Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/21

 28, 1862.] through. I seized the end, and in a few minutes I held in my hand the instrument of my deliverance.

The air of the room had by this time become close and stifling, and it was only by stooping that I could breathe freely.

I had still, as far as I could judge, some five hours left—in those I must accomplish my deliverance or die.

I now commenced sounding with my hammer for the least solid part of the wall.

In striking it on a part nearly opposite the shelves cut out for the gate, I thought I heard it sound hollow, I struck again and again without success; it all seemed alike. Once more I determined to strike over the whole space I had previously struck; this I did, and found the spot about the size of a penny piece from which the sound came. I then carefully felt the wall in the neighbourhood, and found a rough indented line ran from this place round the angle of the wall, and on the wall in the same line were three small holes in a circle. I decided at once that this was the place of some burner fixed, and afterwards removed; the rough line was the mark left by the pipe, and the hollow place must be the hole through which the old pipe entered the room. I drove the chisel into the place and found it hard—very hard, but still hollow. My life now hung upon the choice of a right place; if this hole was filled up with the hard cement, and the difference of sound arose merely from difference in density, then I had better try the wall over for a brick softer than the rest; but if it was not full—if those who should have filled it had put but a few inches of cement at each end of the hole; then in another hour I was as safe as if I were free. I would risk it. That hollow sound was so cheery, that I would believe that it must be a true guide.

Blow after blow, and the hole grew deep, and my progress less as my control over the point of the instrument lessened, when one sudden, sharp blow drove the chisel into the wall the length of my arm. The place was hollow. I had now but to drive it through the crust of cement on the outer wall, and I should live. I drove it cautiously and carefully, and at last heard the echo of the pieces falling on the other side, and drawing out the chisel, felt the air rush in. How can words convey the sensation I experienced as I drew in the God-given breath of life. I could now defy Death; there was a fountain at which I might drink and live.

For hours I sat close to the hole and breathed, and then fell asleep. I know not how long I slept, but I awoke sore and tired, and with a horrible hunger and thirst on me. I could not have many more hours to stay, so I hoped on, and tightened my belt to ease the gnawing pain at my stomach. And now began the horrors of solitude; while I had employment for the mind, I felt no pain of any kind now; I was going mad with anxiety and fear. I must find some employment. And what? in this utter darkness. But if darkness, why not light? Yes, I would have light. For this I must enlarge the hole, and went to work again with blistered hands, and in two hours had enlarged it to twice its original diameter, and had consequently four times as much air flowing in.

My next step was to grate from the edges of a book a paper powder for tinder, and spreading this on the ground in a heap, I struck with the point of my hammer the stone shelf above it. The sparks flew about at the contact, but it was at least an hour before one lodged in the heap and set it smouldering. I watched anxiously as the little red ring grew larger and brighter in the heap, and then applying a piece of thin paper rolled to a fine point to the centre of the ring, I gently blew the redness into flame—yes, flame! Real flame, that blinded me by its brightness, that seemed to pierce my brain with a sword, so long and deep had been the darkness.

I took my paper stop from off the gas and heard the serpent hiss once more—this time without fear. I lit the issuing gas, and then sat looking at it as Bartimeus might have done in the joy of his new found sight.

I had done—I had light and air; but still I must have employment or I should rave.

Employment. The thought came to me of that unfortunate sentence that had caused me to run this risk: “If I had access to his books I would prove that fraud was possible.”

There they were—everyoneevery one [sic]; not one missing. Could I prove it? Could—I must—my good name, depended on proving it. If he were true, I was false. I set to work, and with my pencil, which I happily had with me, I went through account after account from beginning to end, and well was I rewarded; for I learnt that my uncle, supposed to be rich, had been systematically robbed for years by this scoundrel, and was now almost ruined; and that his daughter’s portion invested in English securities, had been sold out, and the interest paid by M. Vernay himself, so that father and daughter were at the mercy of this man.

These facts I learned from a small locked book that was in a box marked with M. Vernay’s name. So confident had the servant been of his master’s trust in him, that he had left in that master’s safe the whole of the securities of his nefarious investments, and there they were, with a systematic account of them in this locked book; so that while the master, who was supposed to be worth his hundreds of thousands, was almost a bankrupt, his clerk was a man of immense wealth.

When I broke the lock of that book, and read down its columns, I felt a joy and a pleasure that would have enabled me again to endure what I had suffered, if it would have led to the same result.

I made notes of the whole affair, and took the securities into my possession, and then calmly waited long, long hours; I could not tell how long, for I was waked up from a kind of stupor by the sound of a door opening, and then I heard the voice I knew so well—that of M. Vernay.

“You need not stay; I can bring up all I need. Give me a lucifer.”

He was speaking to the porter. I heard the