menu_book Chapter 13

CHAPTER VII. NO ESCAPE. His wish still continued, but his hope grew less. He determined to keep his design always in view, and lay hold on any expedient that time should offer.

RASALAS CHAPTER V. It was with their arrival at Exeter on the seventeenth day that Ghaul realized with a shock that he had only three nights left. He must make his dash for liberty within that space, or never make it at all. And he could only seize flying chance by the skirts, since to plan anything beforehand

was impossible when he knew nothing of the country, nor where the conductor would lodge them each night. The first night after leaving Exeter they lay at Chudley, where circumstances were unfavorable, the second at Buckfastly, where they were even less propitious. Next morning Ghaul told himself desperately that he must make his attempt that night wherever

they were to be confined. If only it might be, as it often had been, some ramshackle and deserted barn. But their place of temporary confinement turned out to be exceedingly unlike this desired haven. For, to Ghaul's surprise, it was a church, standing in a graveyard in the middle of a

little town. It appeared that there was no other building in the place capable of containing them with and the conductor had, rather rashly, Ghaul thought, guaranteed that no harm should be done to monuments or furniture. The men laughed as they were shepherded into this unfamiliar kind of barracks, and most

of them set to work to explore its possibilities. A few proposed breaking down some of the pews and making a fire in the aisle to dry their For it had been a rainy day, and were deterred from this project much less by Ghaul's remonstrances than by the discovery that there was no reliable tinderbox to be had. So, after one of them had delivered a short and dryballed discourse from the three-tiered

pulpit and several had scrawled their names, as well as they could see to do it in the gloom on the mural tablets, they settled down for the night in the capacious pews. But Ghaul still wandered round the walls, a gray shadow amid the grayness, feeling, tapping, shaking, but there was anything to shake. The others, talking or snoring, took no notice of him, save once to shout a suggestion that

he was sleepwalking, and so, when he felt his way into the small square bell tower which stood like an alcove at the end of the church, he passed from their remembrance as well. It was not probable that there would be any separate exit to this place. Nevertheless, he pursued his slow and methodical voyage round its walls. If there were one, it would be like all the other doors, solid and solidly fastened.

Oh, Sath Vyas, there was one. His exploring fingers had suddenly come on wood instead of stone. A door, a small door. But a fastened door, of course. There was a lock, but no key.

Higher up, as he had already felt, there was a latch, and half mechanically his hand went back to it. It was stiff and had remained lifted. For what reason Ghaul did not know, he took hold of it with both hands to pull it down again and incontinently felt the door tremble with a slight pressure on it, as an unfastened

door might tremble. Impossible. But he pulled harder towards him, and with only a little reluctance the door followed the pull. It was not fastened.

The sweat started out on the explorer as he stood there, the fingers of his left hand stealing round the edge of the little door, the others still on the latch. Now was he going to share his discovery with the men in the church? No, it would be madness, for they would all troop out instantly, reckless as they were, and be shot down by the sentries outside.

On the other hand, ought he to monopolize this startling opportunity? At any rate, he would not summon the others yet. He would slip through and reconnoitre first. The next moment he had done so, and was moving cautiously along the outer wall of the church, his heart beating almost to suffocation.

He had known that he should find no moon, but for all that it was much lighter outside than he had realized, disconcertingly light. Every tombstone was more or less visible, and he certainly would be. He stopped. It would be better to return to the church and wait a little.

Too late. Here was a sentry coming round the bell tower. He was ready between him and the little door. Raoul slipped past the next buttress, then dropped to his hands and knees and crawled, and thus progressing among the tombs, this time at right angles to the building, had

the satisfaction of getting almost to the cover afforded by a large upstanding family monument when, without the slightest warning, a bullet splintered into it just ahead of him, knocking chips of stone in all directions. He most disagreeably surprised and startled, and paying no heed to the belated shout of Halt, or I fire, which now reached his ears.

The fugitive then took the perilous course of springing to his feet and running. In another locality the course might have been a sound one, but a graveyard is no place for a twilight sprint, and so Raoul found. Before he could pick himself up from the flat tombstone over which he had tripped and fallen headlong a sentry was on him, his hands at his throat, and in an incredibly short time

was joined by another as zealous as himself. Indeed, the vigorous fight which the recaptured prisoner put up was less for liberty than to save himself from strangulation. In the end, breathless, dishevelled, bruised, and generally rather limp, he was taken back through the little tower door, which had meanwhile been discovered and guarded, and thrown into

one of the high roomy pews. Shouts, shot, and re-entry had roused the rest of the prisoners to excitement, which the soldiers, cursing the author of it, had now to quell. In the middle of the turmoil arrived Mr. Hunter, at whose advent it somewhat died down. He had ordered the little door to be nailed up from the outside, and the noise of hammering

was already resounding when he unexpectedly appeared at the door of Raoul's residence, with a lantern bearing orderly behind him. So unexpectedly, indeed, that he took its occupant by surprise, and found him still rather dazed and breathless, sitting in a corner with disordered hair and dabbing at a graze on his temple.

Are you hurt, de Sabliac? he inquired in an unemotional voice. Raoul instantly put away his handkerchief and rose to his feet. Only my clothes, sir, I've no complaint to make. The officer surveyed him for a second in the light of the lifted lantern.

Some of the scarlet frogs had indeed been wrenched away from the breast of the great and the high military collar was gaping after its departed hooks, while the red and white sash round his waist, some of its twisted strands broken and hanging down, was several inches away from the locality prescribed by the imperial regulations. Did anyone outside tell you about that door, or help you in any way?

No one, sir. I came on it almost by chance. Very good, said Lieutenant Hunter, and withdrew. And five minutes later, when lanterns and clattering boots had gone, the church settled down to almost its usual nocturnal silence.

Aching and horriblily disappointed, Raoul stretched himself out on the wide seat of the pew, with his head on a moth-eaten hasak. The high wooden walls of his retreat gave him such privacy as he had not known since left Wanfield, and such as he certainly would not know to-morrow night. And finally he slept, undisturbed by the mice which ran over his legs.

Opinions were freely expressed in the church next morning that the captain, after last night's exploit, would not be allowed to march free for this the last day's journey. Even Oll himself felt a little doubtful. But no, he was not to have any slur cast on his word now. Mr. Hunter made no reference to the occurrence, nor indeed did any conversation pass between

them. Raoul walked in his usual place, unfettered and rather disheveled. It was raining slightly when they crossed the erm, more heavily when they came to the Yelm, and Raoul pulled his police over his shoulders. Even more of these beautiful free-falling rivers that Dartmoor sent as a message to

the sea, and they would be in Plymouth. But before they crossed the Mavie they halted for the last time in a spot being chosen for the sake of shelter where the road ran through a tiny wood. The rain, however, had ceased now, though the trees were dripping and the air was hot and steamy.

Raoul sat down at a distance from the rest on a fallen trunk. He was conscious of every leaf of his surroundings, for something warned him how often he would think of this day and long for a road, even in the rain. He who had made such a poor use of last night's great opportunity, who could not bring off a successful escape even when Le Bon Dieu had left a door open for him.

As he sat there, his eyes fixed on some narrow ribbons of leaves, shining with wet and exultantly green, which poured themselves forth from between two mossy stones near him, he was suddenly aware of Lieutenant Hunter's presence. "'Oh, don't get up,' said the Englishman abruptly. "'I want to speak to you.'

He sat down beside him on the tree and then said nothing. It was Raoul who broke the silence. "'What do you call that plant in English?' he asked, pointing. "'Heart's tongue fern, a tongue of a deer, you know.' "'I thought we had better say good-bye now, de Sabliac, while we have the chance.'

Raoul looked at him. "'It is very good of you to say it at all, after last night. I'm sorry I put you to all that trouble. I hope at least that you had not gone to bed.' "'No,' said Mr. Hunter.

"'I shall always remember you, and your consideration, sir,' went on Raoul warmly. After all, it seemed to be he who was doing the leaf-taking.' "'There was not much of that shown you last night, I'm afraid,' muttered Mr. Hunter, with an eye on his prisoner's uniform. "'I can't help wishing,' and there he stopped.

"'And that I'd never found that little door of mine,' supplied Raoul, and looked at him with almost a twinkle in his eye. "'But Mr. Hunter, with his teeth in his lip, was mutely studying the wet grass between his boots. After a moment he took up the riding-switch, which lay across his knees, and began to examine

that in its turn with close attention. "'You do not need to assure me,' disubliac,' he said indistinctly, that, whatever people say, you'd never broke your parole before you were sent to Norman Cross. "'I don't mind telling you that your behaviour at Bridgewater has given me a better opinion of the French officer in that respect than I've ever had before.'

"'Well, you could not give me a handsomer valediction than that,' said Raoul, smiling. And apparently it was Mr. Hunter's valediction, for he now got up, and Raoul did the same. "'You said the other day that you had someone working for your release, I think. I can heartily say that I wish him success.' "'Thank you,' returned Raoul pleasantly.

I also naturally wish him the same.' Still, Mr. Hunter lingered, switching rather savagely at the heart's tongue fern. "'Oh, don't do that,' exclaimed Raoul impulsively. You see, it will be there tomorrow.' Shooting a rather perplexed glance at him, Mr. Hunter desisted.

"'You make me wish that I could give you back what you gave me that day near Sirencester,' he said, and colouring in a curious and as it were reluctant fashion. I mean, without the alternative. But it is too late now.' Raoul was startled in his turn and touched as well.

"'It would always have been too late, Lieutenant,' he replied. A poor return, too, and that would have been for your kindness.' "'Well, whether your friend succeeds or no, De Sabliath, I should like to know when you leave the prison ship. It would be some compensation to me for having to take you there.

Ask me at Norman Cross, if you think it worth the trouble. Goodbye.' He shook hands and walked towards his horse, and a few minutes later the whole convoy was once more in motion. Over the Meve, through the streets of Plymouth, were their sailors and their slatterns, and

now in heavily falling rain. If only this, the last stage of the three-weeks pilgrimage, could have been prolonged a little. The hapless wayfarers did their best to spin it out, and they lagged and had to be admonished. To Raoul, that march through the breadth of Plymouth was like being in the grip of a gigantic hand which slowly tightened and tightened.

At last they would come to the end of solid ground, for they were in a dockyard on a quay where a guard of marines from the Hawks was already awaiting them. The conductor was with these, and he and Lieutenant Hunter formally made over their unhappy charges to the lieutenant in command of this party. Why is that man loose?

demanded the latter, pointing to Raoul. Because he is an officer, and I allowed him his parole, which he has most faithfully observed, replied Mr. Hunter. You must know, sir, that there are no officers, and consequently no parole here, was the angry retort.

I'm to have him jumping out of the boat, I suppose. Tie him up at once. And at the twinkling of an eye, Raoul found his hands secured with naval thoroughness, behind his back this time. He tried to catch Lieutenant Hunter's eye and smile, but the soldier, cursing under

his breath, would not look at him. Soon they were being tumbled into the pennies which was waiting alongside on the grey waters of the Hameaus. The crew bent to their oars, the quay receded. Raoul kept himself from looking where they were going, for indeed the impulse was strong

on him to leap, bound as he was, into those unfriendly waters. To keep it down, he tried, not for the first time, to make himself believe that on arrival at the prison ship he should find awaiting him an order from the transport board for his restoration to parole, and that he should set foot on the hulk only to leave it again. Three weeks was long enough, surely, for some step to have been taken.

Lord Fulgrave was a peer, a privy counsellor, he had heard, and he himself an innocent man. But when at last he lifted his eyes and had his first sight of the hulks, lying out in midstream like a string of giant blots on the water, his heart died within him. It was hard to believe that any good fortune could be waiting in those black sarcophagi. Yet every one of them had been in the past one of the most beautiful things that man

has ever made, in the nearest to a living being, a full-rigged ship, splendid in majesty and motion. Now stripped, dismasted, like birds without wings, or trees demolished by the axe, they were not only lifeless but degraded, even less honourable in their immobility than the slave-brig buffeted by the rollers of the Guinea coast.

Except for some slight difference in size, a horrible uniformity reigned, and these floating prisons moored each behind the other for mutual surveillance. Each had a couple of jury masts with one yard. Round each, nearly at the level of the water, ran a gallery for the sentries. In each the boats were all drawn up save one, secured to the raft at the foot of the accommodation

ladder by an iron chain. The penises crew took her to the third of the hulks. It was, so Goel found later, the Ganges. They were herded out of the boat. He went up the last of all, so hustled by the impatient marine behind him that, pinioned

as he was, he almost fell. And as he mounted the ladder he knew, knew in every fibre of him, that there was no order of release here. For a second he looked up with hungry eyes at the gull sailing effortless overhead, ere he stumbled on to the dark deck which opened before him.

Three quarters of an hour later, deprived of his uniform and clothed in a hideous and ill-fitting orange-yellow garb branded with the great T and O of the transport office, an ignominy which he had never anticipated, Goel the subliac stood in the lower battery of the Ganges gazing with a sick horror through an atmosphere in which he could scarcely breathe at its half-starved and half-naked population.

The battery was only about thirty feet by forty. It was so low that a tall man could not stand upright, and the only light and air came from a dozen or so small ports about eighteen inches square. In this space, furnished only with a bench running round it and four in the middle, were penned between three and four hundred beings in various stages of misery, disease and degradation,

his future companions. It was the hour for a meal, and the hungry inmates of this inferno were clustered into groups round some great iron pots into which, like a pack of savages, they were ravenously dipping their tin cups, or even their hands. Of knife or spoon there was not a trace anywhere.

Well, he would starve rather than do that in their company. And as he stood there half-stupefied with a clamor, watching the throng of evil faces, some of which, no doubt, had when their owners first entered this place, but as unbranded as his own, a cold felt as a drowning man may feel, whose fingers can no longer grip the spar which has kept him afloat.

It would be profanation to think of Juliana Forrest here. He had better forget her. That pure kiss of hers, which he still carried, would wither in this atmosphere, for here, and could feel it instantly, was not misery merely, but depravity. A hand touched him on the arm, and looking round he saw an elderly man clothed in nothing

but a pair of old breeches. A new arrival, I take it, he observed in a voice which retained traces of education. Does not the look of this soup make your mouth water? And tomorrow we shall have dried fish that has been going the round for months, because since even we cannot eat it, we sell it back to the contractor again.

But you, those clothes are new. You can stake them for a great deal, and have you not a watch or some trinkets or other? I'll play you for your watch. His hand shook on Raoul's arm. It was here, as in the prisons, then.

The unhappy creatures gambled away their very rags, the very bread, out of their mouths. But before Raoul could make any reply he was seized by the other arm, and the face of a damned soul, yellow and leering, was looking into his. Another recruit it chuckled. And where, my fine fellow, do you think you're going to sling your hammock tonight?

By a scuttle, if I'm to be alive in the morning, answered the young man, half-choked, already. Oh, I dare say, places near the scuttles are all taken, you. The leer became more pronounced. But for money, for a great deal of money. I have no money, said Raoul.

Then you can sling your hammock in hell, for all I care, snarled the purveyor of breathing spaces, and, aiming an ineffectual kick at him, turned away. It was, indeed, where Raoul slung it, and where he lay all night gasping and thinking, sometimes saying to himself, Oh, God, how am I going to endure this? How can I?

End of section 13