Cardigan Part 91

It was now the middle of March; a month only remained to us in which to accomplish our liberty, if we were to escape at all.

That night I lay awake, rising constantly to examine my work, but to my despair the weather had slowly changed, and a warm thaw set in, with rain and the glimmer of distant lightning. In vain I worked at my bar; I could see the dark sky brighten with lightning; presently the low mutter of thunder followed. An hour later the rain fell hissing into the melting snow in the prison yard.

I sent word to Mount that I could not move my bar, but that he must not wait for me if he could escape from the window. He answered that he would not stir a peg unless I could; and the girl choked as she delivered the message, imploring me to hasten and loose the bar.

I could not do it; day after day I filled the cracks and holes, waiting for freezing weather. It rained, rained, rained.

Weeks before, Mount had sent the girl to seek out Mr. Foxcroft and tell him of my plight. I also had sent by her a note to Silver Heels.

The girl returned to report that Mr. Foxcroft had sailed for England early in November, and that n.o.body there had ever heard of a Miss Warren in Queen Street.

Then Butler's boast came to me, and I sent word to Shemuel, bidding him search the village of Lexington for Miss Warren. I had not yet heard from him.

Meanwhile Mount communicated, through Dulcima, with the Minute Men's Club, and already a delegation headed by Mr. Revere had waited on Governor Gage to demand my release on grounds of mistaken ident.i.ty.

The Governor laughed at them, a.s.serting that I was notorious; but as the days pa.s.sed, so serious became the demands from Mr. Revere, Mr.

Hanc.o.c.k, and Mr. Otis that the Governor sent Walter Butler to a.s.sure these gentlemen that he knew Mr. Cardigan well, and that the rogue in prison, who pretended to that name, was, in fact, a notorious felon named the Weasel, who had for years held the highway with the arch-rogue, Mount.

At this, Shemuel came forward to swear that Mr. Butler and I were deadly enemies and that Butler lied, but he was treated with scant ceremony, and barely escaped a ducking in the mill-pond by the soldiers.

Meanwhile Mr. Hanc.o.c.k had communicated with Sir John at Onondaga, and awaited a reply to his message, urging Sir John to come to Boston and identify me.

No reply ever came, nor did Sir John stir hand or foot in my behalf.

Possibly he never received the message. I prefer to think so.

Matters were at this pa.s.s when I finally gave up all hope of loosening my window bars, and sent word to Jack Mount that he must use his sheets for a cord and let himself out that very night. But the frightened girl returned with an angry message of refusal from the chivalrous blockhead.

The next day it was too late; Bishop's suspicions somehow had been aroused, and it took him but a short time to discover the loosened bars in Jack Mount's cell.

How the brute did laugh when he came on the work accomplished. He searched Mount's cell, discovered the awl and a file, shouted with laughter, summoned masons to make repairs, and, still laughing, came to visit me.

I had not dared to leave my poison-flask in the hole under the stone.

What to do with it I did not know; but, as I heard Bishop come chuckling towards my cell, I drove the gla.s.s stopper into the flask firmly as I could, then, wiping it, placed it in my mouth, together with the small gold ring I had bought in Albany, and which I had, so far, managed to conceal.

It was a desperate move; I undressed myself as he bade me, and sat on my bed, faint with suspense, while Bishop rummaged. He found the hole where I had hidden the flask. The awl lay there, and he pouched it with a chuckle.

When Bishop had gone, I drew the deadly little flask from my mouth, trembling, and chilled with sweat. Then I placed it again in its hiding-place, hid the ring in my shoe, and dressed slowly, brushing my shabby clothes, and returning the pockets and flaps which Bishop in his careful search had rifled. He did not search my cell again.

And now the days began to run very swiftly. On the 18th of April, towards five o'clock in the evening, a turnkey, pa.s.sing my cell, told me that General Gage was in the prison with a party of ladies, and that he would doubtless visit my cell. He added, grimly, that the death-watch was to be set over us in an hour or two, and that, thereafter, I could expect no more visitors from outside until I held my public reception on the gallows.

Laughing heartily at his own wit, the turnkey pa.s.sed on about his business, and I went to the grating to listen and look out into the twilight of the corridor.

Mrs. Bishop, whose sick baby was squalling, lighted the lanthorn above the door of her room, and retired, leaving me free to converse with Mount.

"Jack," I called, hoa.r.s.ely, "the death-watch begins to-night."

"Pooh!" he answered, cheerfully. "Wait a bit; there's time to cheat a dozen gibbets 'twixt this and dawn."

"Yes," said I, bitterly, "we can cheat the hangman with what I have in this little flask."

"You must give it to the girl," he said. "She will flavour our last draught with it if worst comes to worst. She will be here in a moment."

At that instant I caught sight of Dulcima Bishop, her cloak all wet with rain, pa.s.sing quickly along the corridor towards Mount's cell; and I called her and gave her my flask, glad to have it safe at least from the search which the death-watch was certain to make.

The poor child turned pale under the scarlet hood of her witch-cloak when I bade her promise to serve us with a kinder and more honourable death than the death planned for us on the morrow.

"I promise, sir," she said, faintly, raising her frightened white face, framed by the wet cloak and damp strands of hair. She added timidly: "I have a knife for--for Jack--and a file."

"It is too late for such things," I answered, quietly. "If it is certain that you cannot get the keys from your father, there is no hope for us."

Her face, which in the past month had become terribly pinched and thin, quivered; her hands tightened on the edge of the grating.

"If--if I could get the keys--" she began.

"Unless you do so there is no hope, child."

There was a silence; then she cried, in a choking voice: "I can get them! Will that free Jack? I will get the keys; truly, I will! Oh, do you think he can go free if I open the cell?"

"He has a knife," I said, grimly; "I have my two hands. Open the cells and we will show you."

She covered her eyes with her hands. Jack called to her from his grating; she started violently, turned and went to him.

They stood whispering a long time together. I paced my cell, with brain a-whirl and hope battering at my heart for the admittance I craved to give. If she could only open that door!--that rusted, accursed ma.s.s of iron, the very sight of which was slowly crushing out the last spark of manhood in me!

"Are you listening?" whispered Dulcima at my grating again.

"Yes," I answered.

"Watch our door at seven to-night!" she said. "Be ready. I will open your door."

"I am ready," I answered.

At that moment the sound of voices filled the corridor; the girl fled to her room; a dozen turnkeys shuffled past, bowing and cringing, followed by Collins, the chief warden, an old man whom I had not before seen. Then came a gentleman dressed in a long dark cloak which hung from twin epaulettes, his scarlet and gold uniform gleaming below. Was that the Governor?

He pa.s.sed my cell, halted, glanced around, then retraced his steps.

After a moment I heard his voice distinctly at some distance down the corridor; he was saying:

"The highwaymen are here, Mrs. Hamilton--if--if you would care to see them."

I sat up in my cot, all a-tremble. Far down the corridor I heard a woman laughing. I knew that laugh.

"But," persisted the Governor, "you should really see the highwaymen, madam. Trust me, you never before beheld such a giant as this rogue, Jack Mount."

The voices seemed to be receding; I sprang to my grating; the Governor's bland voice still sounded at some distance down the pa.s.sage; Mrs. Hamilton's saucy laughter rang faintly and more faintly.

Half a dozen keepers were lounging just outside of my cell. I summoned one of them sharply.

"Tell General Gage that Mrs. Hamilton knows me!" I said. "A guinea for you when she comes!"

The lout stared, grinned, and finally shambled away, pursued by the jeers of his comrades. Then they turned their wit against me, begging to know if I had not some message for my friends the Grand Turk and the Emperor of China.