CHAPTER XXXVII.
RATS IN THE ARMORY.
ADAM’S disappointment, when he got no more responses to the eager questions and blessings he breathed upward to his unseen sweetheart, was keener than all the anguish he had felt at being so foully imprisoned. He had caught up the keys, quickly enough, but when he failed to catch any more of her trembling words he felt more deserted and surrounded by the blackness than he had been in all this new experience. However, his heart was soon tripping with gladness.
At least it was Garde who had come to save him. Love was his guardian angel. He could face the world full of foes, after this. He grew impatient, abruptly, to get out of the dungeon at once and go to Garde—his brave, darling Garde!
Then he thought of the beef-eaters. He had fancied he heard their voices, as Randolph’s men had been taking him into the prison corridor. It had seemed impossible that they had already arrived and been apprehended till he remembered how many days it had been since last he had seen them.
Having been asleep when Garde first called down to him, through the tiny air-passage, the rover was a little refreshed. But he was still nearly famished for something to eat, having been provided only with a dry chunk of bread, as large as his fist, and a jug of water. He was also quite lame, for he had not been able to do anything for his wounded foot.
Nevertheless he was alert, now, for his slumber of an hour had been profoundly deep and his constitution was one of great elasticity, rapidly responding to the most inconsiderable restorative influence. He hobbled about in his small den, finding the door without difficulty, after which he tried the lock with key after key, on the bunch, until he thought he had rejected all, when his high hopes came swiftly tumbling down.
The key to the dungeon had not been found among the lot on the ring!
In his weakened condition this apparent discovery was prostrating in its dire effect. He suffered more than he would have done had there been no attempt made to free him at all. He felt cold beads of perspiration break out on his brow. Hope for himself and the beef-eaters, snatched away almost as soon as given, unnerved him. Nevertheless he pulled himself together, to try every key in the bunch again.
The first one he handled entered the lock and threw back the bolt.
Cautiously swinging the door open, he suddenly started, at the sound of some one approaching in the corridor. In a second he was back in the dark hole and had locked the door again upon himself. Weaver, the jailer, making an unusual round of the premises, came down the dungeon-steps and tried the door. Satisfied that all was well, he proceeded onward to his bed.
Adam lost little time in again starting forth. This time he locked the dungeon and took his bunch of keys with him. He climbed the nine steps, which the jailer’s wife had so frequently counted, and found himself in the corridor, which was lighted by a single lamp, which was small and odorous. Noting his bearings, he limped along toward the cell where he thought he had heard the beef-eaters talking.
There was no sound to give him guidance now, and there were several doors confronting him, behind any one of which his retinue might be locked. It was a matter presenting necessities for nicety in judgment. If he were to open the door on some wrong prisoner, the ensuing disturbance would be most unfortunate. Moreover, he did not know but what there might be guards galore in some of the jail-apartments. It would not do to call, or to whisper, for the sake of attracting the beef-eaters’ attention, for obvious reasons.
There was nothing for it but to open door after door till he found the faithful pair. Luckily the doors were numbered, and he found there were corresponding numbers on the keys. There being no choice, he unlocked the first door he saw. Shifting the bolt cautiously, he was presently able to listen for anything like a sound inside the cell.
He could hear nothing. The room was empty. To the next door he went, and repeated his simple experiment. This apartment proved to be, not a cell, but a place in which all manner of rubbish had been thrown. It also contained swords, pistols, some blunderbusses and other arms. The room, indeed, was the prison armory. Adam nodded at this discovery as being good, but it left him as far as before from his friends. Leaving this door unlocked, he went back in the other direction and tried again.
Listening now, as before, upon opening a second cell, he heard snoring. Better than this, it was snoring that he knew. He went in and nudged the retinue with his foot.
“What, ho! Who knocks?” said Halberd, in a sleepy growl.
“Be quiet,” said Adam. “Get up, the two of you, quickly. We are about to seek more commodious apartments.”
“The Sachem!” said Pike.
“Who else,” answered Halberd. “Sire, I have been expecting this kindness these three hours.”
“You may expect to be hanged, in the morning, if you do not shut your mouth and come with me instantly,” said Rust.
“I was dreaming of my wedding with a fair princess,” said Pike. “These are no days of chivalry, when a man will leave so sweet a damsel in so vile a place.”
“What have you done with your swords and side arms?” the Sachem demanded, in a whisper. “Did they take them from you?”
“They did. Else we had slain the whole score of rascals that took us,” said Halberd.
“Make haste, then, till we arm anew,” instructed the rover.
He locked the door behind them and led the way to the armory at once. They had gone half the distance to the place when there came a clanking of opening doors, a rattle of scabbards, a rumble of muffled voices and the tramp of many feet, around in the angle of the corridor, leading to the outside world.
“Quick! Quick!” commanded Adam, and darting forward, lame foot and all, to the armory-door, he opened it, thrust in the beef-eaters, with a word of admonition to beware of making a noise, and closed the barrier, only as Randolph and six of his creatures came tiptoeing down the passage and stopped fairly opposite where Adam was standing.
The rover reached out in the dark of the room they were in, as he braced silently against the door, and felt his hand come in contact with a sword, which he had noted when first he peered into the room. He could hear the men outside, whispering.
Weaver was with them, pale and frightened at what he knew these midnight visitors contemplated doing. He dared not make the slightest protest; his master stood before him.
“Here, is this the room above the dungeon?” said Randolph. He laid his hand on the knob, the inside mate of which Adam was holding.
“No, sir, this is the room, here upon the other side,” said Weaver. “It’s a few steps further along.”
The private executioners, with their chief, were moving away, when one of the beef-eaters stepped upon something on the floor of the armory, making a sound that seemed terrific.
“What was that?” demanded Randolph, quickly.
“We have rats in the property chamber,” said Weaver, honestly.
“It sounded too big for rats,” said the voice of Psalms Higgler, whom Adam readily identified.
“We may look there if you like,” said the jailer.
“Never mind the rats at present,” dictated Randolph. “Show us the room above the cellar.”
The other door could then be heard to open and to close behind the visitors. Adam snatched up swords for three on the instant.
“Here, take it—and not a word,” he breathed, thrusting a weapon upon each of his trembling companions. “If they come for us—fight!”
Silently and slowly he reopened the door, having buckled a sword upon him. There came a light patter of footsteps on the corridor floor. Just as the rover was stepping forth, Psalms Higgler, who had not been satisfied with the theory of the rats, came gliding to the spot. He and Adam suddenly faced one another, a foot apart. The startled little monster stared wildly for the briefest part of a second and then would have fallen back, yelling like a demon to raise the alarm.
Pouncing upon him, without a sound, yet with the terrible strength and nimbleness of a tiger, Adam clutched him fiercely by the neck, with both his powerful hands, and choking back the yell already starting to the creature’s lips, lifted him bodily off the floor, to prevent him from kicking upon it, to raise a disturbance, and carried him, squirming and writhing, to the door by which the visitors had so recently entered.
“Open the door! Open the door and get out!” ordered Rust of his followers, sternly, never for a moment relaxing his grip or his lift on Higgler. “Lift the bar! Lift it! There!”
The door swung open. The beef-eaters sprang outside, trying both to go at once. The commotion they made rang through the building. Adam was after them swiftly, forgetting to limp, as he felt the outside air in his face.
Higgler by this was becoming absolutely limp. Adam dropped him on the ground, where he lay, barely left alive and unable to move or to speak.
Adam had the keys in his pocket, the largest one uppermost. This was the one to this outside door. He could hear the men inside running toward the spot and already shouting the alarm. He dared to lock the door, deliberately, and to pull out the key and put it again in his pocket. Then he calmly drew the borrowed sword from its scabbard, rammed its end smartly home, in the key-hole and snapped it off short, spiking the aperture completely.
Already the beef-eaters were running up the street. Psalms Higgler was drawing his breath in awful gasps, where he lay.
“Good friend, farewell,” said Rust to him, cheerfully. “I shall be pleased to report you an excellent rat-catcher, at the earliest opportunity afforded.”
He disappeared from Higgler’s ken in a twinkling and soon overtook his retinue, making good time for the country.