Across the Spanish Main - Harry Collingwood (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗

“But perhaps we had better put off the further discussion of this until we have eaten the food. If, when they come to put in our next supply, they find this still uneaten, they may suspect that something is amiss, and remove us to another cell, or even separate us; either of which happenings would put an end for good and all to our chances of escape. Besides, we can talk as we are eating. Come, Roger, wake up, man, and fall to! Eat as much as you can, for we shall need all our strength to go through with what is before us.”

Roger saw the wisdom of Harry’s argument, and, replacing the food on the table, whence it had fallen in their eagerness to read the message, they set to, and very soon demolished the whole of it, replacing the platter, as usual, when they had finished, by the side of the trap, to be removed when the next meal was put in.

“Now,” remarked Harry, “let us resume our discussion of this strange business, Roger. So far as I can see, the matter stands— Hullo! what’s that? Did you hear that, Roger?” he suddenly interjected.

“Yes,” replied Roger, “I did. What can it be, I wonder?”

There had come a slight sound from the direction of the grating, as of some hard substance striking against the iron bars.

Both lads hurried to the grating, and glanced up at it; but they could see nothing to account for the sound.

“This is most remarkable,” said Harry. “I heard the sound quite plainly. It was just like two pieces of iron striking together; and it sounded in the cell itself, or just outside the grating. Jump up on my shoulders again, Roger, and see if you can see anything or anybody about.”

Harry bent his back, and helped Roger to climb up on his shoulders. And Roger had just drawn himself upright with his face reaching to the level of the grating, when he uttered a suppressed exclamation, and half-fell, half-slid down to the floor from his perch, and started vigorously rubbing his cheek.

“Whatever is the matter with you, Roger?” ejaculated Harry somewhat crossly; “you nearly broke my back coming down like that.” Then, as he saw Roger rubbing his face, his tone changed, and he enquired anxiously, “What is it, old fellow; are you hurt?”

“No; not much, that is,” rejoined his friend. “Just as I got my head up level with the grating, and was going to look out, something hit me on the cheek with considerable force, and, losing my balance, I came tumbling down. I am sorry if I hurt you, Harry, old lad.”

As he finished speaking, both caught the sound of quick and stealthy footsteps retreating across the courtyard below, and retiring, so far as they could judge by the sound, through the gateway by which the writer of their message had disappeared.

“Ha!” said Harry; “someone has been below our window again. I wonder what it is this time? And what was it that struck you, Roger; could you tell?”

“No,” answered Roger. “I know only that something hit me hard on the cheek, and I thought for the moment that my eye was struck. No, I have not the least idea what it could have been.”

“Could it,” suggested Harry, “have been that fellow whom we saw this morning, come back again with another message; and was he trying to attract our attention, think you?”

“That I cannot say,” answered Roger; “but I certainly heard footsteps disappearing just now. Did not you?”

“Yes, I did,” answered Harry; “but I did not attach very much significance to the matter until the individual had gone. Well, we do not know what it was, and we have no time to waste; so let us give our whole attention to the matter of that message. Have you got the paper? Well, when we have finished with it, you had better hide it away somewhere safely, or, better still, destroy it altogether; for we never know when we may be searched. They may take it into their heads to do so at any moment.”

“Ay, we will do so,” agreed Roger; “’twill, as you say, be safer. But go on with what you were about to say before that interruption came.”

“Well,” resumed Harry, “as I was saying, it seems to stand like this: Alvarez, it would appear, has doomed us to die at an auto-da-fé, five days hence, in order to satisfy the demand of the people of this town for revenge, their desire for which has been aroused by the capture by Mr Cavendish of the plate fleet off Acapulco. This fact is known by everybody in the town, and consequently has come to the ears of this man, who says he is an English sailor.

“I should say that he is probably a man—one of the very few that the Dons have ever taken—captured during some action, and tortured to make him recant. He apparently did so in order to spare himself further pain, as men have done on several occasions, and he is now possibly a serving-man, or something of the kind, in the employ of some Spanish grandee or another. But he has not forgotten the fact that he is an Englishman, and, hearing that two of his fellow-countrymen are to be put to a painful death at an auto-da-fé in the Plaza in five days’ time, has made up his mind to save our lives, if possible. If successful, I should say that he himself will try to get away with us.

“At very considerable risk, and doubtless with great difficulty, he has been able to get one message to us, but will not be able to do so again. So he wishes us to procure a piece of cord thin enough to escape easy detection, and hang it from our window, so that he can communicate with us as may be necessary, and so that he can perhaps send up to us certain small articles. For some reason he cannot come again until three days’ hence, when he will be waiting below our grating at midnight for us to lower the line to him, when we may expect another message, and probably instructions what to do so that we may escape. Why he cannot come until midnight on the third night I cannot guess, but evidently there is something very weighty and important to prevent his doing so, otherwise, knowing that there are but five days altogether before our execution, he would commence at once to arrange for our escape without losing any time; for a delay of three days now may make all the difference whether we are to live or die.

“All this we learn from his letter; and my opinion is that we must just trust this man, and hope that he will be able to succeed in his efforts; for until we hear again from him, as to what he wishes us to do to assist him, we can do nothing—absolutely nothing. Now, the first difficulty that confronts us is the matter of that line of which he speaks, and without which, he tells us, escape is impossible. How in the world can we secure a rope or cord of any sort? We never even see our jailer, much less talk to him, so that we have no opportunity of attempting to bribe him, and it is most unlikely that we could do so, even if we could speak to him. There is nothing in the cell that we can possibly turn to account; so I do not see at all what we can do. It seems very hard to lose our lives just because we are at a loss for a small thing like a piece of cord or rope.”

“For my own part,” said Roger, “I wonder somewhat why the man did not make some suggestion as to how we might secure such a thing. Surely he must know that it is utterly impossible for us to procure anything of the kind in prison. I wonder, now, whether that was he or not whose footsteps we heard in the yard a little time ago; and what— Why, Harry, what if that thing that hit me in the face should be another message wrapped round something to make it carry up to the window?”

“Roger,” exclaimed Harry in great jubilation, “I believe you have hit upon the very thing. The man said he could not get another message conveyed for him. The cord is not in position so that he can send anything up by that. What more likely than that he should try to throw a note up to us through the bars? In fact it is the only way. Let us look at once. It must have fallen somewhere in the cell, I should say, since it struck you in the face. That fact shows that it came between the bars; and it would hardly rebound outside again.”

And in the now fast-failing light both lads dropped on their hands and knees and began a feverish search for what might very easily make all the difference to them between living and dying a horrible and painful death. Hound and round the fast-darkening cell they crawled, but not a sign of anything could they find, until Harry, who was searching a corner where the faint light from the grating could not reach, suddenly placed his hand upon something hard, which rolled under the pressure. Clasping it tight in his fist, he rushed to the grating and looked at the article. Yes, sure enough, it was a piece of paper wrapped round a pebble. He softly called Roger to his side, and, opening the folded missive, both began to read. And, as they read, both faces became several shades paler, and their hearts beat thickly. The note ran as follows:—

“I waited for some time below your window in the hope that you would drop an answer from it to my first letter; but I found that I was being watched, and had therefore to leave. How I shall get this present note to you I do not know, but if nobody is about I shall wrap it round a stone and try to throw it through your window. This is to tell you that Alvarez has decided to advance the day for your execution, which will take place on the day after to-morrow. Therefore you must act at once. I am myself in great danger through my attempts to help you, and if the date had not been altered should not have come until the third night from now. But there is no time to lose, so I must endeavour to come to you to-night. I may be discovered, but I must risk that. Now, attend well to what I am going to write. At midnight to-night, instead of three nights hence, I shall be here, underneath your window. You must at any cost let down a thin cord, or all my efforts will be vain. I will then attach to the cord several small files and a saw of fine temper. If the line is not strong enough to bear the weight I will tie a light line which I shall bring with me to yours; you will then haul that up first, and, making fast the end, you can then pull up the things I shall bring. If I have any more news then, I will also send up a letter to you. With the files and saw you must cut away all the bars of your grating except one. This will leave room for you to climb through. The one bar must be left to secure a stout rope to, so that you may slide down it. The work of cutting the bars will take you all to-morrow; so after my visit to-night I shall not come