Gloom and closeness were new burdens upon my soul, but I had gained one advantage—the stern approval of the prior. To him I sent request for a lamp and pen and paper. These were given me, and I had surcease from ineffable ennui by writing and drawing. Among other things, I set down in outline most of the story told here in foil. That outline is spread before me as I write these words, and is a check against my irritably failing memory.
I kept up my exercises, too, shadow-boxed on occasion, and incised more pictures upon my wall. Even so, I had many hours in which to meditate upon the injustice of Lorenzo's decree concerning me, and upon the things I would do to Guaracco if I ever came within reach of him. Of Lisa I tried not to think.
In the fall of 1474, and again two years later, attacks were made upon the fortress. There was cannonading from the stronghold, and in reply from ships, and once an effort was made to storm us. I heard commotion, fierce yells, the clash of steel. In the end, I could hear the austere soldiers of the church had repulsed their assailants, and for a day the castle rang with chanted paeans of praise.
I grew to have a philosophic sympathy with my jailers. They acted upon agreement with Lorenzo in imprisoning me. They confined me closely only because they must. If my food was plain, my bed hard, so were theirs. For the rest, they were sincere worshipers and fierce fighters. The world was full of worse people.
Thus I reasoned, but still it was a desperate struggle to remain contented and sane. I tried to remember "The Prisoner of Chillon," which had one or two stanzas of comfort for the captive, but it would not come to mind. In any case, Lord Byron would not write it for a good three hundred and forty years.
The spring of 1477 saw yet another attack by enemies, a stronger and more stubborn effort to carry the Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims. I could hear the battering of a wall close to me, and the overthrow of part of it. So hot was the fight, so narrowly balanced for an hour, that the very jailer monk rushed from the corridor outside my cell to help defend the ramparts. During his absence I had time to do a thing I had long planned to do.
The lamp that lighted me was an iron saucer with a central clip to hold aloft the wick. I ignited the straw of my bed, and, holding one edge of the lamp saucer in a fold of my jerkin, contrived to heat the opposite edge red hot. Then, with a loose stone for a hammer and the bed shelf for an anvil, I pounded, reheated, and pounded again, until I beat that rim into a knifelike edge. After the battle the jailer returned, but he had not heard my noisy labors. And I began to whittle at my wooden door.
The planks were thick, and seasoned almost as hard as iron. But I persevered, all that stifling summer. I counted myself lucky when, between one dawn and the next, I shaved away as much as a handful of splinters.
Boresome it was, and eventually heart-breaking, for my first burrowing brought me to metal. I dug at another place, hoping to avoid such a barrier, but found more; more, that is, of the same sheet.
Eventually I had removed almost all of the door's inner surface, and found myself confronted with a copper plate, a central layer, probably with as much wood outside as I had already disposed of. My tappings and proddings convinced me that it was solidly massy, except for the small slide-covered opening for food.
I am afraid I both cursed and sulked. I had no cutting tools. The blunt-edged piece of glass I used for an occasional shave was far from adequate. Even if I'd had tools—file, chisel, or drill—I would not have dared use them, for the noise would attract guards. What then?
Acid came to mind—sulphuric acid. But where to get it? The stones of my cell were volcanic, might contain sulphides. But how could I burn or distill them? Even if I got the acid, would not its strong odor bring investigation? I approached the problem from another viewpoint, considering not the best acid but the most available.
Chilly fall was upon us, and the sharp, strong wine was served daily instead of on Sunday only. Once again I was inspired.
When my next food was brought, I pleaded for a little vinegar, to medicine a chest ailment. It was brought me in a saucer, and I steeped in it some shavings, whittled from my door. When they seemed sour enough, I placed them at the bottom of my wooden bucket. Into this, day after day, I slowly trickled my ration of wine. It produced a greater quantity of excellent vinegar—at least, for metal-destroying purposes—and after tasting it I felt sure of my acid. Acetic acid, perhaps eight or ten percent at the most.
Painfully scrabbling with a spoon in the trench outside my window, I gained enough clay earth to mix with water and fashion into clumsy basins and jars. These I cautiously hardened in another fire, and employed to hold my supply of vinegar as I increased it, also for other things.
For instance, I constructed a really workable distillery—a narrow-mouthed vase or bottle, suspended above a fire which I fed with chips from the door and furniture, and straw from my bed. As winter came on I heated vinegar in this, and the vapor passed through a hollow reed which I cooled with bits of ice from just outside my barred window. The condensed drops I caught in my cup. They were not pure acetic acid, but a liquid with a high content.
These labors lasted for months. I speak of them briefly, saying nothing of the trial and error, the ludicrous failures and the chance successes that finally made my skill and product adequate. At length, well after Christmas of 1477, I began my attack upon the copper plate that held me from freedom.
At the height of my forehead, and again at the height of my knee, I constructed clay troughs against the metal. These I filled, and kept filled, with the acid. When the action proved slight, I hit upon the device of adding salt, procured by soaking my preserved meat, then evaporating the brine, to the liquid. Thus I got a crude form of hydrochloric acid, which made an appreciable impression. I constantly scraped away the weakened particles of metal, and replenished my supply of salted acid. I wrought for months, and finally was rewarded when the last of the copper along those two narrow lines was eaten away.
The perpendicular acidulation was more difficult, but I managed it by fashioning two clay tubes at the edges of the door, open at the top, rather like the covered tunnels built by tropical ants. These I filled again and again, sometimes pulling them down to pry out the digested copper, then building them afresh for new attacks.
Here, too, I was successful, and one day in February I was able to pry away the whole rectangle of metal within the compass of my four acid-cut channels. There was more wood beyond but, heartened by my triumph, I scraped and chiseled until the door was almost as thin as pasteboard. To the outside view it might appear as strong as ever.
At mid-day of April 16, 1478, I made my bid for escape.
The attendant came to my door, pushed back the slide, and stooped to thrust in my food. I had been waiting for an hour, tense and ready. As I heard him outside, I sprang, bursting through the thin wood like a clown through a paper hoop.
Landing on the monk's unsuspecting back, I whipped an arm beneath his chin, shutting off his breath. He could not cry out, and his struggles availed nothing. I choked him until his limbs grew slack, then stripped off his robe. I donned this and pushed him, senseless, through the smashed door into my cell.
Then I headed down the corridor, cowl over my face, his keys in my hand. I unlocked the door at the end, mounted steps, and came to an upper level. Another corridor I traversed, with measured tread, as though deep in meditation, and none challenged me.
I came into the main hall, saw the doorway to the courtyard. Beyond would be the open, the beach, a boat. I would row away, they would think that a brother was fishing. After that, I would seek land, even among the Turks. But a voice spoke at my elbow.
"You pass me without saluting, brother."
Father Augustino! He had fallen into step beside me. I lifted a hand to my hooded brow, and his single eye fastened upon it.
"How white your flesh, brother. I thought that every monk of our order was tanned brown by God's sunlight. Who are you?"
There was nothing for it but battle. I sprang at him.
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Surprise was on my side. I tipped him and fell heavily upon him. But that old priest-soldier, lame and half-blind, was as strong as I, as fierce. I clutched and pressed his throat, but he caught my two little fingers in his hands, bent them painfully backward until I quit the grip.
His thumbs drove into the inner sides of my biceps, torturing nerves between the muscles, and I rolled free of him. We came up to our feet. I struck him heavily on the jaw, and his one eye blinked, but he did not stagger or flinch.
Strongly grappling me around the waist, he rushed me back against a wall, and so held me, despite my pummeling fists in his face, while a dozen monks, swords and axes in hand, rushed in from all directions. In an instant I was secured, and Father Augustino stepped clear of me, dabbing at a trickle of blood from his scarred nose. He panted and grinned, as if he had enjoyed the scrimmage.
"Here's a stout sinner," he growled. "Never did the blessed angel clip Father Jacob more strongly. Thank you for the bout, my son. Put him in my office."
There I was kept under close guard, while the chief stumped away to investigate. He returned after half an hour, and dismissed the guards, but kept his dagger drawn lest I attack him.
"I am amazed at the cunning and courage and labor of your attempt," he began. "How did you manage to cut through the door, copper and all?"
I described my method, and he listened with interest. Several times he asked me to amplify my remarks. At length he smiled.
"You have science and inspiration. How great would be your works if they were turned to honest, godly uses!"
"Being held prisoner, I can turn them only to an effort at escape," I replied.
"Aye, that. Your months of toil, so brilliantly planned and so wearily carried out, came to naught within short minutes. A tragedy." Father Augustino paused and meditated. Then: "My son, what if I gave you freedom?"
"Freedom!" I echoed him hopefully.
"Within limits, of course. Take you from that cell and let you live among us. You could work more science, with true materials to aid you instead of such makeshifts as you fashioned in prison." He gazed at me encouragingly. "Say but the word—swear that you will not seek to flee from this island—"
"I am sorry," I broke in, "but I cannot so doom myself."
"Doom yourself? But you are now held by iron bars and guards."
"And by a false charge, brought against me by a vile rascal," I finished for him. "I thank you, good Father, for your offer, but I live only to escape and to avenge myself. I cannot give you a parole."
He shook his scarred head sadly. Going to the door, he called his monks.
"Hither, some of you," he commanded. "We must find this fellow a straiter prison still."
A new figure pushed through the circle of black gowns, a man in the dress of the world, all particolored hose and plum-purple mantle, with a gay beard and curling locks. Plainly he was a visitor from some Italian city.
"Surely," quoth he, "this is Ser Leo, the artist and scientist, who is held captive by order of Lorenzo the Magnificent."
"Aye, that." Father Augustino nodded. "You know him?"
"I know him," was the reply. "Where doth he go now?"
"To an oubliette, I fear. From there he will need wings to rise."
Two of the armed brothers had torn away my disguising robe, and now marched me down steps, more steps, to a level of natural rock where no light shone save a torch. One of them hoisted a great iron trap-door. I looked into a bottle-shaped pit, at least twelve feet deep.
At that moment the upper levels of the castle wakened to noise—a blown trumpet, a chorus of yells. The two monks turned to look. I tightened my sinews for a desperate fight against them before I might be hurled into that tomblike prison. A flying figure came downstairs.
"The infidel Turks! Their galleys blacken the seas! Come to the defense!"
"As soon as we lower this captive into—" began one of my guards.
"No!" A bearded face looked over the black-clad shoulder of the newsbringer. It was the visitor who had recognized me. "Bring him along, he will help fight!"
"Well thought of!" came the deep voice of Father Augustino, higher on the stairs. "Free every captive who can bear arms! Let them fight for life!"
We all raced up the steps together.
CHAPTER XVII
Defense of the Fortress
Mounting to battlements around the upper wall of the castle, we all saw that the sea was indeed full of craft. There were galleys, a full dozen, many smaller feluccas, and open rowboats swarming as thick as a school of mullet. Drums resounded from the larger ships; and horns. Our own bugles brayed back defiance.
Father Augustino was rasping orders, like any seasoned captain.
"Man and load each gun," he commanded. "Line the walls, keep lookout for where they may land." His eye found me. "Ha, wrestler! Canst use a sword?" He motioned to an aide, who thrust a hilt into my hand. "You have fought your fellow Christians over-long. Fight now against infidels!"
I shifted the weapon to my left fist, trying its balance. At an opposite rampart stood the man who had recommended my joining the defense, and to him I made my way.
"I do not know you, sir, though you know me," I said. "Thanks for saving me from that spider's hole into which they would have thrown me."
"We will speak more of it anon." He pointed to where, inside the little harbor, lay a trim sailing vessel among the boats of the Holy Pilgrims. "Yonder is my craft, and upon it a fair lady who must not set foot on this monk-owned island. I pray heaven naught befalls either of them."
But I showed him where some of our men strung a heavy chain at the mouth of the inlet. That would prevent the approach of enemy boats, which in any case sought to storm us from the other side.
At that point the wall dropped straight to the sea, and had been badly damaged not long before—perhaps in the fight a spring ago, when I had heard crumbling of stones. The brothers had built it up roughly with broken masonry and spaded earth, faced it with timbers and logs, but it was still the weak spot of the defenses.
Even the stone flooring at the top had collapsed and was replaced with planking; while, instead of an adequate parapet, a work of earth-filled goatskins had been laid in and topped by a great log, nearly a hundred feet long.[*14] From this log ran back cross-pieces, lashed on as slanting supports.
Here the fire from the galleys was concentrated. Round shot tore holes in the goatskins and let out cascades of the heaped earth, while a blizzard of arrows and slings picked off such the brothers as manned the log-topped parapet. The others crouched low.
"They will seek to carry this quarter," announced Father Augustino sagely, limping across to the log.
His gown, looped up to kilt length, showed great steel greaves upon his shins, and he had thrown back his cowl to don a plumeless helmet. A bolt from a crossbow struck his shoulder, then glanced away. He must be wearing a steel cuirass under his robe.
"Aye," he called, "here they come, a hell's spawn of boats, under cover of their fellows' fire! Keep down, brethren, until they mount our wall. Then the fire must slacken, and we will meet the unbelievers with an argument they will understand."
Drawing his sword, he spat between big hand and worn hilt.
I dared look over the log. A shoal of boats swept swiftly toward us from the galleys, boats filled with gesticulating and howling Turks. I saw the glitter of their mail, the curves of their flourished scimitars, the upward jut of helmet spikes from their turbans. A moment later, a jagged little stone sang upward and against my forehead—slung, like David's pebble, from a sling. Like Goliath I fell sprawling on my back, half dazed and almost dropping my sword.
Father Augustino leaned farther from his point of vantage, careless of the rain of missiles.
"They raise ladders!" he cried. "Here they mount!" He turned to his followers. "Strike, brethren, for the true faith!"
I made shift to rise, a little shakily, and watched as a line of black-robes came swiftly forward over th
e planked-in floor, swords and axes and halberds at the ready. The sound of firing had ceased from galleyward, as Father Augustino had predicted. A moment later, a yodelling cry rose from below:
"Ululululallahuakbar!"
One prolonged bellow of challenge and of profession. Then the outer side of our log was lined with turbaned, bearded heads.
The storming party was upon us, eager for trouble. Nor could they have come to a better place to find it.
The Holy Pilgrims hurled themselves upon the attackers, calling upon the names of every saint in the calendar, and hewing and thrusting like fiends instead of clergymen. At their head, and in the hottest press, nimbly hobbled Father Augustino, his straight sword playing like a striking adder against a whole forest of scimitars.
Something impelled me in his direction, and in good time for him. While his point wedged in the neck-bone of one adversary, another charged close and, catching him by a fold of his gown, slashed a scimitar viciously at his head.
The blow was turned by Father Augustino's helm, but its force staggered him, and a second effort beat him to his knee. With a whoop, the Turk lifted his blade for a third and finishing cut, but at that moment I hurled myself between, my own steel forestalling his.
He was a deep-chested fellow, brown as chocolate, with mad foam on his black beard.
"Ya Nazarini!" he snarled. "Ya 'bn kalb!"[*15]
And he fell furiously upon me. But for all his fierceness, I was more than his match. My first slicing lunge laid open his face, my second bit into the side of his neck. He collapsed, bleeding from nose and mouth to die even as I turned away.
The surviving Turks were reeling back, whipped along by the savage garrison. They tumbled down their ladders and rowed hurriedly away in their boats, under a new curtain of shot and arrows.
Father Augustino was up again, glancing around to estimate the situation.
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