A Jacobite Exile<br />Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelf by G. A. Henty (christmas read aloud txt) 📗

present weak state, altogether impossible, paid but little heed to him, the peasant frequently absenting himself for hours together.

Looking from his window, Charlie saw that the hut was situated in a thick wood, and, from the blackened appearance of the peasant's face and garments, he guessed him to be a charcoal burner, and therefore judged that the trees he saw must form part of a forest of considerable extent.

The weather was warm, and his other guard often sat, for a while, outside the door. During his absence, Charlie lifted the logs of wood piled beside the hearth, and was able to test his returning strength, assuring himself that, although not yet fully recovered, he was gaining ground daily. He resolved not to wait until the seventh day; for Ben Soloman might change his mind, and return before the day he had named. He determined, therefore, that on the sixth day he would make the attempt.

He had no fear of being unable to overcome his Jewish guard, as he would have the advantage of a surprise. He only delayed as long as possible, because he doubted his powers of walking any great distance, and of evading the charcoal burner, who would, on his return, certainly set out in pursuit of him. Moreover, he wished to remain in the hut nearly up to the time of the Jew's return, as he was determined to wait in the forest, and revenge himself for the suffering he had caused him, and for the torture to which he intended to put him.

The evening before the day on which he decided to make the attempt, the charcoal burner and the Jew were in earnest conversation. The word signifying brigand was frequently repeated, and, although he could not understand much more than this, he concluded, from the peasant's talk and gestures, that he had either come across some of these men in the forest, or had gathered from signs he had observed, perhaps from their fires, that they were there.

The Jew shrugged his shoulders when the narration was finished. The presence of brigands was a matter of indifference to him. The next day, the charcoal burner went off at noon.

"Where does he go to?" Charlie asked his guard.

"He has got some charcoal fires alight, and is obliged to go and see to them. They have to be kept covered up with wet leaves and earth, so that the wood shall only smoulder," the man said, as he lounged out of the hut to his usual seat.

Charlie waited a short time, then went to the pile of logs, and picked out a straight stick about a yard long and two inches in diameter. With one of the heavier ones he could have killed the man, but the fellow was only acting under the orders of his employer, and, although he would doubtless, at Ben Soloman's commands, have roasted him alive without compunction, he had not behaved with any unkindness, and had, indeed, seemed to do his best for him.

Taking the stick, he went to the door. He trod lightly, but in the stillness of the forest the man heard him, and glanced round as he came out.

Seeing the stick in his hand he leaped up, exclaiming, "You young fool!" and sprang towards him.

He had scarce time to feel surprise, as Charlie quickly raised the club. It described a swift sweep, fell full on his head, and he dropped to the ground as if shot.

Charlie ran in again, seized a coil of rope, bound his hands and feet securely, and dragged him into the hut. Then he dashed some cold water on his face. The man opened his eyes, and tried to move.

"You are too tightly bound to move, Pauloff," he said. "I could have killed you if I had chosen, but I did not wish to. You have not been unkind to me, and I owe you no grudge; but tell your rascally employer that I will be even with him, someday, for the evil he has done me."

"You might as well have killed me," the man said, "for he will do so when he finds I let you escape."

"Then my advice to you is, be beforehand with him. You are as strong a man as he is, and if I were in your place, and a man who meant to kill me came into a lonely hut like this, I would take precious good care that he had no chance of carrying out his intentions."

Charlie then took two loaves of black bread and a portion of goat's flesh from the cupboard; found a bottle about a quarter full of coarse spirits, filled it up with water and put it in his pocket, and then, after taking possession of the long knife his captive wore in his belt, went out of the hut and closed the door behind him.

He had purposely moved slowly about the hut, as he made these preparations, in order that the Jew should believe that he was still weak; but, indeed, the effort of dragging the man into the hut had severely taxed his strength, and he found that he was much weaker than he had supposed.

The hut stood in a very small clearing, and Charlie had no difficulty in seeing the track by which the cart had come, for the marks of the wheels were still visible in the soft soil. He followed this until, after about two miles' walking, he came to the edge of the wood. Then he retraced his steps for a quarter of a mile, turned off, and with some difficulty made his way into a patch of thick undergrowth, where, after first cutting a formidable cudgel, he lay down, completely exhausted.

Late in the afternoon he was aroused from a doze by the sound of footsteps, and, looking through the screen of leaves, he saw his late jailers hurrying along the path. The charcoal burner carried a heavy axe, while the Jew, whose head was bound up with a cloth, had a long knife in his girdle. They went as far as the end of the forest, and then retraced their steps slowly. They were talking loudly, and Charlie could gather, from the few words he understood, and by their gestures, something of the purport of their conversation.

"I told you it was of no use your coming on as far as this," the Jew said. "Why, he was hardly strong enough to walk."

"He managed to knock you down, and afterwards to drag you into the house," the other said.

"It does not require much strength to knock a man down with a heavy club, when he is not expecting it, Conrad. He certainly did drag me in, but he was obliged to sit down afterwards, and I watched him out of one eye as he was making his preparations, and he could only just totter about. I would wager you anything he cannot have gone two hundred yards from the house. That is where we must search for him. I warrant we shall find him hidden in a thicket thereabouts."

"We shall have to take a lantern then, for it will be dark before we get back."

"Our best plan will be to leave it alone till morning. If we sit outside the hut, and take it in turns to watch, we shall hear him when he moves, which he is sure to do when it gets dark. It will be a still night, and we should hear a stick break half a mile away. We shall catch him, safe enough, before he has gone far."

"Well, I hope we shall have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you."

"If we can't find this Swede, I would not wait here for any money. I would fly at once."

"You would need to fly, in truth, to get beyond Ben Soloman's clutches," the charcoal burner said gruffly. "He has got agents all over the country."

"Then what would you do?"

"There is only one thing to do. It is our lives or his. When he rides up tomorrow, we will meet him at the door as if nothing had happened, and, with my axe, I will cleave his head asunder as he comes in. If he sees me in time to retreat, you shall stab him in the back. Then we will dig a big hole in the wood, and throw him in, and we will kill his horse and bury it with him.

"Who would ever be the wiser? I was going to propose it last time, only I was not sure of you then; but, now that you are in it as deep as I am--deeper, indeed, for he put you here specially to look after this youngster--your interest in the matter is as great as mine."

The Jew was silent for some time, then he said:

"He has got papers at home which would bring me to the gallows."

"Pooh!" the other said. "You do not suppose that, when it is found that he does not return, and his heirs open his coffers, they will take any trouble about what there may be in the papers there, except such as relate to his money. I will warrant there are papers there which concern scores of men besides you, for I know that Ben Soloman likes to work with agents he has got under his thumb. But, even if all the papers should be put into the hands of the authorities, what would come of it? They have got their hands full of other matters, for the present, and with the Swedes on their frontier, and the whole country divided into factions, who do you think is going to trouble to hunt up men for affairs that occurred years ago? Even if they did, they would not catch you. They have not got the means of running you down that Ben Soloman has.

"I tell you, man, it must be done. There is no other way out of it."

"Well, Conrad, if we cannot find this fellow before Ben Soloman comes, I am with you in the business. I have been working for him on starvation pay for the last three years, and hate him as much as you can."

When they reached the hut they cooked a meal, and then prepared to keep alternate watch.

Charlie slept quietly all night, and, in the morning, remained in his hiding place until he heard, in the distance, the sound of a horse's tread. Then he went out and sat down, leaning against a tree by the side of the path, in an attitude of exhaustion.

Presently he saw Ben Soloman approaching. He got up feebly, and staggered a few paces to another tree, farther from the path. He heard an angry shout, and then Ben Soloman rode up, and, with a torrent of execrations at the carelessness of the watchers, leapt from his horse and sprang to seize the fugitive, whom he regarded as incapable of offering the slightest resistance.

Charlie straightened himself up, as if with an effort, and raised his cudgel.

"I will not be taken alive," he said.

Ben Soloman drew his long knife from his girdle. "Drop that stick," he said, "or it will be worse for you."

"It cannot be worse than being tortured to death, as you said."

The Jew, with an angry snarl, sprang forward so suddenly and unexpectedly that he was within the swing of Charlie's cudgel before the latter could strike. He dropped the weapon at once, and caught the wrist of the uplifted hand that held the knife.

The Jew gave a cry of astonishment and rage, as they clasped each other, and he found that, instead of an unresisting victim, he was in a powerful grasp. For a moment there was a desperate struggle.

The Jew would, at ordinary times, have been no match for Charlie, but the latter was far from having regained his normal strength. His fury at the treatment he had received at the man's hands, however, enabled him, for the moment, to exert himself to the utmost, and, after swaying backwards and forwards in desperate strife for a minute, they went to the ground with a crash, Ben Soloman being undermost.

The Jew's grasp instantly relaxed, and Charlie, springing to his feet and seizing his cudgel, stood over his fallen antagonist. The latter, however, did not move. His eyes were open in a fixed stare. Charlie looked at him in surprise for a moment, thinking he was stunned, then he saw that his right arm was twisted under him in the fall, and at once understanding what had happened, turned him half over. He had fallen on the knife, which had penetrated to the haft, killing him instantly.

"I didn't mean to kill you," Charlie said aloud, "much as you deserve it, and surely