Chapter XXVII: A Barred Window

How the next fortnight passed, Roy never afterwards knew. He was sick and dazed with the shock he had had, grieving for little Will, and all but hopeless. He had ceased to care for food; and though he dozed a great deal, it was not restful sleep. Life seemed terribly hard to get through. He often envied Will.

The Colonel who had spoken to him that day spoke again often, when they met in the yard; and Roy was grateful. But he could not rouse himself. He had lost all interest in what went on around him. He hated the yard, and always kept as far as possible from where the exposure of the murdered boys had taken place.

His one longing was to know how the other poor lads in the hospital were, but accounts were unreliable.

About a fortnight later, one cold afternoon, he was leaning against the wall at the further end, hardly thinking, only drearily enduring. He noticed a man coming towards him carrying a large basket or hotte, piled up with loose wood; not a gendarme, but evidently one employed about the fortress on manual work. He was broad-shouldered and long-limbed, and he walked in a slouching manner. At the moment that he came close to Roy, the basket tilted over, raining the whole mass of wood upon the ground.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Roy.

The man muttered something, and went slowly down upon his knees to pick up the scattered wood. No one else was near. A body of prisoners had been that morning removed elsewhere, and the yard was not so full as usual. Roy good-naturedly bent to help the man, and their faces came together.

"Hist!" was whispered cautiously. Roy started. "Hist!" again. "Does monsieur know me? But not a word!"

Roy drew one quick breath. Then he tossed more bits of wood into the hotte. He cast another glance at the man, his whole being on the alert. In an instant he saw again the small French town, the crowd in front of the hôtel de ville, the released conscript, the old mother clinging to Denham's hands, and Den's pitying face.

"Jean Paulet!" he breathed.

"Oui, m'sieu. Hist!"

Jean piled some of the wood together with unnecessary noise.

"Will m'sieu not betray that he knows me?"

"Oui." Roy threw two more pieces of wood into the hotte. Then he stood up, yawned, and gazed listlessly in another direction. After which he hung lazily over the hotte, as if to play with the wood. A touch of cold steel came against his left hand.

"Hist!" at the same instant, as Roy grasped the something, and slipped it instantly out of sight. His right hand still turned over the wood.

"Bon!" murmured Jean, making a clatter. "Listen! If m'sieu will file away the bar of his window—ready to be removed—I will be there, outside, to-morrow night, after dark. When m'sieu hears a whistle—hist! But truly this weight is considerable—oui, m'sieu, and a poor man like me may not complain."

Jean hitched up the big hotte, now full, and passed on, grumbling audibly, while Roy strolled back to his former position. His heart was beating like a hammer, and to return to his former attitude of dejection was not easy, with new life stirring in every vein. He managed, however, to avoid observation, and when two o'clock came it was a relief to be alone in his cell. He could safely there fling his arms aloft in a frenzy of delight.

If only little Will might have escaped with him!

But there was no leisure for regrets. He had a task to accomplish in a given time. Often he had examined the massive iron bar, wedged firmly in across the small window. If that could be removed, he might squeeze himself through; but to take out the bar, or at least to wrench it on one side, meant first to file nearly through it—quite through, indeed, for the noise of breaking it might not be risked. He could only guess what would lie on the other side, down below. The deep embrasure within, and the thickness of the wall without, prevented him from seeing.

At stated intervals the gendarmes visited him, and he could reckon upon their visits; yet he knew well that he was never secure against a sudden interruption. He had to toil in a difficult and cramped position, supporting himself in a corner of the slanting embrasure, and filing very lightly, that no sound might reach the ears of any passer-by.

One narrow escape of detection he had. Absorbed in his toil, he failed to note the preliminary click of the lock, and the door began to open. Roy flung himself to the ground, reckless of bruises, and the noise of his fall was happily lost in the creak of the door. The gendarme, entering, found a sleepy prisoner. Roy wondered that the thumping of his heart did not betray him.

Thoughtful Jean had provided him with three files. Two of them broke. The third held out to the end.

Through a good part of the night he worked, fearing lest the task should not be done in time. In the morning, after the usual visit from a gendarme, he was up again in the embrasure. Before midday he had worked his way through the heavy bar. He stirred it cautiously. Yes, it yielded. One good wrench, and it could be forced aside.

That was all he had now to do. The bar would remain in position till the latest moment. He cleared away every speck of iron filing; and then he had to go into the yard. What if the gendarmes should examine the window during his absence? What if, before Jean came, Roy himself should be removed elsewhere? Then came another question,—What if his mother's prayers were being answered?

At last the afternoon had waned, without any mischance, and the gendarme's evening call had been paid. The window had not been examined; and Roy was left for the night, with his allowance of food. He wisely disposed of it, knowing that he would need all his strength. Then he waited, minute after minute, in a suspense hardly to be described.

A slight faint whistle, close to the window.

In a moment Roy was up in the slanting embrasure. Jean's hand met his; and together, noiselessly, they wrenched the bar aside.

"Hist! Be still as death!" whispered Jean.

Roy worked himself through the opening, Jean's grasp steadying him. He found his feet to be resting on the topmost rung of a ladder. Jean whispered one or two directions; then he went down himself, and held it firm while Roy followed. Little need was there to bid the boy be quiet in his movements. The slightest sound might betray them.

No sooner had they reached the bottom than Jean's hand gripped Roy's wrist, and led him away. The ladder had to remain where it was. Its removal would have meant too great a risk. Roy could not see where they were. Pitch darkness surrounded them; but Jean moved with confidence, though with extreme care.

Soon they had to pass near a sentry, and a sharp challenge was heard. Roy's heart leaped into his mouth; and Jean promptly replied with the password for the night. Veiled by the darkness, they went by in safety.

At length the outer wall was gained—that same wall which the middies had reached in their attempted escape, though at a different part of it. Jean had chosen this mode of escape, not daring to take Roy under the eyes of sentries at the gates, where, despite his command of the password, the prisoner would almost certainly have been found out.

In a quiet corner, where nobody seemed to be near, Jean drew down the end of a stout rope, already secured at the top of the wall, and knotted loosely out of easy reach. This had been his doing after dark, before he went to Roy's cell. With the help of the rope they made their way to the top, Roy first, Jean next, pulling it after them, and lowering it on the other side. Then together they trusted their weight to it.

As they hung over the depth, Roy recalled the cold-blooded act of two or three weeks earlier. If any man had obtained an inkling of Jean's intentions, or had discovered the rope, the same tragedy might now be repeated on a smaller scale. One clear cut would do the business. He and Jean would fall heavily downward; and in an instant he too, like Will, might be in that Land where dungeons and cruel separations are things of the past.

These thoughts came to Roy unbidden, even while his whole attention was bent to the task of working himself hand under hand, swiftly and noiselessly, down the rope. Already his hands were torn and strained, yet under the excitement of the moment he felt no pain.

The rope remained taut. There was no sudden yielding from above, no helpless plunge earthward. He and Jean arrived in safety on firm ground.

Again Jean gripped his wrist. "Now, m'sieu—hist!" was whispered. As fast as might be, yet with extreme caution, they hurried away from that grim surrounding wall.

Roy could not see where they were in the darkness. He could only trust himself blindly to Jean's guidance, and Jean seemed to know well what he was doing.

During the first half-hour or so, excessive caution was needful; and more than once Jean had to make use of the password, which he had somehow learned. Once well away from Bitche, discovery became a less imminent danger. The chief aim then was to put as wide a space as possible between themselves and the fortress before morning. That was as much as Roy had in mind. Jean's object was more definite. But for a while he attempted no explanations. All breath was required for getting along.

So soon as Roy's disappearance should become known, the gendarmes would be off in hot pursuit. At present they had a clear field, favoured by darkness and by the fact of a world mainly asleep.

Roy's powers were severely taxed, as the hours of that night went by. Excitement kept him going; but he had slept and eaten little during the past thirty hours, and after eight months without proper exercise he was direfully out of training. His muscles had grown flabby, and he so soon began to pant, as to become angry with himself. Still, he fought doggedly onward, making no complaint.

At first they followed bypaths or kept to fields, for greater safety; but by and by Jean struck into the highroad, and here advance was easier.

As hour passed after hour, and they made uninterrupted progress, Roy grew light of heart. Breathlessness, aching limbs, sharp cold, gnawing hunger—all these were as nothing, compared with the fact that he was free. No stone walls, no iron-bound and padlocked doors, shut him ruthlessly in.

From time to time a short halt was necessary, and Roy was allowed to fling himself flat on the icy ground for some minutes; after which he could always start afresh with redoubled energy.

"Wonder what happened to take you to Bitche, Jean?" he said after one such break.

"M'sieu, I had a friend at Bitche."

"Somebody in the fortress?"

"Oui, m'sieu. Un soldat. M'sieu will perhaps refrain from putting many questions. It is a friend from my boyhood. He was taken in the conscription, and no kind messieurs were at hand to help to buy him off. And his poor mother became imbecile. La pauvre femme! See what might have come to my mother also, but for the goodness of ces messieurs."

"She became imbecile because he had to go to the war?"

"Oui, m'sieu. What wonder? For see—it was not a common parting. Hundreds, thousands, go thus in the armies of the Emperor, and never return. They vanish from their homes, and no more is heard of them. Here or there, far-away, they have died and have been buried—hélas!—and that is the end."

"A soldier's end!" the boy said proudly.

"Oui, m'sieu, sans doute. But not all men have a taste for soldiering. I myself, for one—"

"You didn't want to fight?"

"I had no wish to leave my home, m'sieu. Of late, it is true, I have had thoughts of entering the army, after all. Le petit Caporal is no such bad leader for a man to follow, when he has not ties to bind him down."

"But your mother—what would she say?"

"M'sieu, I should not be leaving my mother. It is she who has left me. Le bon Dieu has called her away to another place."

Roy gave a glance of sympathy, which he could not well put into words.

"But to the last she had her Jean. She did not die alone, forsaken and desolate. For that I shall be eternally grateful to ces messieurs—that her last days were in peace."

"I remember now, Jean, you said you would like some day to do something for my father and for Captain Ivor. And this is for them. If they could thank you—"

"M'sieu, if I could thank them—!" interjected Jean. Then again they pressed on in silence. Morning had begun to break, and they plodded forward still. Roy had pleaded for another halt, for the boy was almost at the end of his powers, but Jean refused.

"Courage, m'sieu, courage. But a little further, and we will rest. To stop here, if the gendarmes come, would be fatal. See, the day dawns, and soon they will scour the country round. Courage! A little further yet."

"All right," panted Roy, dragging along his leaden-weighted limbs. "Shall we hide all day?"

"Mais, oui. A little cottage in a wood belongs to a friend of mine, and he has made ready for us. Once there, all will be well. The danger now increases each minute. Can m'sieu increase his speed? M'sieu will soon be able to rest. At nightfall we shall start again, refreshed."

"Will you come with me still? Jean, you are a good fellow!" gasped Roy.

"If I can see m'sieu safe off French ground, then I will let ces messieurs at Verdun know, and it will gladden their hearts."

A few minutes later they entered a wood, and Jean's look of anxiety lessened as the trees closed around them. He consented to a slight relaxation of their speed, though reiterating his "Courage, m'sieu! The worst is done."