A Bid for Fortune Part 19

"Pray, what do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I say; as you are likely to be our guests for some considerable time to come, there will be no need for explanation."

"You mean to keep us prisoners, then, do you? Very well, Mr.

Prendergast, be a.s.sured of this, when I _do_ get loose I'll make you feel the weight of my arm."

"I think it's very probable there will be a fight if ever we do meet,"

he answered, coolly taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

"And it's my impression you'd be a man worth fighting, Mr. Hatteras."

"If you think my father will let me remain here very long you're much mistaken," said Beckenham. "And as for the ransom you expect him to pay, I don't somehow fancy you'll get a halfpenny."

At the mention of the word "ransom" I noticed that a new and queer expression came into our captor's face. He did not reply, however, except to utter his usual irritating laugh. Having done so he went to the door and called something in Arabic. In answer a gigantic negro made his appearance, bearing in his hands a tray on which were set two basins of food and two large mugs of water. These were placed before us, and Prendergast bade us, if we were hungry, fall to.

"You must not imagine that we wish to starve you," he said. "Food will be served to you twice a day. And if you want it, you can even be supplied with spirits and tobacco. Now, before I go, one word of advice.

Don't indulge in any idea of escape. Communication with the outside world is absolutely impossible, and you will find that those collars and chains will stand a good strain before they will give way. If you behave yourselves you will be well looked after; but if you attempt any larks you will be confined in different rooms, and there will be a radical change in our behaviour."

So saying he left the room, taking the precaution to lock the door carefully behind him.

When we were once more alone, a long silence fell upon us. It would be idle for me to say that the generous behaviour of the young Marquis with regard to my share in this wretched business had set my mind at rest.

But if it had not done that it had at least served to intensify another resolution. Come what might, I told myself, I would find a way of escape, and he should be returned to his father safe and sound, if it cost me my life to do it. But how _were_, we to escape? We could not move from our places on account of the chains that secured us to the walls, and, though I put all my whole strength into it, I found I could not dislodge the staple a hundredth part of an inch from its holding-place.

The morning wore slowly on, mid-day came and went, the afternoon dragged its dismal length, and still there was no change in our position.

Towards sundown the same gigantic negro entered the room again, bringing us our evening meal. When he left we were locked up for the night, with only the contemplation of our woes, and the companionship of the mult.i.tudes of mice that scampered about the floor, to enliven us.

The events of the next seven days are hardly worth chronicling, unless it is to state that every morning at daylight the same c.o.c.k crew and the same dog barked, while at six o'clock the same cripple invariably made his way down the street behind me. At eight o'clock almost to the minute, breakfast was served to us, and, just as punctually, the evening meal made its appearance as the sun was declining behind the opposite house-top. Not again did we see any sign of Mr. Prendergast, and though times out of number I tugged at my chain I was never a whit nearer loosening it than I had been on the first occasion. One after another plans of escape were proposed, discussed, and invariably rejected as impracticable. So another week pa.s.sed and another, until we had been imprisoned in that loathsome place not less than twenty days. By the end of that time, as may be supposed, we were as desperate as men could well be. I must, however, admit that anything like the patience and pluck of my companion under such circ.u.mstances I had never in my life met with before.

One fact had repeatedly struck me as significant, and that was the circ.u.mstance that every morning between six and half-past, as already narrated, the same cripple went down the street; and in connexion with this, within the last few days of the time, a curious coincidence had revealed itself to me. From the tapping of his crutches on the stones I discovered that while one was shod with iron, the other was not. Now where and when had I noticed that peculiarity in a cripple before? That I had observed it somewhere I felt certain. For nearly half the day I turned this over and over in my mind, and then, in the middle of our evening meal, enlightenment came to me. I remembered the man whose piteous tale had so much affected Beckenham on the day of our arrival, and the sound his crutches made upon the pavement as he left us. If my surmise proved correct, and we could only manage to communicate with him, here was a golden opportunity. But how were we to do this? We discussed it, and discussed it, times out of number, but in vain. That he must be stopped on his way down the street need not to be argued at all. In what way, however, could this be done? The window was out of the question, the door was not to be thought of; in that case the only communicating place would be the small pipe by my side. But as I have already pointed out, by reason of the elbow it would be clearly impossible to force a message through it. All day we devoted ourselves to attempts to solve what seemed a hopeless difficulty. Then like a flash a brilliant inspiration burst upon me.

"By Jove, I have it!" I said, taking care to whisper lest any one might be listening at the door. "We must manage by hook or crook to catch a mouse _and let him carry our appeal for help to the outside world_."

"A magnificent idea! If we can catch one I do believe you've saved us!"

But to catch a mouse was easier said than done. Though the room was alive with them they were so nimble and so cunning, that, try how we would, we could not lay hold of one. But at length my efforts were rewarded, and after a little struggle I held my precious captive in my hand. By this time another idea had come to me. If we wanted to bring Nikola and his gang to justice, and to discover their reason for hatching this plot against us, it would not do to ask the public at large for help--and I must own, in spite of our long imprisonment, I was weak enough to feel a curiosity as to their motive. No! It must be to the beggar who pa.s.sed the house every morning that we must appeal.

"This letter concerns you more than me," I said to my fellow-prisoner.

"Have you a lead pencil in your pocket?"

He had, and immediately threw it across to me. Then, taking a small piece of paper from my pocket, I set myself to compose the following in French and English, a.s.sisted by my companion:--

"If this should meet the eye of the individual to whom a young Englishman gave half a sovereign in charity three weeks ago, he is implored to a.s.sist one who a.s.sisted him, and who has been imprisoned ever since that day in the room with the blank wall facing the street and the boarded-up window on the right-hand side. To do this he must obtain a small file and discover a way to convey it into the room by means of the small pipe leading through the blank wall into the street; perhaps if this could be dislodged it might be pushed in through the aperture thus made. On receipt of the file an English five-pound note will be conveyed to him in the same way as this letter, and another if secrecy is observed and those in the house escape."

This important epistle had hardly been concocted before the door was unlocked and our dusky servitor entered with the evening meal. He had long since abandoned his first habit of bringing us our food in separate receptacles, but conveyed it to us now in the saucepan in which it was cooked, dividing it thence into our basins. These latter, it may be interesting to state, had not been washed since our arrival.

All the time that our jailer was in the room I held my trembling prisoner in my hand, clinging to him as to the one thing which connected us with liberty. But the door had no sooner closed upon him than I had tilted out my food upon the floor and converted my basin into a trap.

It may be guessed how long that night seemed to us, and with what trembling eagerness we awaited the first signs of breaking day. Directly it was light I took off and unravelled one of my socks. The thread thus obtained I doubled, and having done this, secured one end of it to the note, which I had rolled into a small compa.s.s, attaching the other to my captive mouse's hind leg. Then we set ourselves to wait for six o'clock.

The hour came; and minute after minute went by before we heard in the distance the tapping of the crutches on the stones. Little by little the sound grew louder, and then fainter, and when I judged he was nearly at my back, I stooped and thrust our curious messenger into the pipe. Then we sat down to await the result.

As the mouse, only too glad to escape, ran into the aperture, the thread, on which our very lives depended, swiftly followed, dragging its message after it. Minutes went by; half an hour; an hour; and then the remainder of the day; and still nothing came to tell us that our appeal had been successful.

That night I caught another mouse, wrote the letter again, and at six o'clock next morning once more despatched it on its journey. Another day went by without reply. That night we caught another, and at six-o'clock next morning sent it off; a third, and even a fourth, followed, but still without success. By this time the mice were almost impossible to catch, but our wits were sharpened by despair, and we managed to hit upon a method that eventually secured for us a plentiful supply. For the sixth time the letter was written and despatched at the moment the footsteps were coming down the street. Once more the tiny animal crawled into the pipe, and once more the message disappeared upon its journey.

Another day was spent in anxious waiting, but this time we were not destined to be disappointed. About eight o'clock that night, just as we were giving up hope, I detected a faint noise near my feet; it was for all the world as if some one were forcing a stick through a hole in a brick wall. I informed Beckenham of the fact in a whisper, and then put my head down to listen. Yes, there was the sound again. Oh, if only I had a match! But it was no use wishing for what was impossible, so I put my hand down to the pipe. _It was moving!_ It turned in my hand, moved to and fro for a brief s.p.a.ce and then disappeared from my grasp entirely; next moment it had left the room. A few seconds later something cold was thrust into my hand, _and from its rough edge I knew it to be a file_. I drew it out as if it were made of gold and thrust it into my pocket. A piece of string was attached to it, and the reason of this I was at first at some loss to account for. But a moment's reflection told me that it was to a.s.sist in the fulfilment of our share of the bargain. So, taking a five-pound note from the secret pocket in which I carried my paper money, I tied the string to it, and it was instantly withdrawn. A minute could not have elapsed before I was at work upon the staple of my collar, and in less than half an hour it was filed through and the iron was off my neck.

If I tried for a year I could not make you understand what a relief it was to me to stand upright. I stretched myself again and again, and then crossed the room on tip-toe in the dark to where the Marquis lay.

"You are free," he whispered, clutching and shaking my hand. "Oh, thank G.o.d!"

"Hush! Put down your head and let me get to work upon your collar before you say anything more."

As I was able this time to get at my work standing up, it was not very long before Beckenham was as free as I was. He rose to his feet with a great sigh of relief, and we shook hands warmly in the dark.

"Now," I said, leading him towards the door, "we will make our escape, and I pity the man who attempts to stop us."

CHAPTER IX

DR. NIKOLA PERMITS US A FREE Pa.s.sAGE

The old saying, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," is as good a warning as any I know. For if we had not been so completely occupied filing through the staples of our collars we should not have omitted to take into consideration the fact that, even when we should have removed the chains that bound us, we would still be prisoners in the room. I'm very much afraid, however, even had we remembered this point, we should only have considered it of minor importance and one to be easily overcome. As it was, the unwelcome fact remained that the door _was_ locked, and, what was worse, that the lock itself had, for security's sake, been placed on the outside, so that there was no chance of our being able to pick it, even had our accomplishments lain in that direction.

"Try the window," whispered Beckenham, in answer to the heavy sigh which followed my last discovery.

Accordingly we crossed the room, and I put my hands upon one of the boards and pulled. But I might as well have tried to tow a troopship with a piece of cotton, for all the satisfactory result I got; the planks were trebly screwed to the window frame, and each in turn defied me. When I was tired Beckenham put his strength to it, but even our united efforts were of no avail, and, panting and exhausted, we were at length obliged to give it up as hopeless.

"This is a pretty fix we've got ourselves into," I said as soon as I had recovered sufficient breath to speak. "How on earth are we to escape?"

"I can't say, unless we manage to burst that door and fight our way out.

I wonder if that could be done."

"First, let's look at the door."

We crossed the room again, and I examined the door carefully. It was not a very strong one; but I was sufficient of a carpenter to know that it would withstand a good deal of pressure before it would give way.

"I've a good mind to try it," I said; "but in that case, remember, it will probably mean a hand-to-hand fight on the other side, and, unarmed and weak as we are, we shall be pretty sure to get the worst of it."

"Never mind that," my intrepid companion replied, with a confidence in his voice that I was very far from feeling. "In for a penny, in for a pound; even if we're killed it couldn't be worse than being buried alive."

"That's so, and if fighting's your idea, I'm your man," I answered. "Let me first take my bearings, and then I'll see what I can do against it.

You get out of the way, but be sure to stand by to rush the pa.s.sage directly the door goes."

Again I felt the door and wall in order that I might be sure where it lay, and having done so crossed the room. My heart was beating like a Nasmyth hammer, and it was nearly a minute before I could pull myself together sufficiently for my rush. Then summoning every muscle in my body to my a.s.sistance, I dashed across and at it with all the strength my frame was capable of. Considering the darkness of the room, my steering was not so bad, for my shoulder caught the door just above its centre; there was a great crash--a noise of breaking timbers--and amid a shower of splinters and general _debris_ I fell headlong through into the pa.s.sage. By the time it would have taken me to count five, Beckenham was beside me helping me to rise.

"Now stand by for big trouble!" I said, rubbing my shoulder, and every moment expecting to see a door open and a crowd of Prendergast's ruffians come rushing out. "We shall have them on us in a minute."