by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XXV
WE ATTEMPT AN ESCAPE
Father Hamilton was not aware of the extent of it, but he knew I was ina correspondence with the sous-officer. More than once he had seen us inthe _salle depreuve_ in a manifest understanding of each other,though he had no suspicion that the gentleman was a Mercury for MissWalkinshaw, whose name seldom, if ever, entered into our conversationin the cell. From her I had got but one other letter--a briefacknowledgment of some of my fullest budgets, but 'twas enough to keepme at my diurnal on every occasion almost on which the priest slept. Isent her (with the strictest injunction to secrecy upon so important amatter) a great deal of the tale the priest had told me--not so muchfor her entertainment as for the purpose of moving in the poor man'sinterests. Especially was I anxious that she should use her influenceto have some one communicate to Father Fleuriau, who was at the time inBruges, how hazardous was the position of his unhappy cat's-paw, whosestate I pictured in the most moving colours I could command. There was,it must be allowed, a risk in entrusting a document so damnatory toany one in Bicetre, but that the packet was duly forwarded to itsdestination I had every satisfaction of from the sous-officer, whobrought me an acknowledgment to that effect from Bernard the Swiss.
The priest knew, then, as I say, that I was on certain terms with thissous-officer, and so it was with no hesitation I informed him that,through the favour of the latter, I had a very fair conception ofthe character and plan of this building of Bicetre in which we wereinterned. What I had learned of most importance to us was that the blockof which our cell was a part had a face to the main road of Paris, fromwhich thoroughfare it was separated by a spacious court and a long rangeof iron palisades. If ever we were to make our way out of the placeit must be in this direction, for on two sides of our building we wereoverlooked by buildings vastly more throng than our own, and bordered byyards in which were constant sentinels. Our block jutted out at an anglefrom one very much longer, but lower by two storeys, and the dispositionof both made it clear that to enter into this larger edifice, andtowards the gable end of it that overlooked the palisades of the Parisroad, was our most feasible method of essay.
I drew a plan of the prison and grounds on paper, estimating as best Imight all the possible checks we were like to meet with, and leaving abalance of chances in our favour that we could effect our purpose in anight.
The priest leaned his chin upon his arms as he lolled over the table onwhich I eagerly explained my diagram, and sighed at one or two of thefeats of agility it assumed. There was, for example, a roof to walkupon--the roof of the building we occupied--though how we were to getthere in the first place was still to be decided. Also there was adescent from that roof on to the lower building at right angles, thoughwhere the ladder or rope for this was to come from I must meanwhileairily leave to fortune. Finally, there was--assuming we got into thelarger building, and in some unforeseeable way along its roof and clearto the gable end--a part of the yard to cross, and the palisade toescalade.
"Oh, lad! thou takest me for a bird," cried his reverence, aghast atall this. "Is thy poor fellow prisoner a sparrow? A little after this Imight do't with my own wings--the saints guide me!--but figure you thatat present I am not Philetas, the dwarf, who had to wear leaden shoeslest the wind should blow him away. 'Twould take a wind indeed to stirthis amplitude of good humours, this sepulchre of twenty thousand gooddinners and incomputible tuns of liquid merriment. Pray, Paul, makean account of my physical infirmities, and mitigate thy transport ofvaultings and soarings and leapings and divings, unless, indeed, thoumeditatest sewing me up in a sheet, and dragging me through the realmsof space."
"We shall manage! we shall manage!" I insisted, now quite uplifted in afanciful occupation that was all to my tastes, even if nothing cameof it, and I plunged more boldly into my plans. They were favouredby several circumstances--the first, namely, that we were not in theuniform of the prison, and, once outside the prison, could mingle withthe world without attracting attention. Furthermore, by postponing theattempt till the morrow night I could communicate with the Swiss, andsecure his cooperation outside in the matter of a horse or a vehicle, ifthe same were called for. I did not, however, say so much as that to hisreverence, whom I did not wish as yet to know of my correspondencewith Bernard. Finally, we had an auspicious fact at the outset of ourattempt, inasmuch as the cell we were in was in the corridor next tothat of which the sous-officer had some surveillance, and I knew hismind well enough now to feel sure he would help in anything that did notdirectly involve his own position and duties. In other words, he was toprocure a copy of the key of our cell, and find a means of leaving itunlocked when the occasion arose.
"A copy of the key, Paul!" said Father Hamilton; "sure there are nobounds to thy cheerful mad expectancy! But go on! go on! art sure hecould not be prevailed on--this fairy godfather--to give us an escort ofcavalry and trumpeters?"
"This is not much of a backing-up, Father Hamilton," I said, annoyed athis skeptic comments upon an affair that involved so much and agitatedmyself so profoundly.
"Pardon! Paul," he said hastily, confused and vexed himself at thereproof. "Art quite right, I'm no more than a croaker, and for penance Ishall compel myself to do the wildest feat thou proposest."
We determined to put off the attempt at escape till I had communicatedwith the sous-officer (in truth, though Father Hamilton did not knowit, till I had communicated with Bernard the Swiss), and it was thefollowing afternoon I had not only an assurance of the unlocked door,but in my hand a more trustworthy plan of the prison than my own, andthe promise that the Swiss would be waiting with a carriage outside thepalisades when we broke through, any time between midnight and five inthe morning.
Next day, then, we were in a considerable agitation; to that extentindeed that I clean forgot that we had no aid to our descent of twentyor thirty feet (as the sous-sergeant's diagram made it) from the roof ofour block on to that of the one adjoining. We had had our minds so muchon bolted doors and armed sentinels that this detail had quite escapedus until almost on the eve of setting out at midnight, the priest beganagain to sigh about his bulk and swear no rope short of a ship's cablewould serve to bear him.
"Rope!" I cried, in a tremendous chagrin at my stupidity. "Lord! if Ihave not quite forgot it. We have none."
"Ah!" he said, "perhaps it is not necessary. Perhaps my heart is solight at parting with my _croque-mort_ that I can drop upon the tileslike a pigeon."
"Parting," I repeated, eyeing him suspiciously, for I thought perhaps hehad changed his mind again. "Who thinks of parting?"
"Not I indeed," says he, "unless the rope do when thou hast got it."
There was no rope, however, and I cursed my own folly that I had notasked one from the sous-officer whose complaisance might have gone thelength of a fathom or two, though it did not, as the priest suggested,go so far as an armed convoy and a brace of trumpeters. It was too latenow to repair the overlook, and to the making of rope the two of us hadthere and then to apply ourselves, finding the sheets and blankets-ofour beds scanty enough for our purpose, and by no means of an assuringelegance or strength when finished. But we had thirty feet of some sortof cord at the last, and whether it was elegant or not it had to do forour purpose.
Luckily the night was dark as pitch and a high wind roared in thechimneys, and in the numerous corners of the prison. There was a stingin the air that drew many of the sentinels round the braziers flamingin the larger yard between the main entrance and the buildings, and thatfurther helped our prospects; so that it was with some hope, in spiteof a heart that beat like a flail in my breast, I unlocked the door andcrept out into the dimly-lighted corridor with the priest close behindme.
Midway down this gallery there was a stair of which our plan apprisedus, leading to another gallery--the highest of the block--from which afew steps led to a cock-loft where the sous-officer told us there wasone chance in a score of finding a blind window leading to the roof.
No one, luckily, appe
ared as we hurried down the long gallery. I dartedlike a fawn up the stair to the next flat, Father Hamilton grievouslypuffing behind me, and we had just got into the shadow of the stepsleading to the cock-loft when a warder's step and the clank of hischained keys came sounding down the corridor. He passed within threefeet of us and I felt the blood of all my body chill with fear!
"I told thee, lad," whispered the priest, mopping the sweat from hisface, "I told thee 'twas an error to burden thyself with such a uselesscarcase. Another moment or two--a gasp for the wind that seems so cursedill to come by at my years, and I had brought thee into trouble."
I paid no heed to him, but crept up the steps and into the cock-loftthat smelt villainously of bats.
The window was unfastened! I stuck out my head upon the tiles andsniffed the fine fresh air of freedom as it had been a rare perfume.
Luckily the window was scarcely any height, and it proved easy to aidhis reverence into the open air. Luckily, further, it was too darkfor him to realise the jeopardies of his situation for whether hisprecarious gropings along the tiles were ten feet or thirty from theyard below was indiscoverable in the darkness. He slid his weighty bodyalong with an honest effort that was wholly due to his regard for myinterests, because 'twas done with groans and whispered protestationsthat 'twas the maddest thing for a man to leave a place where he washappy and risk his neck in an effort to discover misery. A rime of frostwas on the tiles, and they were bitter cold to the touch. One fell,too, below me as I slid along, and rattled loudly over its fellows andplunged into the yard.
Naturally we stopped dead and listened breathless, a foolish action forone reason because in any case we had been moving silently at a greatheight above the place where the tile should fall so that there was norisk of our being heard or seen, but our listening discovered so greatan interval between the loosening of the tile and its dull shatteringon the stones below that the height on which we were perched in thedarkness was made more plain--more dreadful to the instincts than ifwe could actually measure it with the eye. I confess I felt a touchof nausea, but nothing compared with the priest, whose teeth began tochitter in an ague of horror.
"Good Lord, Paul!" he whispered to me, clutching my leg as I moved infront of him, "it is the bottomless pit."
"Not unless we drop," said I. And to cheer him up I made some foolishjoke.
If the falling tile attracted any attention in the yard it was notapparent to us, and five minutes later we had to brace ourselves to amatter that sent the tile out of our minds.
For we were come to the end of the high building, and twenty feet belowus, at right angles, we could plainly see the glow of several skylightsin the long prison to which it was attached. It was now the moment forour descent on the extemporised rope.