CHAPTER X.
THE CONDEMNED CELL--MATHIAS ESCAPED--WHERE HAS HE GONE?--THEBLOOD ON THE HEARTH--A TALE OF TERROR.
The schemes set on foot by the friends of Mathias for his release wereso many and so unceasing that the greatest precautions had to be takento keep him in safety.
Rules were made, and for awhile most rigidly enforced, that not a soulwas to be permitted to visit the prisoner; but the exception proves therule, and there was an exception made in favour of a lady who came andpleaded so earnestly to the governor of the prison that he could notfind the courage to refuse her.
The lady was shown into the cell which Mathias had lately occupied.
Lately? Yes.
The bird had flown.
But how had he got free?
Where had he gone?
Not a soul in the prison had the vaguest notion.
The gaoler stared and gaped like one in a dream.
"Where is Mathias?" demanded the woman.
"That's more than I can guess," responded the gaoler, rubbing his eyesas though he could not believe their evidence.
"Have you mistaken the cell?"
"Not I."
"Has he been removed?"
"No."
She stared him straight in the face for a moment or two, and then sheburst out into a fit of laughter.
"Ha, ha, ha! Why, he has escaped. He has escaped. He has beaten yourvigilance--baffled you all in spite of locks, bolts and bars, and allyour watching."
The gaoler scratched his head.
"Let us look."
"Look! why, you can see everything here at a glance--everything. Thereare four walls. There is the bedstead; you can see under it. There isnot room for a man to creep under there. There is the fireplace, andthere is the window."
"Ha!" ejaculated the gaoler, "the window."
"What then?"
"There is no other way; he must have escaped that way, undoubtedly."
"Nonsense," said the woman; "don't you see that is too high up from theground."
"He has found a way to climb up there, then."
"But the iron bars are all in their places still."
"True," said the gaoler, thoroughly puzzled, "true. Where can he havegot to?"
"It is simple enough."
"How so?"
"He never attempted the window. He has walked out through the doorbeing left open."
"Never!"
"Money can do more than that, and I rejoice at his freedom."
She moved to the door.
But the gaoler held her back rather roughly.
"Stop you here," he said, rudely; "I shall have to report this to thegovernor, and you had better remain until the job has beeninvestigated."
And before the startled woman could divine his intention, he swung tothe door and shot the bolt.
Then pushing back the trap in the door, he added a few words throughthe grating.
"You'll be safer there," said he, "unless you can manage to get out asMathias did. But the devil himself must have a compact with Mathias!"
"At least leave me the light," she said, imploringly.
"Against orders," was all the answer vouchsafed.
The trap was shut.
The woman was left a prisoner, in total darkness.
* * * * *
There is always something unpleasant in darkness, and this woman was byno means iron-nerved.
No sooner was she alone, than a painful sensation of uneasiness stoleover her.
"They can not keep me long here," she kept murmuring to herself; "Ihave done nothing; I am accused of no offence. The governor will set meat liberty as soon as he knows. Could any thing be more unfortunate?Mathias was a prisoner, and I was at liberty. Now Mathias is free, andI am a prisoner. Cruel fate to separate us. We are destined to beparted."
The gloom grew oppressive now.
She stood still, listening in painful silence for five minutestogether--five minutes that appeared to be as many hours.
A silence so solemn, so death-like, that she could hear the verybeating of her heart. This grew unbearable.
She groped her way around the cell to find the bed, and approaching thefireplace, she was suddenly startled by a sound.
A very faint noise, as of something dripping on the flagstones by herfeet.
In the tomb-like silence then reigning, the faintest sound caused herto feel uncomfortable.
She listened awhile intently, asking herself what it could mean.
Drip, drip, drip.
It was strange.
When the light was there, she had not noticed it at all.
What could it be then, that was only to be heard in the dark?
Was it fancy?
No.
It was too real.
There was no mistaking it.
If the oppressive gloom of the cell started strange sounds or strangefancies in her head, why should it take such a shape as that?
Why, indeed?
"Would to Heaven they were back with the light," she said. "Will theynever come?"
Just then, as though her earnest wish were heard and answered, a faintthin streak of light was shot into the cell through the grated windowabove.
This was reflected from a chamber in the prison whose window was closeby the window of this cell, and where a lamp had just been lighted.
The welcome ray shot straight across the cell where she stood by thefireplace, and she remarked that the dripping did not cease.
Drip, drip, drip!
She looked down.
"I see, I see," she shudderingly exclaimed, "it is raining, and therain is falling down the chimney. How foolish of me to get alarmedabout nothing."
Now the light, we have said, shot across the hearth, and here it wasthat the drip, drip, drip, fell.
"Same as I thought."
As she muttered this to herself, she stretched forth her hand under thechimney, and the next drop fell upon it. It was not water.
No, imperfect as was the light then, it sufficed to show her that uponher hand was a curiously dark stain.
Raising it nearer to her eyes, she examined it eagerly.
Then she shuddered, and exclaimed in a voice of terror--"Blood!"
Yes, it was blood.
Pen can not describe the terror of that wretched woman upon making thisalarming discovery.
"Blood! Whose? Hah! whose blood? Whose but his--whose but the blood ofmy darling--my own Mathias?"
For a moment the thought completely unnerved her, and it was littleshort of a miracle that she kept from fainting.
But she fought bravely with the deathly horror stealing over her.
And kneeling on the hearth, she called up, yet in gentle voice, lestshe should give the alarm--
"Mathias! Mathias, my own! Do you not know me? Mathias, I say!"
She listened--listened eagerly for a reply.
And presently it came--a dull, hollow moan, a cry of anguish thatchilled the blood in her heart, that froze the very marrow in herbones.
"Mathias, darling Mathias! answer me for the love of mercy; I shall dieelse."
Another moan was heard.
Fainter and fainter even than the first.
Yet full of pent-up suffering.
A sound that told a whole tale of anguish.
"Mathias, come to me," she called again.
"Oh-h-h!"
A fearfully prolonged groan came down to her, louder than before, as ifthe sufferer had put all his remaining strength into the effort.
Then all was silent.
Eagerly she listened, straining forward to catch the faintest breath.
But the voice above was stilled for ever.
And yet the drip, drip, drip continued, and as she stretched forwardbeneath the chimney, she caught the drops upon her face.
Then she could no longer thrust back conviction.
With a wild cry of terror she drew back, and groped her way round theroom towards the door.
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Her hand rested upon the grated trap, and she pushed it back with allher force, crying aloud for help as she did so.
"Help, help!" she shouted with the energy of despair; "Mathias isdying."
But that wretched man would not trouble the authorities more--His lastbreath had been drawn as she stood there listening to those awesomesounds.
What could be the solution of this mystery!
This would be known soon now, for the sounds of footsteps weredistinctly heard now in the long stone corridors of the prison.
The gaolers had given the alarm at once of the prisoner's escape, andthe outlets of the prison were guarded in all directions, while a partywas sent to the cell to investigate the matter thoroughly.
At the head of this party was the governor himself.
The time had appeared ten times as long to the unhappy woman as it wasin reality.
"Help, help! oh, help!" she cried.
At each effort she grew weaker and weaker. Her voice died away, andwhen they reached the door of the cell, they found her hanging by thebars of the grated window or trap more dead than alive.
"Show the light," ejaculated the governor.
And then, as the rays fell upon that face, pallid as the flesh of acorpse, save where the dark blood stains had settled, there was aninvoluntary exclamation of horror from all the beholders.
"Father of mercy," cried one of the men; "she has destroyed herself."
Such was the general idea.
She had committed suicide.
In this, however, they were speedily undeceived.
To burst open the door and rush into the cell was but the work of amoment.
At this the woman rallied a little and recovered herself.
"What is the matter?" asked the governor.
"The chimney!" gasped the woman faintly.
"The chimney! Speak--explain."
"His blood--Mathias's," she said; "see the chimney. I dare not look."
Two of the men by now had approached the chimney, and lowering thelight they carried, one of them discovered a dark ominous pool upon thehearth.
"Call the doctor; there is something more than meets the eye in this."
This order was promptly obeyed, and a surgeon was speedily inattendance. A mere cursory glance convinced the man of skill that theblood upon the woman's face was not her own, and just as he arrived atthe decision, drip, drip, drip it began again upon the hearth.
The men looked at each other half scared, and the governor himself wasscarcely more self-possessed.
The surgeon alone retained his presence of mind.
Snatching a lamp from one of the men, he thrust it as far as his armcould reach up the chimney and looked earnestly up.
"As I thought!" he exclaimed.
"What?" demanded the governor, eagerly.
"He is there."
"Who?"
"Who but the prisoner? Mathias is there--hopelessly stuck--wedged in.He has been trying to escape and has hurt himself."
The woman looked up at these words.
"Is it no worse?" she asked. "Is he badly hurt?"
"I can not say yet," said the surgeon; "we must get him down first."
This proved a very difficult matter indeed.
The flue was so narrow that it was sheer madness to attempt climbingit.
Eagerly Mathias had pushed on, and finally got himself wedgedinextricably.
He could neither move up nor down.
It was when he made this alarming discovery that his struggles becamedesperate, and in his wild efforts to free himself from his self-settrap, he tore and mutilated his flesh most cruelly.
The wounds and the want of air had done their work.
An hour's hard work succeeded in setting the prisoner free--or ratherhis body, for it was found that life had been extinct, according to thesurgeon's report, before they had entered the cell.
And when they came to examine the clothes, they made a discovery whichthrew a light upon the whole affair.
A small scrap of paper, dirty and crumpled was found in his pocket,upon which was some writing that was with great difficulty construed inthis wise--
"The only hope is from the waterside. If you can but reach the roof,and have the courage to make the plunge, freedom will be your reward."
How this note came there was never discovered.
With this dire catastrophe ended the efforts of the brigands to freetheir unhappy leader.
Jack Harkaway and His Son's Escape from the Brigands of Greece Page 10