With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War by G. A. Henty (best classic romance novels txt) 📗

is only a foot above the water, so we shall have no difficulty in getting out on the other side.

"I have the money sewn in a small bag round my neck. We may as well take our knives with us. They will help us to tackle the boatmen. I think that is everything. Now, we will be off."

Fastening the sheet firmly to one of the bars, he swung himself out, slid down the rope quietly and noiselessly, and entered the water, which was so cold that it almost took his breath away. He swam a stroke or two along the wall, and waited until joined by both his comrades. Their casemate being the end one, they had but some ten or twelve yards to swim to the angle of the wall.

Another fifty took them to a point facing the cut. Fergus had paced it on the rampart above, and calculated that each stroke would take them a yard. It was too dark to see more than the dim line of the wall on the other side. He waited until the others joined him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Yes, but this cold is frightful."

"We shall soon be out of it," he said. "Wait till I have gone a few yards, and then follow, one after the other."

The surface of the moat was so ruffled by the wind that Fergus had little fear of being seen, even if the sentry above was out and watching; but he felt sure that he would be in his sentry box, and so swam boldly across. He at once climbed onto the lower wall, and helped his two companions out. They were completely numbed by the cold.

"Come along," he said. "We are on the lower side of the cut. Crawl for a short distance, then we can get up and run, which will be the best thing for us."

In three minutes they were up on the river bank.

"Now we can change our clothes," he said. "The others will soon get wet through, but they won't be as cold as these are."

The things were soon stripped off. Each gave himself a rub with one of the dry shirts, and they were soon dressed in the double suits and stockings.

"That is better," Fergus said cheerfully. "Now for a run along the towing path."

A quarter of a mile's run and circulation was restored, and all felt comparatively comfortable. They had, at the suggestion of Fergus, wrung out the things they had taken off; and thrown them over their shoulders, so as to afford some protection against the rain. They now dropped into a slower pace and, after going for a mile, they neared the spot where the craft were lying moored in the river.

Several small boats were drawn up on the shore. One of these they launched, put out the oars, and rowed quietly to a large barge, fifty yards from the bank, on which a light was burning. Taking pains to prevent the boat striking her side, they stepped on board, fastened the head rope, and proceeded aft. A light was burning in the cabin and, looking through a little round window in the door, they saw three boatmen sitting there, smoking and playing cards. They opened their knives, slid back the door, and stepped in.

Chapter 15: Escaped.

So astonishing was the spectacle of three lightly-clad men, appearing suddenly on board a craft moored out on the river, that the three boatmen sat immovable, in the attitudes in which they had been sitting at the entry of these strange visitors, without uttering a word. Superstitious by nature, they doubted whether there was not something supernatural in the appearance of the three strangers.

"If you cry out or make the slightest sound," Fergus said, showing his knife, "you are all dead men. If you sit quiet and do as we order you, no harm will come to you. We want clothes. If you have spare ones you can hand them to us. If not, we must take those you have on. We are not robbers, and don't want to steal them. If you will fix a fair price on the things, we will pay for them. But you must in any case submit to be bound and gagged till morning; when, on going on deck, you will find no difficulty in attracting the attention of some of your comrades, who will at once release you.

"Keep your hands on the table while my friends take away your knives. If one of you moves a hand, he is as good as a dead man."

His companions removed the knives from the belts of the two men sitting outside, and then Fergus said to the third man:

"Now, hand over your knife. That will do.

"Now, which of you is the captain?"

"I am," the man sitting farthest from the door said.

"Very well. Now, have you spare clothes on board?"

"Yes, my lord," he replied, in a tone that showed that he had not yet recovered from his first stupefaction, "we have our Sunday suits."

"We don't want them," Fergus said. "We want the three suits that you have on. What do you value them at?"

"Anything you like, my lord."

"No, I want to know how much they cost when new."

The man asked his two comrades, and then mentioned the total.

"Very well, we will give you that. Then you will have no reason for grumbling, for you will get three new suits for three old ones.

"Now do you--" and he touched the man nearest to him "--take off your coat, waistcoat, breeches, neck handkerchief, and boots, and then get into that bunk."

The man did as he was ordered, as did the other two, in succession. As they did so, Captain Ritzer had gone up on deck and returned with a coil of thin rope that he had cut off. With this they tied the men securely.

"There is no occasion to gag them, I think," Fergus said. "They might shout as loud as they liked and, with this wind blowing, no one would hear them; or if anyone did hear them, he would take it for the shouting of a drunken man.

"Now, look here, my men. Here is the money to buy the new clothes. We have not ill treated you in any way, have we?"

"No, sir, we are quite satisfied."

"Now, I should advise you, in the morning, to manage to untie each other. We shall fasten the door up as we go out, but you will have no difficulty in bursting that open, when you are once untied.

"Now I ask you, as you are satisfied, to say nothing about this affair to anyone. It would only make you a joke among your comrades, and could do you no good. The best thing that you can do, when you get free, will be to dress yourselves in your Sunday clothes, take your boat ashore, and buy new things in the place of those we have taken."

"That is what we shall do, sir. No one would believe us, if we told them that three men had come on board and taken our old clothes, and given us money to buy new ones in their place."

The three boatmen were all tall and brawny Bavarians, and their clothes fitted Fergus and his companions well. Fishermen's hats completed their costume. The little cabin had been almost oppressively warm, and they had completely got over their chill when they left it, closing the door behind them.

They took their places in the boat, crossed to the opposite shore, which was to some extent sheltered from the wind, and rowed some three miles up. Then they landed, pushed the boat off into the stream, kept along the bank until they came to a road branching off to the left, and followed it until it struck the main road, a few hundred yards away; and then walked west.

There had been but few words spoken since they left the barge. It had been hard work rowing against wind and stream. The oars were clumsy, and it had needed all their efforts to keep the boat's head straight. Now that they were in the main road, they were somewhat more sheltered.

"Well, Drummond, we have accomplished what seemed to me, in spite of your confidence, well-nigh impossible. We have got out, we have obtained disguises, and we have eight or nine hours before our escape can be discovered. I shall believe anything you tell me, in future," Ritzer said.

"Yes," his companion agreed, "I never believed that we should succeed; though, as you had set your heart on it, I did not like to hang back. But it really did seem to me a wild scheme, altogether. I thought possibly we might get out of the fort, but I believed that your plan of getting disguises would break down altogether. The rest seemed comparatively easy.

"The rain has ceased, and the stars are coming out, which is a comfort indeed. One was often wet through, for days together, when campaigning; but after five months' coddling, an eight hours' tramp in a blinding rain would have been very unpleasant, especially as we have no change of clothes.

"Now, commanding officer, what is to be our next tale?"

"That is simple enough," Fergus said with a laugh. "We have been down with a raft of timber from the mountains, and are on our way back. That must be our story till we have passed Ratisbon. There is but one objection, and that is a serious one. As raftsmen we should certainly speak the Bavarian dialect, which none of us can do. For that reason I think it would be safer to leave the Danube at Passau, and make down through Munich. We should be at Passau tomorrow morning, and can put up at any little place by the riverside. Two days' walking will take us to Munich.

"Certainly no one would suspect us of being escaped prisoners. We can get some other clothes tomorrow morning, and finish the rest of our journey as countrymen.

"The principal thing will be to get rid of these high boots. I think in other respects there is nothing very distinctive about our dress. It will be more difficult to concoct a story, but we must hope that we sha'n't be asked many questions, and I see no reason why we should be. We shall look like peasants going from a country village to a town, but if we could hit upon some story to account for our not speaking the dialect, it would of course be a great advantage."

They walked along in silence for some time. Then he went on:

"I should say we might give out that we are three Saxons who, having been forced at Pirna to enter the Prussian army, had been taken prisoners at Hochkirch and had been marched down with the others to Vienna; and that there, on stating who we were and how we had been forced against our will into Frederick's army, we were at once released, and are now on our way back to Saxony; and are tramping through Bavaria, so as to avoid the risk of being seized and compelled to serve either in the Austrian army or the Prussian; and that we are working our way, doing a job wherever we can get a day or two's employment, but that at present, having worked for a time at Vienna, we are able to go on for a bit without doing so.

"I think with that story we could keep to the plan of going up through Ratisbon. It would be immensely shorter, and the story would be more probable than that we should make such a big detour to get home."

"Yes, I should think that would do well," Ritzer said, "and will shorten the way by two hundred miles. But after leaving Passau, I should think that we had better not follow the direct road until we get to Ratisbon.

"I grant that as far as that town we ought to be quite safe, for there is no chance of their finding out that we have escaped until eight o'clock in the morning; then our colonel will have to report the matter to the commandant in the town. No doubt he will send off a small party of cavalry, by the Freyberg road to Budweis, to order the authorities there to keep a sharp lookout for three men passing north. But I doubt very much whether they will think of sending in this direction. The escape of three Prussian officers is, after all, no very important matter. Still, one cannot be too careful, for possibly the commandant may send to Munich, Ratisbon, and Vienna.

"It is more likely, however, that the search will be made principally in and round Linz. They will feel quite sure that we cannot possibly have obtained any disguises, and must have gone off in our undergarments; and they will reckon that we should