is not the river outside this wall?” I questioned, “and some feet below? How are we to get down to it?”

“With this,” he replied, and carrying my hand up to his bosom I felt hidden inside of his shirt a coil of stout rope. “Oh! the preparations are all made, and cannot fail,” he continued confidently. “A boat from a Yankee ship in the river will come under this window at midnight, and lowering ourselves into that, we shall be taken off to the vessel which will sail before daylight. The only change in the plan is she will carry two passengers instead of one. You see, you came just in time to go home with me, Master Dunn.”

The confidence in his own tones inspired me. A half-hour before I had been on the verge of despair; now I was nearly wild in my exuberance of joy. I could scarcely wait for the hour to come when we should leave our cell. Then I fell to wondering how Captain Tucker had been able to arrange so completely his plan of escape and as though he divined my thought, the captain told me, while we waited the coming of the rescuing yawl.

“Anchored in the harbor, near my own brig, at the time of my arrest,” he began, “was the ship Rebecca Morris from Philadelphia. Her captain is an old friend of mine, and I knew if I could manage to communicate with him he would do all in his power to help me escape. Under the pretext of sending a message to my family in the colonies I asked the turnkey who came to my cell daily to take a letter off to Captain Allen. At first the fellow, demurred, but when I offered him my watch, a valuable one, in return for the favor, and let him see the note I had written, he yielded. Unbeknown to him, however, I substituted a second note for the first one, in which I described the situation of my cell, and suggested a way in which my friend could aid me. That night a boat came under my window, bringing the things I had asked for—a file and a stout rope. Meanwhile I removed the sash with my pocket knife, and unraveled one of my stockings to obtain the string I needed. With the latter I pulled up a stouter cord, and then the file and the rope from the yawl. I knew it would take me several days to cut through the bars, and so sent down a note requesting the boat to return here for me tonight. When the cord came back, there was a line from Captain Allen himself assuring me he would be here without fail.”

As the moments passed I could not help growing anxious lest for some reason the friendly captain should fail us. On the other hand, Captain Tucker was as cool and undisturbed as it was possible for a man to be.

“I know Christopher Allen,” he declared again and again, “and he will be here as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow morning. All the guards on the river cannot stop him. He’ll find a way to outwit them and rescue us.”