The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars by G. A. Henty (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📖

at some dealer in old clothes a suit which will enable me to pass as a wounded soldier making his way home. Then we will strike off from the main road and follow the lanes and get on some other road. They will inquire all along the road and will hear of a gentleman and two youths, and will for a while have that in their minds. No one will particularly notice us, and we shall get into Tours safely enough.

"We must never enter a house or town together, for they will be on the lookout for three people, and neither a soldier with his head bound up, nor two peasant girls, will attract attention. At Tours I will get a farmer's dress, and will buy a horse and cart, and a load of hay, and will pick you up outside the town. You can get on the hay, and can cover yourselves over if you see any horsemen in pursuit. After that it will be all easy work."

"Why could you not get the cart at Orleans, Rupert?" Adele asked.

"I might," he said; "but I think that the extra change would be best, as they would then have no clue whatever to follow. They will trace us to Orleans, and you may be sure that there will be a hot hue and cry, and it may be that the fact of a horse and cart having been sold would come out. They will not know whether we have made east, west, or south from there, so there will be a far less active search at Tours than there will at Orleans."

So the journey was carried out, and without any serious adventure; although with a great many slight alarms, and some narrow escapes of detection, which cannot be here detailed. The party arrived at the spot where the lane leading to the little farm occupied by Margot's mother left the main road. Here they parted, the girls taking their bundles, and starting to trudge the last few miles on foot.

Margot discreetly went on a little ahead, to give her mistress the opportunity of speaking to Rupert alone, but she need not have done so, for all that Rupert said was:

"I have been in the light of your brother this time, Adele, as your father gave you into my charge. If I ever come again, dear, it will be different."

"You are very good, Rupert. Goodbye;" and with a wave of the hand she ran after Margot; while Rupert, mounting the cart, drove on into Poitiers.

Here he sold his load of hay to a stable keeper, drove a mile or two out of the town, entered a wood, and then took the horse out of the cart, and leaving the latter in a spot where, according to all appearances, it was not likely to be seen for months, drove the horse still further into the wood, and, placing a pistol to its head, shot it dead. Then he renewed his disguise as a soldier, but this time dispensed with the greater part of his bandages, and set out on his return, in high spirits at having so successfully performed his journey.

He pursued his journey as far back as Blois without the slightest interruption, but here his tramp came to a sudden termination. Secure in the excellence of his French, Rupert had attempted no disguise as to his face beyond such as was given by a strip of plaister, running from the upper lip to the temple. He strode gaily along, sometimes walking alone, sometimes joining some other wayfarer, telling every one that he was from Bordeaux, where he had been to see his parents, and get cured of a sabre cut.

As he passed through the town of Blois, Rupert suddenly came upon a group of horsemen. Saluting as he passed--for in those days in France no one of inferior rank passed one of the upper classes without uncovering--he went steadily on.

"That is a proper looking fellow," one of the party said, looking after him.

"By our Lady," exclaimed another, "I believe I have seen that head and shoulders before. Yes, I feel sure.

"Gentlemen, we have made a prize. Unless I am greatly mistaken, this is the villainous Englishman who it is believed aided that malapert young lady to escape."

In another moment Rupert was surrounded. His hat was knocked off; and the Duc de Carolan, for it was he, exclaimed in delight:

"I thought that I could not be mistaken. It is himself."

Rupert attempted no resistance, for alone and on foot it would have been hopeless.

The governor of the royal castle of Blois was one of the party, and Rupert found himself in another ten minutes standing, with guards on each side of him, before a table in the governor's room, with the governor and the Duc de Carolan sitting as judges before him.

"I have nothing to say," Rupert said, quietly. "I escaped from Lille because I had been, as I deemed it, unworthily treated in Paris. I had withdrawn my parole, and was therefore free to escape if I could. I did escape, but finding the frontier swarmed with French troops, I thought it safer to make for central France, where a wayfarer would not be looked upon as suspiciously as in the north. Here I am. I decline to answer any further questions.

"As to the lady of whom you question me, I rejoice to find, by the drift of your questions, that she has withdrawn herself from the persecution which she suffered, and has escaped being forced into marriage with a man she once described in my hearing as an ape in the costume of the day."

"And that is all you will say, prisoner?" the governor asked, while the Duc de Carolan gave an exclamation of fury.

"That is all, sir; and I would urge, that as an English officer I am entitled to fair and honourable treatment; for although I might have been shot in the act of trying to escape from prison, it is the rule that an escaping prisoner caught afterwards, as I am, should have fair treatment, although his imprisonment should be stricter and more secure than before.

"As to the other matter, there cannot be, I am assured, even a tittle of evidence to connect me with the event you mention. As far as I hear from you, I escaped on the 10th from Lille, which date is indeed accurate. Three days later Mademoiselle de Pignerolles left Versailles. The connection between the two events does not appear in any way clear to me."

"It may or it may not be," the governor said. "However, my duty is clear, to keep you here in safe ward until I receive his Majesty's orders."

Four days later the royal order came. Rupert was to be taken to the dreaded fortress prison of Loches, a place from which not one in a hundred of those who entered in ever came from alive.

Chapter 20: Loches.

"A British officer; broke out from Lille. Ah!" the Governor of Loches said to himself, as he glanced over the royal order. "Something else beyond that, I fancy. Prisoners of war who try to break prison are not sent to Loches. I suppose he has been in somebody's way very seriously. A fine young fellow, too--a really splendid fellow. A pity really; however, it is not my business.

"Number four, in the south tower," he said, and Rupert was led away.

Number four was a cell on the third story of the south tower. More than that Rupert did not know. There was no looking out from the loopholes that admitted light, for they were boarded up on the outside. There was a fireplace, a table, a chair, and a bedstead. Twice a day a gaoler entered with provisions; he made no reply to Rupert's questions, but shook his head when spoken to.

For the first week Rupert bore his imprisonment with cheerfulness, but the absolute silence, the absence of anything to break the dreary monotony, the probability that he might remain a prisoner all his life, was crushing even to the most active and energetic temperament.

At the end of a month the gaoler made a motion for him to follow him. Ascending the stairs to a great height, they reached the platform on the top of the tower.

Rupert was delighted with the sight of the sky, and of the wide-spreading fields--even though the latter was covered with snow. For a half-an-hour he paced rapidly round and round the limited walk. Presently the gaoler touched him, and pointing below, said:

"Look!"

Rupert looked over the battlement, and saw a little party issue from a small postern gate far below him, cross the broad fosse, and pause in an open space formed by an outlying work beyond. They bore with them a box.

"A funeral?" Rupert asked.

The man nodded.

"They all go out at last," he said, "but unless they tell what they are wanted to tell, they go no other way."

Five minutes later Rupert was again locked up in his cell, when he was, in the afternoon of the same day, visited by the governor, who asked if he would say where he had taken Mademoiselle Pignerolles.

"You may as well answer," he said. "You will never go out alive unless you do."

Rupert shook his head.

"I do not admit that I know aught concerning the lady you name; but did I so, I should prefer death to betraying her."

"Ay," the governor said, "you might do that; but death is very preferable to life at Loches."

In a day or two Rupert found himself again desponding.

"This will not do," he said earnestly. "I must arouse myself. Let me think, what have I heard that prisoners do? In the first place they try to escape; and some have escaped from places as difficult as Loches. Well, that is one thing to be thought very seriously about. In the next place, I have heard of their making pets of spiders and all sorts of things. Well, I may come to that, but at present I don't like spiders well enough to make pets of them; besides I don't see any spiders to make pets of. Then some prisoners have carved walls, but I have no taste for carving.

"I might keep my muscles in order and my health good by exercise with the chair and table; get to hold them out at arm's length, lift the table with one hand, and so on. Yes, all sorts of exercise might be continued in that way, and the more I take exercise the better I shall sleep at night and enjoy my meals. Yes, with nothing else to do I might become almost a Samson here.

"There, now my whole time is marked out--escape from prison, and exercise. I'll try the last first, and then think over the other."

For a long time Rupert worked away with his furniture until he had quite exhausted himself; then feeling happier and better than he had done since he was shut up, he began to think of plans of escape. The easiest way would of course be to knock down and gag the gaoler, and to escape in the clothes; but this plan he put aside at once, as it was morally certain that he should be no nearer to his escape after reaching the courtyard of the prison, than he was in the cell. There remained then the chimney, the loophole, and the solid wall.

The chimney was the first to disappear from the calculation. Looking up it, Rupert saw that it was crossed by a dozen iron bars, the height too was very great, and even when at the top the height was immense to descend to the fosse.

The loophole was next examined. It was far too narrow to squeeze through, and was crossed by three sets of bars. The chance of widening the narrow loophole and removing the bars without detection was extreme; besides, Rupert had a strong idea that the loophole looked into the courtyard.

Finally he came to the conclusion, that if an escape was to be made it must be by raising a flag of the floor, tunnelling between his room and that underneath it, and working out through the solid wall. It would be a tremendous work, for the loophole showed him that the wall must be ten feet thick; still, as he said to himself, it will be at least something to do and to think about, and even if it takes five years and comes to nothing, it will have been useful.

Thus resolved, Rupert went to work, and laboured steadily. His exercise with the chair and table succeeded admirably, and after six months he was able to perform feats of strength with them that surprised himself. With his scheme for escape he was less fortunate. Either his tools were faulty, or the stones he had to work upon were too compact and well built, but beyond getting up the flag, making a hole below