by G. A. Henty
They reached the road just as a peasant came along. He was an old man, and was dragging behind him a pile of faggots, which were placed upon two rough poles. He was walking between these, holding two ends in his hands, while the others trailed along on the ground behind.
“Bargain with him, Paolo.”
“That is a heavy load, father,” the latter said.
“Ay, it is heavy.”
“How much do you expect to get for your faggots in the town?”
“I shall get a crown,” the man said. “I would not take under, and they ought to be worth more than that now the snow has begun to fall.”
“We are going into the town,” Paolo said. “We are younger than you, and between us we could drag it along easily. I have got a crown in my pocket to buy some things with. I don’t mind giving it to you for your load. If I can sell the faggots for a few soldi over that we shall be able to buy something for ourselves.”
“It is a bargain, lad,” the old man said. “I am getting old and the rheumatism is in my bones, and I shall be very glad to be spared the journey; so give me your money and take the poles. I hope you will be successful, and sell them a little higher. You had better ask a crown and a half. The women are sure to beat you down, but you will make ten or twelve soldi for yourselves.”
Paolo handed the crown to the old man.
“How had we better take this, Paolo?” Hector asked, as the old man, chuckling with satisfaction at having escaped a toilsome journey, turned to retrace his steps.
“There is room for us both between the shafts,” Paolo said, “one behind the other. It would be much easier to walk holding both poles than for us both to take one, as in that way the weight will be balanced on each side of us.”
There was indeed just room between the ends of the poles and the pile of brushwood for them to walk close behind each other, and as the greater portion of the weight rested on the other ends of the poles they did not find the burden a heavy one.
“How are we going to sell these, Paolo?”
“We shall have no difficulty in selling them, master. This frost will set every housewife on the lookout for wood, and you will find that we sha’n’t have to go far before we are accosted.”
It was two miles from the spot where they had bought the faggots to the gates of Turin.
“I sha’n’t be sorry to get rid of this load,” Hector said. “It is not the weight but the roughness of the poles. My hands are quite chafed by them.”
“Loose your hold for a bit, master. My hands have been accustomed to rough work, and many a load of faggots have I drawn in my time.”
“I will hold on, Paolo. It is not more than a quarter of a mile farther. My hands have done plenty of work, too, but it has been done with smooth handled weapons. It is well that they should become accustomed to harder work.”
They passed without a question through the gate, and following the example of other vendors of wood, of whom they saw several, Paolo began to shout, “Large faggots for sale!”
It was not long before a door opened and a woman beckoned him.
“How much do you want for the whole?”
“A crown and a half,” Paolo said.
“I have been offered as many for a crown,” the woman replied.
“Then, signora, you did wrong to refuse. It took two days’ work to cut them, and we have dragged them here for miles. Two crowns would not pay for the labour. Not one scudo would I take under the price that I have named. Why, if the town is besieged these faggots would be worth twenty crowns before the winter is over.”
“Well, I will give you the money,” the woman said. “It is extortionate. Generally I can buy them at half that price.”
“I do not say no to that,” Paolo laughed, “but with two armies wanting firewood and cutting down the copses without even taking trouble to ask leave of their owners, I think that you will see firewood very scarce in the city before long.”
“Well, carry it in and pile it in the yard.”
This was soon done, the poles were thrown on to the top of the heap, and the boys went off along the street again.
“We have made half a crown for ourselves,” Paolo laughed; “now we must decide how we shall spend it.”
“It would be a good plan to spend some money anyhow,” Hector said. “What kind of things would you be likely to buy for your family in the country?”
“Well, I should say a cooking pan to begin with, and a few yards of warm stuff for making my mother a skirt.”
“Well, buy the cooking pan first and sling it across your shoulder, and then as we wander about we can look in the shops and it will seem as if we were on the search for articles that we had been told to purchase; it would be better than sauntering about without any apparent object. But first let us walk briskly towards the side of the town facing the citadel. The Strada Vecchia is the one that I want to examine first.”
The knowledge that he had gained from the plan of the city enabled Hector to find the street without their having to ask any questions.
“Now, buy your cooking pan at the next smith’s shop you come to, and then we can go slowly along making our observations.”
They soon found that the street they had entered was, for the most part, deserted by its inhabitants. The shops were all closed, the road was strewn with fallen chimneys and balconies, and here and there were yawning holes showing how severely the street had suffered when the artillery duel was going on between the guns on the walls and those of the citadel. A short distance down the street a chain was stretched across it, and here a musketeer was pacing up and down on guard. Two others could be seen at the farther end of the street, where there was a gateway in the wall, now closed up with sandbags piled thickly against it.
“We will see if the other streets are similarly guarded.”
This was found to be so, sentries being placed in every street running down to the wall in this quarter.
“So far so good, Paolo. I do not think that matters could have been better for us. The next thing is to buy a tool with which we can wrench open a door or the shutter of a window; but a door will be best, because we could not work at a shutter without running the risk of being seen by a sentinel, while in a doorway we should be screened from observation. These houses in the Strada Vecchia are old, and the doors ought not to give us much trouble.”
“Some of these old locks are very strong, master. I should think that it would be easier to cut out one of the panels than to force the door open.”
“Possibly it would, but it is not an easy thing to get the saw to work. We should have to bore a hole large enough for the saw to go through before we could use it. However, we will buy both a saw and a crowbar; as they are both things that are useful to woodcutters, your buying them will not appear suspicious, nor will the purchase of an auger, but we had better get them at different shops.”
Leaving that part of the town they re-entered the streets where business was being carried on as usual.
“We won’t buy the things until late in the afternoon, Paolo. There would be no advantage in dragging them about all day.”
They sauntered about the streets for some hours, then Paolo went into a small baker’s and bought two loaves of coarse bread. At another shop he purchased some cheese, and with these they sat down on a stone bench in the principal square and leisurely ate their food and looked on at the crowd, which consisted principally of soldiers, Spanish veterans, stiff in carriage and haughty in manner, together with others, horse and foot, belonging to the contingent of the Duke of Milan, an ally of the Spanish. Among these were townspeople, the younger ones chatting with each other or with ladies of their acquaintance; the middle aged and older men talking gravely together as they walked up and down.
Among these there was an air of gloom and depression. The state of panic in which the troops of Prince Thomas, who had marched out confident that they were about to annihilate the French, had returned, and the knowledge that the Marquis of Lega
nez had also failed, had created a feeling of the deepest disquiet among that portion of the population who had taken a leading part in throwing off the authority of the duchess and in acknowledging that of Prince Thomas. They had regarded her cause as lost, but the vigorous steps that France was taking to assist her had caused uneasiness; and if, while as yet a comparatively small force had arrived, these had shown so bold a front, had captured Chieri in the face of a powerful army, had revictualled Casale, had defeated Prince Thomas and forced their way past the array of Leganez, it might well be that in the spring, when reinforcements reached them, they might even defeat the Spaniards and lay siege to Turin itself. The boys remained where they were until it began to grow dusk, when, after buying at three shops a saw, a crowbar, and an auger, they went and sat down on a doorway in a quiet street until eight o’clock. Then they took their way to the Strada Vecchia. It was entirely deserted. Lights showed in one or two of the windows, but, except that they could hear the tread of the nearest sentry, all was silent. Taking off their wooden shoes they moved cautiously along, keeping close to the houses. The fourth they came to had an unusually deep doorway, and they decided at once that this would suit their purpose. First they tried with the crowbar, but the lock held firmly.
“We will try another way, Paolo. If the door yields, it will go with a crash, and the sentry might come down to see what had caused the noise. We had better take out this lower panel; we shall want four holes bored touching each other to make one large enough for the saw to enter.”
The wood was of oak, and it took Paolo fully five minutes to make the holes.
“Now give me the auger,” Hector said when it was found that the hole was large enough for the saw to pass through.
“I will begin at the bottom of the panel while you saw away at the top.”
Paolo had done his share by the time the holes along the bottom were ready for the saw.
“Now you take the auger again,” Hector said. “We have not done half our work yet. The holes must be made on each side. There is no turning the saw.”
It took them an hour and a half of hard work before the last cut was completed and the panel fell forward.
“You go in first, Paolo. I will follow you, and will wedge the panel into its place again with some of the chips that the auger has cut out. No one has passed since we began, and if anyone did come along before morning he would not be likely to notice that the panel was gone. Still it is as well to avoid all risk.”
As soon as the panel was replaced they mounted the stairs. Before beginning they had seen that there were no lights in any of the windows, and feeling sure that the house was deserted they groped their way upstairs without hesitation until they reached the attics in the sloping roof. They entered one of these facing the street, opened the casement, in which oiled paper took the place of glass, and stepped down on to the parapet. Their course was now easy. The divisions between the houses were marked by walls some six feet high extending from the edge of the parapet over the roof. They were able to climb these, however, without having to use their cord, one helping the other up and then being assisted by him. They had left the cooking pan and their tools, with the exception of the crowbar, behind them, and had fastened their wooden shoes round their necks. The sun during the day had melted the snow that had fallen in the morning, but light flakes were again beginning to come down fast.
“I don’t care how hard it snows as long as it keeps on,” Hector said in a low voice in answer to an exclamation from Paolo when the first flake fell upon his face. “The harder the better, for in that case no sentry could see us half a dozen paces away. There is another advantage. The wind is from the north, and we have only to keep the driving snow on our right cheeks to make our way straight to the fortress, whereas with an overcast sky on such a dark night as this we should very soon lose all idea of the direction that we were going in.”
Being obliged to use great caution to avoid noise while getting over the walls, it took them half an hour to reach the end of the street. They had, while waiting before commencing their operations, twisted one of their sashes, and then wound it round the hook so thickly that this would fall almost noiselessly upon the ground. The snow prevented them from seeing six feet below them, but they felt sure that there must be a narrow lane between the house and the wall. They had during the day bought a length, equal to that of their rope, of strong string.
“I have got it as you ordered it, master,” Paolo said as they came out of the shop, “but it would never bear our weight.”
“I think it might do in case of necessity,” Hector said. “In fact, I am sure it would. It does not require a great thickness of new cord to hold a man’s weight; but I don’t want it for that.”
Paolo walked silently along for some time, and then said: “If it is not wanted to carry our weight, master, I cannot think what it is wanted for.”
“It is wanted to get the hook down with. You see when we get down into the street there would be little chance of getting the hook off its hold. We shall most likely want it again, and certainly we shall want the rope. I have been puzzling over it, and I think I have found a way at last. My idea is to fasten this thin rope to the point of the hook, then, on pulling upon it the point will rise until it gets level with the top of the wall on which it is fixed, and we can then shake it down without difficulty. I don’t know whether it will act, but I think that it ought to do so; an upward pull at the point must, I should think, lift it as far as the edge.”
“I should think that it must,” Paolo agreed. “I should never have thought of that.”
“We will try it on this last division wall. I have no doubt about it myself, because even if it did not pull it quite to the top the thing would be so canted over that I think it would fall from its own weight.”
They now attached the string to the point, fixed the hook to the top of the wall, and then pulled upon the string. The hook at once fell to their feet.
“That is capital,” Hector said. “Now we can go to work. We need carry this crowbar no farther. In the first place we will cross this roof and other roofs as far as we can go; the sentry at the corner is probably standing up for shelter in a doorway, and we may as well get as far as we can from him, and at the same time not go far enough to get near the one at the next corner.”
After one or two attempts the hook became fixed on the ridge of the roof, and they at once climbed up, unfastened the hook, and slid down on the now snow covered tiles. Two more roofs were crossed in the same way, and then they prepared to descend. They had, when they put on their disguises, tied knots in the rope at a distance of a foot apart. They now adjusted the hook on the parapet.
“Shall I go first, master, or will you?”
“I will go first, though in fact it matters little which of us does it; but first I must warm my fingers. I don’t think that I could trust to them at present.”
He gathered a handful of snow, made it into a ball, and held it in his hands until the cold pained him, then he dropped the snow and thrust his hands up the sleeves of his doublet. Paolo looked on in astonishment, but having great faith in his master imitated his example.
“That is a curious way of warming the hands,” he said.
“I daresay you have made snowballs in your time, Paolo, and if you have you will remember that, although it made your hands bitterly cold at first, after you had done they soon became almost as hot as fire.”
“I do remember that, master, but I should never have thought of it as a way of warming our hands.”
For a minute or two there was a sharp pain as the blood began to rush into the fingers, and when this passed off their hands were in a glow. Hector took the rope, lowered himself over the parapet, and then began to descend. When halfway down the darkness became more intense than before, and he knew that he was now below the level of the outer wall. When he reached the ground he shook the rope as a signal, and then, stretching his arms before him, crossed the lane. It was but a step, for t
he house stood but five feet back from the wall. He waited until Paolo joined him, then he drew on the thin rope and, to his satisfaction, he felt it yield.
“Stand aside,” he said, “it is heavy enough to give one a nasty thump.”
Paolo withdrew a few paces, then Hector gave another pull. The rope gave way at once. He flattened himself against the house, and the hook fell with a dull thud a foot or two away.
“Coil up the rope, Paolo, and then feel along the wall to the right; don’t go too far. I will go to the left, there may be some steps up to the rampart.”
This proved to be the case, and together they made their way up quietly, but even had they had their shoes on, the snow was already sufficiently deep to deaden their footsteps. On reaching the top they stood silent for a minute or two. Presently they heard the sound of heavy stamping of feet. They turned at once to descend, if necessary, the steps they had mounted, then Hector put his hand upon the other’s shoulder and whispered, “It is the sentry trying to warm his feet; no doubt he is standing up somewhere to shelter himself from the snow; let us go on at once.”
They crossed the rampart, fastened the hook on the top of the wall, and descended, and were again successful in bringing the rope down after them.
“Go carefully, Paolo; no doubt there is a moat somewhere here.” There was, however, no necessity for caution, for the white surface of the snow was soon broken by a black line.
“It will be awfully cold,” Paolo said, with teeth that chattered at the prospect.
“Of course you can swim, Paolo?”
“Not very well, master.”
“Then I will go first. You fasten the rope under your arms, and I will haul you across. Be sure you do not make a noise in getting into the water. But first of all take off your doublet, I will carry it and mine across on my head. It cannot be many yards across. The wind will soon dry the rest of our things, and once our work is done we can warm ourselves by running. I would say strip altogether, but we may have to do another swim; for, as we agreed, there is no chance of our being able to return by the way we came.”