Chapter XXVI: A Prison Tragedy

MORNING dawned, and half of another slow day passed. Ah, how slow those unoccupied hours were! Roy could do nothing but hang listlessly about. He could think of nothing but the coming nightfall, when, after dark, but before they were ordered into the souterrain for the night, he and his companions would steal softly away to that high outer wall, and would scale it. All details of the plan thus far had been carefully thought out and arranged. Beyond that, most of them were trusting largely to what is called "the chapter of accidents."

To be free again! Ah, to be free!—free under the blue sky, free to breathe heaven's breezes, free to sun himself in heaven's smile, free to stretch his limbs, free to be a light-hearted English boy once more instead of a careworn man before his time! Roy flung his arms out and clutched the prison wall, in that craving for liberty.

Midday came, and the crowd of prisoners was, as usual, ordered in. A hand touched Roy, and a rough voice ordered him to follow.

Roy faced the gendarme.

"Where?" he demanded blankly, in a moment realising what this might mean.

No answer was vouchsafed. These gendarmes were for the most part surly fellows, though even among them gleams of kindness towards the prisoners were not wholly unknown.

Roy had no choice but to obey. Resistance would have done himself no good, and might have drawn suspicion upon his comrades. The man laid a grip upon his arm, and led him—not down but up—past the ground floor, ascending to the floor above. At the end of a long passage, he stopped at a door, opened it, and thrust Roy in. The door was shut and the lock snapped.

Roy found himself alone in a small cell, with stone floor, stone ceiling, stone walls, one little iron-barred window, deeply embrasured, and a single wooden bench. Beside the bench were a jug of water, a hunch of bread, and some cheese.

Was he now condemned to solitary confinement—perhaps for weeks, perhaps for months, perhaps for years? And for what? What had he done to bring this upon himself?

But for the planned escape, so near at hand, he might have welcomed almost any change from the dungeon and its horrors. Now, however, now with freedom in sight, to be carried off, to be placed where he was, to be debarred from every hope of liberty—it was heart-breaking.

He flung himself upon the ground, hid his face on his crossed arms, and gave himself over to despair.

Would he never leave this awful place? Was this the way in which his prayers and his mother's prayers were to be answered? If so, what was the use of praying? He would give it all up. He would never pray again. It was of no use. Nothing was of any use.

Hours passed in one long agony. All that day he was left alone. At nightfall a gendarme brought his allowance of coarse food, and went away. Roy drank the water, and pushed the black bread aside, too sick with misery to eat. The boys would now be escaping. He followed in imagination every step of theirs, envying them bitterly. That they should be on their way to dear old England, and that he should be held back! It was too terrible too awful! too cruel!

He had no sleep that night. He could not see the pitying angels who hovered over him in the darkness. He could not know what was going on in another part of the fortress. He could not guess how some of his comrades won their freedom.

All the next morning he lay upon the ground, listless, hopeless, careless of what might happen next.

At midday he was ordered to go down into the yard. That was the hour when the inhabitants of the great dungeon retired into their cavern, and when the better class of prisoners might take their turn of fresh air—if any air could be fresh which had just been breathed by hundreds of men. Roy wondered languidly at being treated thus. He had expected to remain in his cell. It mattered little either way, he said to himself, as he found his way thither. All hope for the present was at an end.

On reaching the yard, his first impression was of an unusual gravity among even the gravest of the prisoners there before him. One or two half spoke to Roy, and stopped, thinking from his look that he already knew,—that he would not be taken by surprise. And so he was allowed to pass on, unhindered. He saw the expression in their faces, and he wondered a little, indifferently.

Then indifference fled, and a dazed bewilderment took possession of him. His brain swam, and he staggered to the wall, clutching it for support, staring and shuddering.

His eyes had fallen on something unexpected—on—what was it? What could it mean?

A row of boys lying on the ground, peacefully asleep. Ah, so peacefully! so awfully white and still, in their brave blue uniforms, some of them spattered with mud. But they did not seem to mind. A smile was on one quiet face; a second wore a look of high repose; one or two carried a defiant frown, as if at the last moment they had known what was come to them; and another was a little grieved, but not much. And all were free. They had won their liberty, though not the liberty for which they had craved and striven, but doubtless a better freedom. Only, the poor mothers of those lads, away at home, what would it have been to them to see their boys lying here?

Roy dragged himself nearer, his heart beating in heavy strokes, while his head seemed to be bursting open. Yes, these were the boys with whom he was to have made his escape—some of them at least. And here was little Will Peirce, with blue eyes fast shut, lying in the placidest sleep, smiling to himself, in a calm waxen whiteness. He had tried to do his duty to the last. Brave little Will!

Roy caught his breath in one hard moan of bitter pain.

"Come away," a voice said, and somebody drew him, unresisting, to the further side of the yard. Roy vaguely knew that it was an elderly English officer, one of the quietest and most retiring of the upstairs prisoners, seldom heard to speak. He made Roy sit down, and as the boy hid his face, a compassionate hand was on his wrist.

"I know, You were in the dungeon with them, I believe. Don't look any more. No good. It's over for them."

A sound asked the question which Roy could not put into words.

"It was last night. They tried to escape over the wall. It seems to have been planned for some time. But they were overheard and betrayed by a fellow-prisoner. The scoundrel! They got away safely to the top of the wall, and let down the rope. Their plan had been to descend one by one, I believe; but they found that too slow, and time was short. So when they had fastened the rope, they got upon it all together. A French officer was on the watch, and he seized the moment to cut it above. The miscreant! The hound! He'll get his deserts some day! They all fell. Several were killed instantly,—as we see. Some, with broken limbs, are in hospital. This is not the first time that an escape has ended thus. The bodies are always exposed next day."

Roy shuddered.

"You may be thankful that you were not among them."

Another shudder.

The grey-haired Colonel bent gravely towards him.

"If any friend of yours is there, do not grieve too much, my boy. Some of us might well be disposed to envy them. They are in God's Hands now, and that is well. God is kinder far than man."

He might indeed say so, looking across the yard. Roy lifted his face, as if in bitter protest. Was man kind, if man could do such deeds as these? And then he thought of Ivor, of his father, of Sir John Moore.

There may be very demons in human form upon earth; yet man was made in the Image of God; and all the kindliness that is seen in the best of men is a glimmer of that Image.