The King's Men Part 28

But interesting as was this employment to the Royalists, it was on quite another account that Geoffrey had, while acting as clerk in the Governor's office, secured this work for them. The truth was that he expected to hear from friends outside who might help them to escape. A letter which he had received from his old servant Reynolds had puzzled him exceedingly with its repeated regrets for the difficulty of getting admission to the prison. But at last the idea struck Geoffrey that Reynolds was hinting that he should seek employment outside the walls.

The restoration of the old monument soon gave the opportunity, and Geoffrey had seized it.

He had said nothing of all this to the others; for he might have quite misinterpreted Reynolds's letter, and he did not wish to raise vain hopes. There was not the least sign as yet that he had been right. The old high-road across Dartmoor, it is true, pa.s.sed the spot at which they were working, skirting the very prison wall; but it was an empty and desolate path.

That day and the next they labored at the cairn, until at last the stones were sufficiently removed to allow the monolith to be raised by a derrick into an upright position. They had just rigged the derrick and the old Duke and Mr. Sydney were standing at the wheel ready to turn, while Geoffrey and Featherstone mounted the cairn to arrange the rope.

The Warder sat on the low wall with his back to the road and the prison.

As they stood on the cairn, Featherstone saw an old man on the road driving a donkey-cart. The harness had given way, and the old man was busy repairing it, standing behind the Warder. Something in the old man's att.i.tude rather than appearance induced Featherstone to look at him again. His raised hand seemed to purposely arrest attention.

Featherstone looked too long and too sharply, for the Warder observed him, and turned to see what he looked at. The old man on the road saw the motion, and, instantly dropping his hand, went on with his mending, meanwhile addressing the donkey with reproving words.

The Warder looked for a moment, then turned his attention to the workers at the cairn.

"Heave on that handle, you, No. 5; don't let your mate do all the work.

Come, now--heave!"

And the two decrepit old men "heaved," as he called turning the handle of the windla.s.s, until their old joints cracked.

"That'll do; slack away!" and they rested panting, while the rope was fixed for another grip.

"Geoffrey," whispered Featherstone, with his head bent beside the stone, "look at that old fellow on the road. I am sure he made a signal to me, and stopped when he saw the Warder looking."

When Geoffrey had arranged the rope he looked toward the road, and almost shouted with joy and surprise to see faithful old Reynolds, with both hands raised in recognition and a wide smile on his honest face.

Fortunately the Warder was at the moment encouraging the Duke and Sydney to "heave" on the wheel.

Geoffrey quickly recovered, and turned his attention to the rope.

"Try and find what he wants," he whispered to Featherstone. "It is my old Reynolds. Careful!"

While he whispered there was a crash on the road that made the whole group start. The harness had wholly given way and the shafts had come to the ground.

The old driver was in a sad plight, and he looked helplessly at the wreck of his team. He turned wistfully to the Warder and asked him to send one of the prisoners to his aid.

"Here, you, No. 16," shouted the Warder to the Duke; "lend a hand here on the road; look alive, now." The old man went toward the wall, as if nothing could surprise him, no indignity arouse a spark of resentment.

He tried to hurry to win the Warder's approbation; but in doing so he stumbled in climbing the low wall, upon which he turned to the officer with a look of apology.

Geoffrey took advantage of this moment to offer his services. He leaped from the cairn, and asked the Warder to let him take the place of the old man.

"All right--go along. Here, you, No. 16, scramble back to your work. If you don't look out you'll lose your good-conduct marks."

Mr. Sydney gave the Duke a look of sympathy and a smile of cheer as he took his place on the windla.s.s again, and Featherstone looked down from the cairn at both his old friends with actual tears in his eyes.

Meanwhile Geoffrey had gone out to Reynolds, and in bending to the shaft gave the old man's hand a grip of welcome and grat.i.tude. Reynolds moved to the other side of the cart, and stooping out of sight of the Warder took a letter from his pocket and showed it to Geoffrey. Featherstone, from the top of the cairn, saw the movement and made a brilliant stroke.

"Look out, down there!" he shouted to the old men, "my hand is caught in the bight!"

There was a brief excitement in which the Warder joined, while Featherstone played his part to the life. When it had pa.s.sed the cart was raised, and Geoffrey had the letter in his stocking.

Reynolds gave Geoffrey a look that was better than words, and then he thanked the Warder and went off with his donkey.

"Bravo!" whispered Featherstone as Geoffrey joined him; "that was done in a way to make the professionals envious."

For the rest of the day Geoffrey felt like a man made of India rubber.

He leaped up and down the cairn like a boy, and he whispered all kinds of encouraging words to the old men at the wheel. He felt the letter in his stocking all the time, and wondered why he could not read it by very insight. He turned a hundred times in alarm to see if the Warder's eyes were on its hiding-place. Who had written it? Was it a plan of escape?

Perhaps it was only a word of empty sympathy; but no, Reynolds was a practical man.

Oh, how long the hours were, till at last the prison-bell rang at six o'clock, and the gangs all over the farm formed into little squads and marched toward the prison, the warders drawing after them the light iron bridges of the ca.n.a.ls, which were locked on one side every night. By this means "The Farm," which was intersected by a score of these wide and deep trenches, was impa.s.sable; and as it hemmed in one side of the hill on which the prison stood, with a guard tower on either end, it was a greater safeguard even than the wall of the prison.

The four political prisoners marched into the yard. The Warder, before locking them up, made each one raise his arms and stand to be searched.

He then ran his hands lengthwise over the whole man, mainly to see that no weapons or tools were concealed. As his hand pa.s.sed over the letter in the stocking Geoffrey closed his eyes in the tense pain of anxiety.

He did not breathe till he stood in his narrow cell and had closed the self-locking door with a bang. Then he sat down on his hammock and hugged himself with joy.

When all was quiet on the long corridor and the prisoners were eating their meagre supper Geoffrey drew out his letter and broke the outer cover. It was addressed in a hand he had never seen before--a plain, business-like hand:

"To Mr. Geoffrey Ripon, or any of the Royalist prisoners."

"No more t.i.tles," mused Geoffrey with a smile; "there is something American in the 'Mr.'"

This thought naturally led him to think of one in America whose handwriting he had blindly and unreasonably hoped to see in this letter.

Now, with a sigh, he saw that it was not for him alone, but for "any of the Royalist prisoners" as well.

The letter was written on small sheets, joined at the top by a thin bra.s.s holder. From the first word it was a plan to escape from Dartmoor and from England. It showed that everything had been carefully examined and considered by those outside before they had attempted to communicate with the prisoners; and all that remained must be done by those within the prison. The letter ran thus:

"We have arranged everything but your actual getting out of the prison and crossing the marsh at the foot of the hill. ['The Farm'

was here meant.] This marsh extends between two guard towers, and is nine hundred yards long. It cannot be crossed at night, for the warders withdraw and lock on the prison side the swinging bridges of the numerous ca.n.a.ls. These ca.n.a.ls are seven feet deep and fourteen wide, and the banks are soft peat. It would be dangerous to try to swim them. You must procure a long plank or beam, and carry it from trench to trench. You can get such a plank, which two men can carry easily, at the new tool-shed which the convicts are building against the outer wall of the prison to the right of the lower gate.

"We cannot do anything to help you out of the prison till we hear from you. You must escape by the lower side of the prison and cross the marsh, for the town and warders' quarters extend on the other three sides. In the old tool-shed against the outer lower wall, where you leave your tools every evening, there is a small portable steam-engine. Place your answer inside the furnace door, to the right, and search there every morning for our messages. You need not grope around. Put your hand to the right corner of the furnace, and our parcel will be there. In case you can get out without our help, here are complete instructions:

"When you have crossed the marsh, keep straight on across the hill, at the foot of which, a mile from the prison, there is a narrow lane. Keep to the right on this lane till you come to the high road. Half a mile down this road to the left stands a cottage with a ploughed field behind. Go boldly into this house day or night; the door will be left open, though latched. Once inside the cottage, unseen by the guards, you are safe. Trust implicitly on us for anything else."

Geoffrey read the letter many times before he turned to his miserable supper of dry bread and cocoa. He impressed every detail on his mind so that the writing might be destroyed. Then he began to eat and think together, and it was nearly morning before the thinking ceased. In his mind he must settle every difficulty, foresee and circ.u.mvent every danger before he made a move. Were it only his own peril he were considering he would have had small anxiety. But now he felt on himself the burden of the lives of his three friends, who would undoubtedly attempt to carry out his arrangements. At last he fell asleep, and it seemed that the vile roar of the waking bell began a few minutes later.

In the morning Geoffrey sat face to face with the first and least of his difficulties: he had no means of writing to his unknown friends. But the mind springs to experiment when it is left alone. In a minute he had paper, pen, and ink, and, stretched on the floor, with his only book, the prison Bible, for a desk, he was writing his answer.

The ink was on the floor, composed of the asphalt dust of which the floor was made. He had swept it into a little heap with his hard floor-brush, and mixed it with water from his washing basin. His pen was the wire-twisted end of his leathern boot-lace; and his paper, whole leaves carefully torn from the Bible, across the small type of which he wrote in heavy letters as follows:

"We cannot possibly escape from within the prison. Our cells are on the third tier, opening into the prison, and two of our friends are old and infirm. We must escape from the guards while employed outside the walls, conceal ourselves till night, and then follow your instructions. To-day we shall begin our preparations. We cannot tell how soon we may make the attempt, or how long we shall have to wait. Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days are the only days on which it can be done; and we must wait for a very rainy or foggy evening on one of those days. The present weather is in our favor, so do not leave the cottage empty day or night for a few weeks."

Geoffrey concealed his letter, ate his breakfast when the six o'clock bell rang, and the bolts of five hundred cells shot back by one mighty stroke of a steam piston-rod, he paraded with his companions, and the four were marched off to their work at the monument.

Sydney and the Duke walked together in rear of Geoffrey and Featherstone. The Duke, in order to keep up with the regulation pace, secretly clung to Sydney's arm, which he dropped when the officer looked round and took again when the danger had pa.s.sed.

When they came to the tool-shed, the prisoners went in one by one for their tools, which were piled up and taken away day after day, by the same men in the same order. The portable steam-engine was to the left of the door. Geoffrey went straight to it, opened the furnace door, and left his letter.

A few minutes later, when they were on the cairn, Featherstone's anxiety spoke in his eyes, and Geoffrey told him the whole story, in a whisper, as they walked.