The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 33

The prisoners were already bent on widening their dungeon by breaking through the roof with implements which Papis had procured for them. They had removed first one stone and then another from the roof, and each night and morning the stones were laid back in their places, in order to arouse no suspicion, the clefts being hidden with bits of bread, and the breach carefully strewn with mortar dust. The warder would thus not notice it. In the cavity from which two of the stones had been removed, they kept the more dangerous implements required for the work, and likewise the writing materials.

A table was also improvised for Raby. At a sign from the old man, one of the prisoners, a broad-backed fellow, placed himself on all fours in front of him, so that Raby could make a desk of his shoulders.

"To whom is this letter addressed," inquired Tsajkos.

"To Abraham Rotheisel, in the Jewry," returned Raby.

"It will be all right. Take it, Papis!"

The little gipsy stretched his arm from under the lid of the bucket, and seized the letter.

How he was ever going to get out with it was a mystery which Raby did not pretend to fathom, but the gipsy clambered down again from his hiding-place. It was growing dark.

The prisoners prepared a sleeping-place for Raby in a corner, spreading a bit of old sheepskin on the floor, so that he might not find it too hard.

When the guard was changed at six o'clock, and the great outer gate was closed, a rattling of keys was heard without, and the gaoler came into the dungeon to visit the prisoners and bring them their food. He came first to Raby, tested the fetters on his hands and feet to see if they were fast and then handed him a piece of black bread.

But the new-comer did not feel hungry and threw it away.

While the gaoler tried the fetters, two prisoners hauled the bucket down, and the gipsy slipped into it under the lid.

Then the two men took the poles on their shoulders, and accompanied by an armed warder, their chains clanking as they went, marched to the well, Raby wondering the while how Papis was feeling during this expedition.

He had leisure for reflection, for he did not get a wink of sleep the whole night; how indeed could he close his eyes in this horrible place?

He had full scope for his imagination, for he knew every nook and corner of the building, so familiar to him since his boyhood's days, from the great council hall to the dainty little parlour, where the spinning-wheel had hummed its well-remembered song. Only up till now had the subterranean part remained unexplored ground to him; now he had had the chance of seeing it for himself. How long was he to remain here?

That was the question. It was certain the Emperor would take steps to free him, once he had his letter. But it would take at least four days, two there and two back, and a day more for Rotheisel to convey the missive to the Kaiser. Full five days therefore he would have to spend in that frightful hole. But what would have been his thoughts could he have foreseen how long his captivity was to endure? He would surely have dashed his head against the wall in despair.

At last day began to break, and the rattling of keys and the gaoler's footsteps were again audible outside. One night had gone!

Then the orders for the day were given as to which of the prisoners were to sweep the court, and which to carry water.

Two of them thereupon lifted the bucket again on their shoulders, and off they went, their fettered footsteps echoing along the corridor.

Those left had now more room, so they stretched themselves and tried to sleep once again, for it would be some time before the others returned to the cell.

It would soon be the hour for the gaoler to come again on his rounds, and Raby began to dread lest he should note one of the party were missing. But none were wanting. When the roll was called, the little gipsy rose from a corner where he had apparently been huddled up, and showed an abnormally distended grin on his brown face.

Directly the gaoler's back was turned, the gipsy wriggled up to him and produced from one side of his mouth a many folded note; from the other a roll of fifty ducats. No wonder he had grinned so broadly. He lay both in Raby's hands.

Raby could fairly have embraced the mannikin, repulsive as he was. The note, however, contained nothing more than these words: "To-day, steps will be taken," and by the side of it, the cipher which represented fifty ducats. Moreover, not one of the latter was missing.

How in the world had the fellow managed it all? But this demands another chapter.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

That a prisoner should break bounds in the evening, return again the next morning, and be present each time the roll is called, with fetters properly rivetted on hands and feet seems, humanly speaking, an impossible feat to achieve.

But Papis was quite ready to tell how he had managed it. While the gaoler had been occupied with testing the fetters of each prisoner, he had crawled noiselessly into the bucket which stood close at hand. In the half-dark cell no one could have noted his disappearance.

When the examination was over, two prisoners lifted the bucket and carried it to the well, which was one worked by means of a pulley, the chains which let the bucket up and down clanked, and the axle creaked so loudly that under cover of the noise, and unseen in the tub, Papis could strip off his fetters, for there were no rings too narrow for the pliant gipsy to draw his hands and feet through. Then the carriers removed the lid of the receptacle and began to fill it from that of the well-bucket, taking care the while that the heydukes could not see there was anything else inside. They had of course to pour the water over the gipsy, and as it came up to his chin when the bucket was full, he held his missives tightly between his jaws.

The two prisoners then carried it into the a.s.sembly house, where it was emptied into a water-tub. If a maidservant happened to be lounging in the kitchen by any chance, the two men would deliberately frighten her away by their foul talk. The water-tub stood close to the mouth of an oven; whilst the two others transferred the water from the bucket into the tub, the gipsy slipped away as nimbly as a squirrel into the oven, clambered up the chimney, and waited there till the coast was clear.

As soon as he heard the pa.s.s-word shouted from the guard in the courtyard below, he knew that it must be ten o'clock. So he clambered up out of the top of the chimney on to the roof of the a.s.sembly House, as far as the gable-end. In the yard of the building stood an ancient pear-tree, which the governor would not cut down, as it bore an excellent crop of pears every year, although it was obviously dangerous in the neighbourhood of prisoners. Papis swung himself dexterously from the roof on to this tree, whose branches jutted out over the two fathoms of wall which shut in the court towards the street, that had now to be scaled.

But the returning was a more difficult matter than the setting out in this case, for Papis had not only to break out of prison, but the next morning to break in again, which is a different matter.

And this was how he managed it. The pear-tree had a great hollow in its trunk, and in this a rope-ladder was hidden; this, the gipsy wound round an overhanging bough, laid himself flat on the edge of the wall, and waited till the guard, who patrolled the s.p.a.ce below, had turned his back. Then he let down the ladder, and slid along it into the street below.

But this would doubtless have been seen by the sentry the next time he pa.s.sed by, so to obviate this peril, the cunning Papis fastened a string to the other end of the ladder. As soon as he reached _terra firma_, he threw the ladder back. The dun-coloured string which fell down over the wall no one was likely to notice in the dark.

By the time the sentry had returned, the gipsy was in the neighbouring street. From there it was easy to reach the Jewry direct, and find the way to Abraham Rotheisel's.

He returned by the way he had come up the ladder over the wall, over the pear-tree on to the roof, through the chimney into the kitchen of the a.s.sembly House, and into the bucket again, and so back into the dungeon.

When the gaoler came for his morning rounds, Papis lay fettered hand and foot in his accustomed place.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Abraham Rotheisel hastened to Vienna as fast as the lumbering diligence could carry him. He lost no time in presenting himself before the Emperor.

Before long, the courier was on his way back, furnished with a doc.u.ment which the Emperor had signed and sealed himself, after he had heard of the dismal situation in which Raby found himself.

This important missive soon found its way to the governor.

"Eh, what is this?" demanded his Excellency, as he recognised the superscription and private seal of the Kaiser. He was just in the act of dictating to his secretary, so put the imperial missive into a basket, which was filled with doc.u.ments of all sorts, and went on with his dictation, pacing up and down the room the while.

He was just trying to finish, when the district commissioner entered without any announcing.

"Has your Excellency received a courier from his Majesty?" he asked abruptly.

"I have."

"What does he say?"

"How should I know?"

"Where is the letter?"

"Where all the others are." And he lifted the cover from the basket and pointed to the collection within of yet unopened correspondence.

The district commissioner raised his hands with a little deprecating gesture, as he whispered anxiously: "But your Excellency, these are in the Emperor's handwriting; they should not lie here; they are urgent, surely?"