Complete weird tales of.., p.154
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 154
That night I lay awake, rising constantly to examine my work, but to my despair the weather had slowly changed, and a warm thaw set in, with rain and the glimmer of distant lightning. In vain I worked at my bar; I could see the dark sky brighten with lightning; presently the low mutter of thunder followed. An hour later the rain fell hissing into the melting snow in the prison yard.
I sent word to Mount that I could not move my bar, but that he must not wait for me if he could escape from the window. He answered that he would not stir a peg unless I could; and the girl choked as she delivered the message, imploring me to hasten and loose the bar.
I could not do it; day after day I filled the cracks and holes, waiting for freezing weather. It rained, rained, rained.
Weeks before, Mount had sent the girl to seek out Mr. Foxcroft and tell him of my plight. I also had sent by her a note to Silver Heels.
The girl returned to report that Mr. Foxcroft had sailed for England early in November, and that nobody there had ever heard of a Miss Warren in Queen Street.
Then Butler’s boast came to me, and I sent word to Shemuel, bidding him search the village of Lexington for Miss Warren. I had not yet heard from him.
Meanwhile Mount communicated, through Dulcima, with the Minute Men’s Club, and already a delegation headed by Mr. Revere had waited on Governor Gage to demand my release on grounds of mistaken identity.
The Governor laughed at them, asserting that I was notorious; but as the days passed, so serious became the demands from Mr. Revere, Mr. Hancock, and Mr. Otis that the Governor sent Walter Butler to assure these gentlemen that he knew Mr. Cardigan well, and that the rogue in prison, who pretended to that name, was, in fact, a notorious felon named the Weasel, who had for years held the highway with the arch-rogue, Mount.
At this, Shemuel came forward to swear that Mr. Butler and I were deadly enemies and that Butler lied, but he was treated with scant ceremony, and barely escaped a ducking in the mill-pond by the soldiers.
Meanwhile Mr. Hancock had communicated with Sir John at Onondaga, and awaited a reply to his message, urging Sir John to come to Boston and identify me.
No reply ever came, nor did Sir John stir hand or foot in my behalf. Possibly he never received the message. I prefer to think so.
Matters were at this pass when I finally gave up all hope of loosening my window bars, and sent word to Jack Mount that he must use his sheets for a cord and let himself out that very night. But the frightened girl returned with an angry message of refusal from the chivalrous blockhead.
The next day it was too late; Bishop’s suspicions somehow had been aroused, and it took him but a short time to discover the loosened bars in Jack Mount’s cell.
How the brute did laugh when he came on the work accomplished. He searched Mount’s cell, discovered the awl and a file, shouted with laughter, summoned masons to make repairs, and, still laughing, came to visit me.
I had not dared to leave my poison-flask in the hole under the stone. What to do with it I did not know; but, as I heard Bishop come chuckling towards my cell, I drove the glass stopper into the flask firmly as I could, then, wiping it, placed it in my mouth, together with the small gold ring I had bought in Albany, and which I had, so far, managed to conceal.
It was a desperate move; I undressed myself as he bade me, and sat on my bed, faint with suspense, while Bishop rummaged. He found the hole where I had hidden the flask. The awl lay there, and he pouched it with a chuckle.
When Bishop had gone, I drew the deadly little flask from my mouth, trembling, and chilled with sweat. Then I placed it again in its hiding-place, hid the ring in my shoe, and dressed slowly, brushing my shabby clothes, and returning the pockets and flaps which Bishop in his careful search had rifled. He did not search my cell again.
And now the days began to run very swiftly. On the 18th 423 of April, towards five o’clock in the evening, a turnkey, passing my cell, told me that General Gage was in the prison with a party of ladies, and that he would doubtless visit my cell. He added, grimly, that the death-watch was to be set over us in an hour or two, and that, thereafter, I could expect no more visitors from outside until I held my public reception on the gallows.
Laughing heartily at his own wit, the turnkey passed on about his business, and I went to the grating to listen and look out into the twilight of the corridor.
Mrs. Bishop, whose sick baby was squalling, lighted the lanthorn above the door of her room, and retired, leaving me free to converse with Mount.
“Jack,” I called, hoarsely, “the death-watch begins to-night.”
“Pooh!” he answered, cheerfully. “Wait a bit; there’s time to cheat a dozen gibbets ‘twixt this and dawn.”
“Yes,” said I, bitterly, “we can cheat the hangman with what I have in this little flask.”
“You must give it to the girl,” he said. “She will flavour our last draught with it if worst comes to worst. She will be here in a moment.”
At that instant I caught sight of Dulcima Bishop, her cloak all wet with rain, passing quickly along the corridor towards Mount’s cell; and I called her and gave her my flask, glad to have it safe at least from the search which the death-watch was certain to make.
The poor child turned pale under the scarlet hood of her witch-cloak when I bade her promise to serve us with a kinder and more honourable death than the death planned for us on the morrow.
“I promise, sir,” she said, faintly, raising her frightened white face, framed by the wet cloak and damp strands of hair. She added timidly: “I have a knife for — for Jack — and a file.”
“It is too late for such things,” I answered, quietly. “If it is certain that you cannot get the keys from your father, there is no hope for us.”
Her face, which in the past month had become terribly pinched and thin, quivered; her hands tightened on the 424 edge of the grating. “If — if I could get the keys—” she began.
“Unless you do so there is no hope, child.”
There was a silence; then she cried, in a choking voice: “I can get them! Will that free Jack? I will get the keys; truly, I will! Oh, do you think he can go free if I open the cell?”
“He has a knife,” I said, grimly; “I have my two hands. Open the cells and we will show you.”
She covered her eyes with her hands. Jack called to her from his grating; she started violently, turned and went to him.
They stood whispering a long time together. I paced my cell, with brain a-whirl and hope battering at my heart for the admittance I craved to give. If she could only open that door! — that rusted, accursed mass of iron, the very sight of which was slowly crushing out the last spark of manhood in me!
“Are you listening?” whispered Dulcima at my grating again.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Watch our door at seven to-night!” she said. “Be ready. I will open your door.”
“I am ready,” I answered.
At that moment the sound of voices filled the corridor; the girl fled to her room; a dozen turnkeys shuffled past, bowing and cringing, followed by Collins, the chief warden, an old man whom I had not before seen. Then came a gentleman dressed in a long dark cloak which hung from twin epaulettes, his scarlet and gold uniform gleaming below. Was that the Governor?
He passed my cell, halted, glanced around, then retraced his steps. After a moment I heard his voice distinctly at some distance down the corridor; he was saying:
“The highwaymen are here, Mrs. Hamilton — if — if you would care to see them.”
I sat up in my cot, all a-tremble. Far down the corridor I heard a woman laughing. I knew that laugh.
“But,” persisted the Governor, “you should really see the highwaymen, madam. Trust me, you never before beheld such a giant as this rogue, Jack Mount.”
The voices seemed to be receding; I sprang to my grating; the Governor’s bland voice still sounded at some distance down the passage; Mrs. Hamilton’s saucy laughter rang faintly and more faintly.
Half a dozen keepers were lounging just outside of my cell. I summoned one of them sharply.
“Tell General Gage that Mrs. Hamilton knows me!” I said. “A guinea for you when she comes!”
The lout stared, grinned, and finally shambled away, pursued by the jeers of his comrades. Then they turned their wit against me, begging to know if I had not some message for my friends the Grand Turk and the Emperor of China.
I waited in an agony of suspense; after a long time I knew that the keeper had not delivered my message.
In the fierce returning flood of despair at the loss of this Heaven-sent chance for life, I called out for Bishop to come to me; I struck at the iron bars until my hands were bathed in blood.
At length Bishop arrived, in a rage, demanding to know if I had lost my senses to create such an uproar when his Excellency, Governor Gage, had come to inspect the prison.
In vain I insisted that he take my message; he laughed an ugly laugh and refused. Mrs. Bishop, whose infant was now very sick, came out, wrapped in her shawl, carrying the baby to the prison hospital for treatment, and a wrangle began between her and Bishop concerning supper.
My words were lost or ignored; Bishop demanded his supper at once, and his wife insisted that she must take the child to the hospital. The precious moments flew while they stood there under my grating, disputing and abusing each other, while the sick child wailed ceaselessly and dug its puny fingers into the sores on its head.
Presently a keeper passed, saying that the Governor wished to know what such indecent noise meant; and Bishop, red with rage, turned on his wife and cursed her ferociously until she retreated with the moaning child.
“Draw me a measure o’ buttry ale; d’ye hear, ye slut?” he growled, following her. “If I’m to eat no supper till you get back, I’ll want a bellyful o’ malt to stay me!”
But Mrs. Bishop waddled on contemptuously, declaring 426 she meant to go to the hospital, and that he could die o’ thirst for aught she cared.
Dulcima, who stood in her doorway across the corridor, watched the scene stolidly. Bishop turned on her with an oath, and ordered her to draw his evening cup; she unhooked the tankard which hung under the lanthorn, hesitated, and looked straight at her father. He gave her a brutal shove, demanding to know why she dawdled while he thirsted, and the girl moved off sullenly, with flaming cheeks and eyes averted.
When she returned from the buttry I saw the warden take the frothing tankard, brush the foam away with his forefinger, and drain the measure to the dregs.
He handed the empty tankard to his daughter, smacking his lips with a wry face, and drawing the back of his hand across his chin. Then he became angry again.
“Ugh!” he muttered; “the ale’s spoiled! What’s in it, you baggage?” he demanded, suddenly swinging around on his daughter. “Draw me a cider cup to wash this cursed brew out o’ me!”
There was a crash. The girl had dropped the tankard at her feet.
Quick as a flash Bishop raised his hand and dealt his daughter a blow on the neck that sent her to her knees.
“Break another pot and I’ll break your head, you drab!” he roared. “Get up or I’ll—”
He choked, gasped, lifted his shaking hand to his mouth, and wiped it.
“Curse that ale!” he stammered; “it’s sickened me to the bones! What in God’s name is in that brew?”
He turned and pushed open his door, lurching forward across the threshold with dragging feet. A moment later Dulcima passed my cell, her trembling hands over her eyes.
I went to my cot and lay down, face buried, teeth set in my lip. A numbness which at moments dulled the throbbing of my brain seemed to settle like chains on every limb.
Dully I waited for the strokes of the iron bell sounding the seventh hour; a lassitude crept over me — almost a stupor. It was not despair; I had long passed that; it was Hope, slowly dying within my body.
A few moments afterwards a strange movement inside my cell aroused me, and I opened my hot eyes.
In the dusk I saw the figure of a man seated beside my cot; peering closer, I perceived his eyes were fixed steadily on me. I sat up on my bed and asked him what he desired.
He did not answer. A ray of candle-light stealing through the barred window fell on the bright barrel of a pistol which lay across his knees.
“What do you wish?” I repeated, the truth dawning on me. “Can you not watch me from the corridor as well as in my cell?”
There was no reply.
Then at last I understood that this gray shape brooding there at my bedside was a guard of the death-watch, pledged never to leave me, never to take his eyes from me for an instant until the warden of the prison delivered me into the hands of the sheriff on the morrow for my execution.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! The prison bell was at last striking the seventh hour. I lay still in my blanket, counting the strokes which rang out in thin, peevish monotony, like the cracked voice of a beldame repeating her petty woes.
At the last jangle, and while the corridor still hummed with the thin reverberations, I rose and began to pace my narrow cell, head bent on my breast, but keeping my eyes steadily on the grating.
The guard of the death-watch observed me sullenly. I drank from my pot of water, bathed my feverish face, and walked to the grating.
The lanthorn above Bishop’s doorway burned brightly; the corridor was quiet. No sound came from Mount’s cell. I could hear rain drumming on a roof somewhere, that was all.
Bishop was due at seven o’clock to inspect our bolts and bars; he had always arrived punctually. I watched his door. Presently it occurred to me that I had not seen Bishop since six o’clock when he had gone into his room, cursing the ale which his daughter had fetched him. This was unusual; he had never before failed to sit there on his threshold after supper, smoking his long clay pipe, and blinking contentedly at our steel bolts.
Minute after minute passed; behind me I heard my guard beating a slight tattoo with his heavy boots on the stones.
Suddenly, as I stood at my grating, I saw Dulcima Bishop step from the warden’s door, close it behind her, and noiselessly lock it on the outside. The light of the lanthorn fell full on her face; it was ghastly. The girl stood a moment, swaying, one hand on the door; then she made a signal towards Mount’s cell; and the next instant I saw Jack Mount bound noiselessly into the corridor. He caught sight of me, held up a reddened, dripping knife, pointed to my cell door, and displayed a key.
Instantly I turned around and sauntered away from the grating towards my tumbled bed. As I passed the death-watch, he rose and walked over to the outer window where my pot of water stood to cool.
Eying me cautiously he lifted the jug and drank, then set the pot back and silently resumed his seat, laying his pistol across his knees.
How was I to get at him? If Mount made the slightest noise in the corridor, the guard was certain to go to the grating.
Pretending to be occupied in smoothing out my tumbled bedding, I strove to move so that I might get partly behind him, but the fellow’s suspicions seemed to be aroused, for he turned his head as I moved, and watched me steadily.
To spring on him meant to draw his fire, and a shot would be our undoing. But whatever I did must be done now; I understood that.
As I hesitated there, holding the blanket in my hands as though I meant to fling it on the bed again, the lamp in the corridor suddenly went out, plunging my cell in darkness.
The guard sprang to his feet; I fairly flung my body at him, landing on him in a single bound, and hurling him to the stone floor.
Instantly the light of the lanthorn flooded my cell again; I heard my iron door opening; I crouched in fury on the struggling man under me, whose head and arms I held crushed under the thick blanket. Then came a long, silent struggle, but at last I tore the heavy pistol from his clutch, beat him on the head with the steel butt of it until, through the 429 blanket over his face, red, wet stains spread, and his straining chest and limbs relaxed.
Pistol in hand, I rose from the lifeless heap on the floor, and turned to find my cell door swinging wide, and Dulcima Bishop watching me, with dilated eyes.
“Is he dead?” she asked, and broke out in an odd laugh which stretched her lips tight over her teeth. “Best end him now if he still lives,” she added, with a sob; “death is afoot this night, and I have done my part, God wot!”
I struck the man again — it sickened me to do it. He did not quiver.
She lifted the lanthorn from the floor and motioned me to follow. At the end of the corridor Mount stood, wiping his reeking knife on the soft soles of his moccasins.
“The trail’s clear,” he whispered, gayly; “now, lass, where is the scullions’ stairway? Blow out that light, Cardigan! Quiet, now — quiet as a fox in the barn! Give me your hand, lass — and t’other to the lad.”
The girl caught me by the arm and blew out the light, then she drew me into what seemed to be an impenetrable wall of darkness. Groping forward, I almost fell down a steep flight of stone steps which appeared to lead into the bowels of the earth. Down, down, then through a passage, Mount leading, the girl fairly dragging me off my feet in her excitement, and presently a wooden door creaked open, and a deluge of icy water dashed over me.
It was rain; I was standing outside the prison, ankle-deep in mud, the free wind blowing, the sleet driving full in my eyes.
“Oh, this is good, this is good!” muttered Mount, in ecstasy, spreading out his arms as though to take the world to his sick heart once more. “Smell the air, lad! Do you smell it? God! How sweet is this wind in my throat!”
The girl shivered; her damp, dishevelled hair blew in her face. She laid one shaking hand on Mount’s wet sleeve, then the other, and bowed her head on them, sobbing convulsively.
Mount bent and kissed her.
“I swear I will use you kindly, child,” he said, soberly. “Come, lass, gay! gay! What care we for a brace o’ dead 430 turnkeys? Lord, how the world will laugh at Billy Bishop when they hear I stole his girl, along with the prison keys! Laugh with me, lass! I mean honestly and kindly by you; I’m fit for a rope at the gibbet’s top if I use you ill!”
