The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE NEST-EGG HATCHES OUT.

  "St! Bobbs!"

  The sound was at Robert's left ear. He had been dreaming of Emilyarrayed in bridal white and kneeling at his side before the altar ofjoy. Uncle Benjamin in a clergyman's surplice was pronouncing abenediction upon them. The good old custom of a nuptial kiss was aboutto be observed, when the warning whisper and his prison nickname rudelyawakened him to his surroundings. The sweet vision melted into a blackreality, the wide arches of the cathedral contracting to narrow cellwalls and the loved faces of Emily and his uncle cruelly vanishing.

  "Bobbs! Do you 'ear?"

  "Yes!" Robert rubbed his eyes as if to restore the illusion and hisanswer was slumbrously indistinct.

  "Count that bell."

  A distant clock was giving out two strokes faintly but with vibrationsprolonged in the silence.

  "'Ear the hother coves snoozing."

  The deep breathing of the convicts grew more and more audible asRobert's senses became sharper and he sat up on his couch.

  "Hi 'ear you, Bobbs. Hare you making your toilet?" inquired thefacetious cracksman.

  "Yes."

  "Leave your bloomin' boots be'ind as a keepsake. We haren'tpussy-footed, me hangel."

  "All right, I'm ready."

  "Now, take out the blocks, me boy, and 'andle with care. If they fallson your toes they might 'urt, besides disturbin' the bloomin' deputy,which we must be werry careful to havoid, Bobbs, out of considerationfor 'is feelings. Sh!"

  A footstep was heard coming along the corridor, and the re-enforcementof light told the prisoners that the turnkey had a lantern in his hand,the dim gas jet at one end only sufficing to deepen the shadows in thecells. Robert lay back on his pallet and closed his eyes till the stepsretreated. In a half-minute the turnkey would be back. He was a new man,both Gradger and Hawkins being still on the sick list from the blowsthey had received in the riot of the day before.

  "St, Bobbs, hare you ready?"

  "All ready."

  Robert had removed six bricks and carefully muffled them in hisbedquilt, leaving an aperture not much larger than the door of a kennel.The light came nearer and nearer and suddenly he heard the cracksmangroaning piteously. The turnkey raised his lantern, approached the cellfrom which these sounds issued and peered in.

  "Somebody bludgeoned yesterday," thought he. But "somebody" was standingat the front of his cell, with his hands firmly grasping two bars. Asthe turnkey stooped and brought his eyes nearer, the two bars werewrenched out and clasped around his neck. Being a sturdy fellow, hisinstinct was to struggle rather than to cry. But his struggle availedhim nothing in the surprise of the moment, with the odds of positionagainst him. His head was drawn down through the bars and he nuzzled asoft substance on the cracksman's breast. Then a strange odor gotpossession of his senses. He gasped, fought, gasped again, and finallyfainted away. When his writhings had ceased the cracksman removed hislantern and laid it lightly on the floor outside.

  "Climb through, Bobbs--not that way."

  Robert had stood on the bed and thrust one leg through the aperture.

  "Head foremost, as the little feller dives."

  Robert reversed his position, and with a terrible wrenching of hisshoulders worked the upper part of his body through the opening, Dobbsgiving him loyal assistance and encouragement meanwhile. The turnkeyhanging helpless into the cracksman's cell, his body outlined againstthe lantern, caused him to start back.

  "Ee's hall right. Hi nursed 'im asleep on my breast-pin. Hain't itdaintily perfumed?"

  Attached to the cracksman's breast was a large sponge saturated withchloroform. The turnkey had inhaled this and was soundly asleep.

  "Now for running the gantlet, Bobbs."

  Dobbs' motions were lightning-like. First he laid the turnkey softlyoutside, then climbed through the cell-bars, this time feet foremost,for the cuts had been made nearly two feet apart vertically and the barswere not set close together. Once outside, he motioned to Robert tofollow him, while he detached the prostrate man's keys from his girdle,dabbing his nose now and then with the sponge. Squeezing them tightly soas to avoid clanking, he coolly selected one of the largest.

  "That comes of watching Longlegs w'en the others were 'ollering," hewhispered to Robert, holding up his prize. It was the key to the door atthe blind end of the corridor, which a turnkey passing through with theintention of going out into the yard would naturally select from hisbunch and carry separate. Hawkins' habit of swinging his keysnonchalantly had not escaped Dobbs' observant eyes.

  "Now," whispered Dobbs, making for the blind end of the corridor. Therewas no time to remove the lantern and the chloroformed turnkey fromsight. Most of the convicts were still asleep, but two or three,awakened by the noises, started up in their night clothes and stoodbehind the bars, making gestures but uttering no sound.

  Thus far Dobbs' plan had proved successful. There was no other outletthan the one he had chosen, since the cells were backed against themiddle of the bastile and were impregnable at the rear. There remainedtwo strong doors in the opposite wall to force. One turn of the key inits wards slipped the lock of the first. Before the second Dobbs waitedand listened. A rhythm of receding footsteps was heard outside.Suddenly they seemed to cease.

  "He's turned the corner," whispered the cracksman, immediately openingthe outer door.

  "Pull the inside one to, me boy."

  Robert did as he commanded.

  "Out with you now."

  Robert preceded his confederate into the deserted yard, while Dobbsclosed the great outer gate softly and sprung its iron bolt. Pursuitfrom within was thus cut off.

  "Now run, me boy."

  Robert followed, easily keeping up with his leader. As they approachedthe end of the bastile, Dobbs slowed his pace.

  "Tiptoes, now," he cried stealthily working his way up to the corner ofthe building, where he stood crouching as if in ambush. Their shadowswere thrown forward beyond the corner, so that the cracksman could notget within a yard of the edge.

  "The hother cove Hi greased, but this one we'll 'ave to sponge, Bobbs,"he said, taking the sponge from his breast and sprinkling it anew from atiny vial.

  "'Ere ee comes a-waggin' of 'is 'ead, but this at 'is beak will set 'imsnoozin', Hi fawncy."

  The footsteps came nearer and nearer, as monotonously regular as theticking of a clock, but slow and heavy, as if the sentinel were a man ofsize. Dobbs stood ready to spring, the sponge in his right hand, hisleft free to disarm the deputy if he should present his gun. The form ofa man turned the angle. It was Koerber, the giant, whom Col. Mainwaringhad transferred from the caneshop to this less responsible duty.

  Luckily Dobbs caught him in the midst of a capacious gape, and the greatsponge stuffed into his open mouth served at once as gag and smotheringinstrument.

  "'Old 'is harm," cried Dobbs to Robert, who leaped to his side and helddown the powerful right arm of the German Titan. Koerber kicked andfought with desperation, bruising each of his assailants, but thesponge muffled his outcries and gradually he sunk in a stupor, Dobbs,with a strength no one would have suspected, breaking the fall of hisbody and laying him gently on the ground.

  Another long application of the sponge and again he sped away. Koerber'sbeat stopped at the middle of the end-section of the yard, where he andthe other sentinel must have met and saluted. But no one had come to hisaid, and when the two fugitives crossed the "left yard," as it wascalled, making directly for the wall, no one impeded their progress.Eighty yards away, near the greenhouses, the back of a deputy could beseen marching in the opposite direction. Was this the man whom Dobbs had"greased?"

  The cracksman had made a bee-line for the twenty-foot wall. How did hehope to surmount such a barrier? It was as smooth as a planed board,with hardly crevice enough at the cemented seams to give a cat's clawfooting.

  "Ere's a hinstrument of my hown inventing which I call the 'andy 'inge,"said Dobbs, removing from his bosom an iron thing coile
d around withrope. Unreeling the rope with lightning twists, he displayed for asecond a plain, strong hinge, very broadplated and sharp at the innerangle. With a cast that no professional angler could excel, he flungthis far over the top of the wall, and drew it taut, by means of therope. The edges of the wall being drilled off perfectly square, thehinge must have caught on the other side, and the security of theapparatus as a means of ascent was only limited by the strength of therope. The device was as simple, yet as ingenious, as the clock-face.

  "Climb, me boy," said Dobbs.

  Robert was up in a few seconds, the rope being thick enough to give hishands good purchase, and the cool night air and exhilaration buoying hisstrength. Dobbs climbed with more difficulty and was puffing heavilywhen, with Robert's help, he reached the broad top of the wall.

  "Hi'll 'ave you gazetted hensign in the royal navy, Bobbs, next time Hiconfab with 'er royal 'ighness," he smiled, his humor never appearing todesert him. "Such climbing would do credit to a powder monkey."

  Just then, with the two figures standing on the top of the wall, a loudclang smote the silent air. It was followed by another and another tillthe world seemed awake once more.

  "The alarm bell!" cried Dobbs. "They're after us! Drop!"

  Both men were on the ground in a second, Dobbs coiling his "handy hinge"as he led the way running. Fear lent him wings and though he panted andhis voice grew husky, he managed to keep abreast of his fleetercompanion. The prison wall skirted a long, ill-lighted alley, whichdebouched in an unfrequented street. Here the houses were scattered,barren lots intervening, and a glimpse of the river breaking into thebackground now and then. It was broad moonlight, and the trees andfences afforded little shelter to the runaways.

  Any policeman who met them would have been justified in shooting downtwo men, one in convict garb, fleeing from the direction of the prison.Doubtless Dobbs had prepared himself for this emergency, but luckfavored him here and his reserve resources were not called into play. Toleft and right and left again he turned, finally climbing a low fenceand crossing a stableyard that bordered on the river. A second fence toclimb and Robert found himself on the rocky embankment of the stream.

  How dark and beautiful it was in the moonlight! "Free, and I know notanother as infinite word"--the line of the poet came back to him, andfor an instant he felt in his veins all the glory of that treasure forwhich nations have thought rivers of their purest blood no extravagantprice. But there was little leisure now for meditation. The alarm bellcould still be heard sounding distinctly at the distance of a quarter ofa mile and Dobbs was peering down the embankment, which cast an inkypall over the water in its shadow.

  Presently he whistled. An answer came, some fifty yards to the right.Clutching his comrade's arm, the Englishman ran along the bank to thespot from which the response proceeded. A light keel-boat with a singleoccupant was moored in the gloom below, but so far below that to jumpwould surely capsize her, for the tide was at its ebb and the stream hadsunk like an emptying canal lock.

  "Shall we plunge in?" asked Robert, not averse to the bracing midnightbath.

  "'Ardly, with a four-mile row in wet clothes before us, me hangel,"answered the cracksman, "and the 'andy 'inge still lovingly clasped tomy bosom."

  Scooping out some earth at the rim of the flags which crowned theembankment wall, he made a hollow for the hinge and threw the rope downinto the boat. The corner to which it clung had not been chiseled offclean like the edge of the prison wall and there was some chance of itsslipping, but the risk had to be run.

  This time Dobbs descended first. Robert followed him nimbly. All throughthe adventure he had reflected and even echoed the cracksman's humorousmood, and had displayed as little nervousness as if it were a student'slark upon which he was engaged instead of the grave crime of prisonbreach. So when the hinge slipped, just as he was dangling midway, andhe fell plump into Dobbs' arm, with a coil of rope and an iron implementbehind him, he only laughed as delightedly as a high-perched tomboyafter climbing a forbidden fence.

  "Well, that gives us back the hinge," he said. "We might have had toleave it."

  Evidently the serious-talking young radical had a vein of drollery underhis thoughtful exterior.

  "You didn't 'urt yourself?" asked Dobbs, gathering his own dispersedmembers together.

  "Not a bit. You're as good as a feather bed. I'd just enjoy tumbling onyou four or five times a day."

  But Dobbs, ruefully rubbing his barked shins, only ordered the boatmanto "give way," which is nautical for "pull straight ahead," and in threeor four strokes they were clear of the embankment and out in the fullcurrent of the flowing tide.