Part 19 (1/2)
”Pray, what do you mean by that?”
”Exactly what I say; as you are likely to be our guests for some considerable time to come, there will be no need for explanation.”
”You mean to keep us prisoners, then, do you? Very well, Mr.
Prendergast, be a.s.sured of this, when I _do_ get loose I'll make you feel the weight of my arm.”
”I think it's very probable there will be a fight if ever we do meet,”
he answered, coolly taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.
”And it's my impression you'd be a man worth fighting, Mr. Hatteras.”
”If you think my father will let me remain here very long you're much mistaken,” said Beckenham. ”And as for the ransom you expect him to pay, I don't somehow fancy you'll get a halfpenny.”
At the mention of the word ”ransom” I noticed that a new and queer expression came into our captor's face. He did not reply, however, except to utter his usual irritating laugh. Having done so he went to the door and called something in Arabic. In answer a gigantic negro made his appearance, bearing in his hands a tray on which were set two basins of food and two large mugs of water. These were placed before us, and Prendergast bade us, if we were hungry, fall to.
”You must not imagine that we wish to starve you,” he said. ”Food will be served to you twice a day. And if you want it, you can even be supplied with spirits and tobacco. Now, before I go, one word of advice.
Don't indulge in any idea of escape. Communication with the outside world is absolutely impossible, and you will find that those collars and chains will stand a good strain before they will give way. If you behave yourselves you will be well looked after; but if you attempt any larks you will be confined in different rooms, and there will be a radical change in our behaviour.”
So saying he left the room, taking the precaution to lock the door carefully behind him.
When we were once more alone, a long silence fell upon us. It would be idle for me to say that the generous behaviour of the young Marquis with regard to my share in this wretched business had set my mind at rest.
But if it had not done that it had at least served to intensify another resolution. Come what might, I told myself, I would find a way of escape, and he should be returned to his father safe and sound, if it cost me my life to do it. But how _were_, we to escape? We could not move from our places on account of the chains that secured us to the walls, and, though I put all my whole strength into it, I found I could not dislodge the staple a hundredth part of an inch from its holding-place.
The morning wore slowly on, mid-day came and went, the afternoon dragged its dismal length, and still there was no change in our position.
Towards sundown the same gigantic negro entered the room again, bringing us our evening meal. When he left we were locked up for the night, with only the contemplation of our woes, and the companions.h.i.+p of the mult.i.tudes of mice that scampered about the floor, to enliven us.
The events of the next seven days are hardly worth chronicling, unless it is to state that every morning at daylight the same c.o.c.k crew and the same dog barked, while at six o'clock the same cripple invariably made his way down the street behind me. At eight o'clock almost to the minute, breakfast was served to us, and, just as punctually, the evening meal made its appearance as the sun was declining behind the opposite house-top. Not again did we see any sign of Mr. Prendergast, and though times out of number I tugged at my chain I was never a whit nearer loosening it than I had been on the first occasion. One after another plans of escape were proposed, discussed, and invariably rejected as impracticable. So another week pa.s.sed and another, until we had been imprisoned in that loathsome place not less than twenty days. By the end of that time, as may be supposed, we were as desperate as men could well be. I must, however, admit that anything like the patience and pluck of my companion under such circ.u.mstances I had never in my life met with before.
One fact had repeatedly struck me as significant, and that was the circ.u.mstance that every morning between six and half-past, as already narrated, the same cripple went down the street; and in connexion with this, within the last few days of the time, a curious coincidence had revealed itself to me. From the tapping of his crutches on the stones I discovered that while one was shod with iron, the other was not. Now where and when had I noticed that peculiarity in a cripple before? That I had observed it somewhere I felt certain. For nearly half the day I turned this over and over in my mind, and then, in the middle of our evening meal, enlightenment came to me. I remembered the man whose piteous tale had so much affected Beckenham on the day of our arrival, and the sound his crutches made upon the pavement as he left us. If my surmise proved correct, and we could only manage to communicate with him, here was a golden opportunity. But how were we to do this? We discussed it, and discussed it, times out of number, but in vain. That he must be stopped on his way down the street need not to be argued at all. In what way, however, could this be done? The window was out of the question, the door was not to be thought of; in that case the only communicating place would be the small pipe by my side. But as I have already pointed out, by reason of the elbow it would be clearly impossible to force a message through it. All day we devoted ourselves to attempts to solve what seemed a hopeless difficulty. Then like a flash a brilliant inspiration burst upon me.
”By Jove, I have it!” I said, taking care to whisper lest any one might be listening at the door. ”We must manage by hook or crook to catch a mouse _and let him carry our appeal for help to the outside world_.”
”A magnificent idea! If we can catch one I do believe you've saved us!”
But to catch a mouse was easier said than done. Though the room was alive with them they were so nimble and so cunning, that, try how we would, we could not lay hold of one. But at length my efforts were rewarded, and after a little struggle I held my precious captive in my hand. By this time another idea had come to me. If we wanted to bring Nikola and his gang to justice, and to discover their reason for hatching this plot against us, it would not do to ask the public at large for help--and I must own, in spite of our long imprisonment, I was weak enough to feel a curiosity as to their motive. No! It must be to the beggar who pa.s.sed the house every morning that we must appeal.
”This letter concerns you more than me,” I said to my fellow-prisoner.
”Have you a lead pencil in your pocket?”
He had, and immediately threw it across to me. Then, taking a small piece of paper from my pocket, I set myself to compose the following in French and English, a.s.sisted by my companion:--
”If this should meet the eye of the individual to whom a young Englishman gave half a sovereign in charity three weeks ago, he is implored to a.s.sist one who a.s.sisted him, and who has been imprisoned ever since that day in the room with the blank wall facing the street and the boarded-up window on the right-hand side. To do this he must obtain a small file and discover a way to convey it into the room by means of the small pipe leading through the blank wall into the street; perhaps if this could be dislodged it might be pushed in through the aperture thus made. On receipt of the file an English five-pound note will be conveyed to him in the same way as this letter, and another if secrecy is observed and those in the house escape.”
This important epistle had hardly been concocted before the door was unlocked and our dusky servitor entered with the evening meal. He had long since abandoned his first habit of bringing us our food in separate receptacles, but conveyed it to us now in the saucepan in which it was cooked, dividing it thence into our basins. These latter, it may be interesting to state, had not been washed since our arrival.
All the time that our jailer was in the room I held my trembling prisoner in my hand, clinging to him as to the one thing which connected us with liberty. But the door had no sooner closed upon him than I had tilted out my food upon the floor and converted my basin into a trap.