Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (429 page)

“You seem sick, friend,” said he.

“Sick in mind,” moaned the other. “Oh, the cursed fool that I have been! It maddens me!”

“Something on your mind?” said Amos Green, sitting down upon his billets of wood. “What was it, then?”

The guardsman made a movement of impatience. “What was it? How can you ask me, when you know as well as I do the wretched failure of my mission. It was the king’s wish that the archbishop should marry them. The king’s wish is the law. It must be the archbishop or none. He should have been at the palace by now. Ah, my God! I can see the king’s cabinet, I can see him waiting, I can see madame waiting, I can hear them speak of the unhappy De Catinat—” He buried his face in his hands once more.

“I see all that,” said the American stolidly, “and I see something more.”

“What then?”

“I see the archbishop tying them up together.”

“The archbishop! You are raving.”

“Maybe. But I see him.”

“He could not be at the palace.”

“On the contrary, he reached the palace about half an hour ago.”

De Catinat sprang to his feet. “At the palace!” he screamed. “Then who gave him the message?”

“I did,” said Amos Green.

CHAPTER XVIII
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A NIGHT OF SURPRISES
.

If the American had expected to surprise or delight his companion by this curt announcement he was woefully disappointed, for De Catinat approached him with a face which was full of sympathy and trouble, and laid his hand caressingly upon his shoulder.

“My dear friend,” said he, “I have been selfish and thoughtless. I have made too much of my own little troubles and too little of what you have gone through for me. That fall from your horse has shaken you more than you think. Lie down upon this straw, and see if a little sleep may not—”

“I tell you that the bishop is there!” cried Amos Green impatiently.

“Quite so. There is water in this jug, and if I dip my scarf into it and tie it round your brow—”

“Man alive! Don’t you hear me! The bishop is there.”

“He is, he is,” said De Catinat soothingly. “He is most certainly there. I trust that you have no pain?”

The American waved in the air with his knotted fists. “You think that I am crazed,” he cried, “and, by the eternal, you are enough to make me so! When I say that I sent the bishop, I mean that I saw to the job. You remember when I stepped back to your friend the major?”

It was the soldier’s turn to grow excited now. “Well?” he cried, gripping the other’s arm.

“Well, when we send a scout into the woods, if the matter is worth it, we send a second one at another hour, and so one or other comes back with his hair on. That’s the Iroquois fashion, and a good fashion too.”

“My God! I believe that you have saved me!”

“You needn’t grip on to my arm like a fish-eagle on a trout! I went back to the major, then, and I asked him when he was in Paris to pass by the archbishop’s door.”

“Well? Well?”

“I showed him this lump of chalk. ‘If we’ve been there,’ said I, ‘you’ll see a great cross on the left side of the door-post. If there’s no cross, then pull the latch and ask the bishop if he’ll come up to the palace as quick as his horses can bring him.’ The major started an hour after us; he would be in Paris by half-past ten; the bishop would be in his carriage by eleven, and he would reach Versailles half an hour ago, that is to say, about half-past twelve. By the Lord, I think I’ve driven him off his head!”

It was no wonder that the young woodsman was alarmed at the effect of his own announcement. His slow and steady nature was incapable of the quick, violent variations of the fiery Frenchman. De Catinat, who had thrown off his bonds before he had lain down, spun round the cell now, waving his arms and his legs, with his shadow capering up the wall behind him, all distorted in the moonlight. Finally he threw himself into his comrade’s arms with a torrent of thanks and ejaculations and praises and promises, patting him with his hands and hugging him to his breast.

“Oh, if I could but do something for you!” he exclaimed. “If I could do something for you!”

“You can, then. Lie down on that straw and go to sleep.”

“And to think that I sneered at you! I! Oh, you have had your revenge!”

“For the Lord’s sake, lie down and go to sleep!” By persuasions and a little pushing he got his delighted companion on to his couch again, and heaped the straw over him to serve as a blanket. De Catinat was wearied out by the excitements of the day, and this last great reaction seemed to have absorbed all his remaining strength. His lids drooped heavily over his eyes, his head sank deeper into the soft straw, and his last remembrance was that the tireless American was seated cross-legged in the moonlight, working furiously with his long knife upon one of the billets of wood.

So weary was the young guardsman that it was long past noon, and the sun was shining out of a cloudless blue sky, before he awoke. For a moment, enveloped as he was in straw, and with the rude arch of the dungeon meeting in four rough-hewn groinings above his head, he stared about him in bewilderment. Then in an instant the doings of the day before, his mission, the ambuscade, his imprisonment, all flashed back to him, and he sprang to his feet. His comrade, who had been dozing in the corner, jumped up also at the first movement, with his hand on his knife, and a sinister glance directed towards the door.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said he, “I thought it was the man.”

“Has some one been in, then?”

“Yes; they brought those two loaves and a jug of water, just about dawn, when I was settling down for a rest.”

“And did he say anything?”

“No; it was the little black one.”

“Simon, they called him.”

“The same. He laid the things down and was gone. I thought that maybe if he came again we might get him to stop.”

“How, then?”

“Maybe if we got these stirrup leathers round his ankles he would not get them off quite as easy as we have done.”

“And what then?”

“Well, he would tell us where we are, and what is to be done with us.”

“Pshaw! what does it matter since our mission is done?”

“It may not matter to you — there’s no accounting for tastes — but it matters a good deal to me. I’m not used to sitting in a hole, like a bear in a trap, waiting for what other folks choose to do with me. It’s new to me. I found Paris a pretty close sort of place, but it’s a prairie compared to this. It don’t suit a man of my habits, and I am going to come out of it.”

“There’s no help but patience, my friend.”

“I don’t know that. I’d get more help out of a bar and a few pegs.” He opened his coat, and took out a short piece of rusted iron, and three small thick pieces of wood, sharpened at one end.

“Where did you get those, then?”

“These are my night’s work. The bar is the top one of the grate. I had a job to loosen it, but there it is. The pegs I whittled out of that log.”

“And what are they for?”

“Well, you see, peg number one goes in here, where I have picked a hole between the stones. Then I’ve made this other log into a mallet, and with two cracks there it is firm fixed, so that you can put your weight on it. Now these two go in the same way into the holes above here. So! Now, you see, you can stand up there and look out of that window without asking too much of your toe joint. Try it.”

De Catinat sprang up and looked eagerly out between the bars.

“I do not know the place,” said he, shaking his head.

“It may be any one of thirty castles which lie upon the south side of Paris, and within six or seven leagues of it. Which can it be? And who has any interest in treating us so? I would that I could see a coat of arms, which might help us. Ah! there is one yonder in the centre of the mullion of the window. But I can scarce read it at the distance. I warrant that your eyes are better than mine, Amos, and that you can read what is on yonder escutcheon.”

“On what?”

“On the stone slab in the centre window.”

“Yes, I see it plain enough. It looks to me like three turkey-buzzards sitting on a barrel of molasses.”

“Three allurions in chief over a tower proper, maybe. Those are the arms of the Provence De Hautevilles. But it cannot be that. They have no chateau within a hundred leagues. No, I cannot tell where we are.”

He was dropping back to the floor, and put his weight upon the bar.

To his amazement, it came away in his hand.

“Look, Amos, look!” he cried.

“Ah, you’ve found it out! Well, I did that during the night.”

“And how? With your knife?”

“No; I could make no way with my knife; but when I got the bar out of the grate, I managed faster. I’ll put this one back now, or some of those folks down below may notice that we have got it loose.”

“Are they all loose?”

“Only the one at present, but we’ll get the other two out during the night. You can take that bar out and work with it, while I use my own picker at the other. You see, the stone is soft, and by grinding it you soon make a groove along which you can slip the bar. It will be mighty queer if we can’t clear a road for ourselves before morning.”

“Well, but even if we could get out into the courtyard, where could we turn to then?”

“One thing at a time, friend. You might as well stick at the Kennebec because you could not see how you would cross the Penobscot. Anyway, there is more air in the yard than in here, and when the window is clear we shall soon plan out the rest.”

The two comrades did not dare to do any work during the day, for fear they should be surprised by the jailer, or observed from without. No one came near them, but they ate their loaves and drank their water with the appetite of men who had often known what it was to be without even such simple food as that. The instant that night fell they were both up upon the pegs, grinding away at the hard stone and tugging at the bars. It was a rainy night, and there was a sharp thunder-storm, but they could see very well, while the shadow of the arched window prevented their being seen. Before midnight they had loosened one bar, and the other was just beginning to give, when some slight noise made them turn their heads, and there was their jailer standing, open-mouthed in the middle of the cell, staring up at them.

It was De Catinat who observed him first, and he sprang down at him in an instant with his bar; but at his movement the man rushed for the door, and drew it after him just as the American’s tool whizzed past his ear and down the passage. As the door slammed, the two comrades looked at each other. The guardsman shrugged his shoulders and the other whistled.

“It is scarce worth while to go on,” said De Catinat.

“We may as well be doing that as anything else. If my picker had been an inch lower I’d have had him. Well, maybe he’ll get a stroke, or break his neck down those stairs. I’ve nothing to work with now, but a few rubs with your bar will finish the job. Ah, dear! You are right, and we are fairly treed!”

A great bell had begun to ring in the chateau, and there was a loud buzz of voices and a clatter of feet upon the stones. Hoarse orders were shouted, and there was the sound of turning keys. All this coming suddenly in the midst of the stillness of the night showed only too certainly that the alarm had been given. Amos Green threw himself down in the straw, with his hands in his pockets, and De Catinat leaned sulkily against the wall, waiting for whatever might come to him. Five minutes passed, however, and yet another five minutes, without anyone appearing. The hubbub in the courtyard continued, but there was no sound in the corridor which led to their cell.

“Well, I’ll have that bar out, after all,” said the American at last, rising and stepping over to the window. “Anyhow, we’ll see what all this caterwauling is about.” He climbed up on his pegs as he spoke, and peeped out.

“Come up!” he cried excitedly to his comrade. “They’ve got some other game going on here, and they are all a deal too busy to bother their heads about us.”

De Catinat clambered up beside him, and the two stood staring down into the courtyard. A brazier had been lit at each corner, and the place was thronged with men, many of whom carried torches. The yellow glare played fitfully over the grim gray walls, flickering up sometimes until the highest turrets shone golden against the black sky, and then, as the wind caught them, dying away until they scarce threw a glow upon the cheek of their bearer. The main gate was open, and a carriage, which had apparently just driven in, was standing at a small door immediately in front of their window. The wheels and sides were brown with mud, and the two horses were reeking and heavy-headed, as though their journey had been both swift and long. A man wearing a plumed hat and enveloped in a riding-coat had stepped from the carriage, and then, turning round, had dragged a second person out after him. There was a scuffle, a cry, a push, and the two figures had vanished through the door. As it closed, the carriage drove away, the torches and braziers were extinguished, the main gate was closed once more, and all was as quiet as before this sudden interruption.

“Well!” gasped De Catinat. “Is this another king’s messenger they’ve got?”

“There will be lodgings for two more here in a short time,” said Amos

Green. “If they only leave us alone, this cell won’t hold us long.”

“I wonder where that jailer has gone?”

“He may go where he likes, as long as he keeps away from here. Give me your bar again. This thing is giving. It won’t take us long to have it out.” He set to work furiously, trying to deepen the groove in the stone, through which he hoped to drag the staple. Suddenly he ceased, and strained his ears.