Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/727

19, 1863.] though faint, were carried up the passage as along a tube, and into the cell where I have told you Prynne was imprisoned, and from thence echoed up the staircase beyond, and into Charles’s bed-room. The captain stood still to listen, and thus checked the progress of those behind him. Low groans mingled with ejaculations, in a tongue which he knew to be the gipsy dialect, but could not understand, ascended to his ear, and with these came the more familiar tone of an English voice, faintly beseeching for help.

Alarmed for the success of his enterprise by these sounds, he was puzzled as to what had happened, and undecided whether to advance or retreat while there yet seemed time. From this state of indecision he was released by the hindmost of the gang of gipsies, who finding that those above him were motionless, guessed the reason, and silently pushed his way past the others, till he reached Captain Whitehead, to whom in a few words he explained what had taken place. He, himself, had been the last but one to enter the tower, and just before he reached it, the gipsy behind him had caught hold of his ankle. At first he supposed that he had done so merely to save himself from falling; but, as he turned his head to look at him, he heard the inarticulate sound which his people were accustomed to use when an enemy was by, and he then saw that a man was following them at three or four yards’ distance. Conceiving that the intention of this man was to get into the tower in the dark unheeded, under the impression that he was a member of the tribe, and to secure the door, so as to catch them all like rats in a trap when he had given the alarm to the garrison, the gipsy and the one who followed him halted on the lower stair, the former removing one of his garments with the view of throwing it over the man’s head, and preventing him from crying out. This plan partially succeeded; but the Englishman, though taken by surprise, and almost suffocated, struggled furiously against his two assailants; and though he was prevented from calling aloud, and eventually forced to succumb beneath the ill-directed blows of their daggers, he did not die unavenged, for one of them fell beneath him, and lay there, moaning out his soul in the strange accents of a language unintelligible to all but those of his own race. Before the captain had hardly received this explanation both voices were silent, and he continued his way upwards. It had not occupied a minute, but when he reached the bedroom he was just too late to capture the occupant, who having heard the sounds, though he believed they were caused by the young soldier and the girl, was too eager to receive the latter to remain seated, and had approached the head of the stairs to listen. Something at the last moment excited his suspicion, and he ran across the room to the staircase which led up to the top of the tower, and then turned round to look behind him at the very moment Captain Whitehead stepped into the chamber. The captain glanced round him and saw that it was empty, but as he did so, he saw a shadow vanishing up the opposite stairs. He rushed recklessly after it, pursued by his accomplices; but, active as he was, he could not travel so fast as the man he pursued, who not only had the advantage of being familiar with the passage, but was much more lightly clothed. Heedless of everything but the accomplishment of the object he had in view, and not diverted from the direct line taken by the unfortunate man who was destined so often in his younger days to experience the bitterness of being hunted like a wild beast, he stumbled on. On arriving on the platform at the top of the tower, and finding himself in the open air, he looked eagerly about him, fully expecting to see Charles before him, helpless, and utterly unable to offer resistance. To his great surprise not a human being was visible. No search was necessary, for the space was so very small, and moreover there was nothing there which could serve as a screen or hiding-place. Imagining he must have concealed himself in some recess on the stairs, the captain descended to the bedroom. He found the door opening from it into the body of the building occupied by the soldiers and the prince’s friends and attendants, still barred. It was evident, therefore, Charles could not have escaped by that way. Taking a light in his hand he again mounted the staircase, but from the bottom to the top there was no place in which a man could hide himself. On reaching the platform the captain went carefully about it, to ascertain if there were any means of quitting it except by the way in which he had himself come, and then discovered what was evidently a trap-door; though whether it opened on a staircase, or a well, or anything else, he could not make out, for he and his companions were unable to raise it, showing that it was either locked or bolted underneath. While he was weighing in his mind the possibility of Charles having made his escape by this way, a gipsy touched his shoulder, and caused him to look over the parapet. There just below him, but still beyond his reach, he saw a white face looking upwards at him, which became even whiter and assumed a more terror-stricken expression as he bent over to examine it more closely, with the aid of the light he still held. The captain did not utter a word; but a name which no man caught came trembling from the lips of Charles. The former laid his dagger on the parapet, and extinguished the light, lest anybody might see it and give the alarm; then grasping the stone with his left hand, he lowered his right as if to help the prince to ascend. Finding his intended victim took no heed of his hand, he took up the dagger, his followers crowding around him, some holding his clothing, and all looking eagerly over the wall and watching his movements. At first he made only a pretence of cutting through the chain, for he seemed to be sawing at it for some seconds before the sound produced by actual contact showed that his dagger had only struck against another metal, instead of the rope he had assumed it to be. It was to defeat an attempt to sever it, and to ensure the safe descent of the person who might be on the rope-ladder, which was provided ready to be hooked to it, that the chain had been fixed. Unfortunately, Charles had not the time to attach the ladder even if it had been at hand, which it was not, as such a pressing emergency had never