CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
"IT'S ALL OVER!"
Night had long taken the place of day, and sound after sound in thegreat gate-house had put Stan on the alert; but no one had come to thedoor, and as he rested upon the spear-handle the prisoner underwentpains which endorsed his ideas that he was to be starved intosubmission. In fact, he grew so hungry that all his pride died out, andin the darkness he humbled himself so that he was glad enough to allayhis starving pains by seeking for and picking up some of the fruit andscraps of cake that had been thrown to the strange foreign devil, orwild beast, that the guard of the gate had on view.
"Oh, it's horrible to come down to this!" muttered Stan as, tired outwith standing in spite of the support from the spear-shaft, he sat downand ate sparingly just enough, as he put it, to keep himself fromfeeling faint. But he was terribly hungry, and cake, bread, bananas,and an orange proved, in spite of being gleaned from the cage floor, notbad; so that he did not content himself with enough to keep him fromfeeling faint, but unconsciously ate heartily, and felt much better.His spirits began to rise, and after a good, hearty draught from thewater-pot, which, fortunately, he had not exhausted, he was so far frombeing starved into submission that he cut something very much like acaper as he threw himself into an attitude with the spear, looked in thedirection of the doorway, and crying, "Come on!" muttered afterwards, ashe made a thrust at an imaginary enemy, "Oh, how I should like to servesome of you out for this!"
He listened, but there was not a sound to be heard. Then he seatedhimself with his back to the side-wall, so that he commanded the openpartition facing him, the door being to his right, and the front of thecage to his left, while he held the spear ready for action across hisknees.
"They'll wait till they think I'm asleep," he muttered, "and then pounceon me. But I'm not going to sleep, and if any one does come sneaking inhe'll have a prick from this spear that will send him out quicker thanhe came in. Wonder what father would think if he could see me now! AndUncle Jeff. I wish he were here. No, I don't. I shouldn't like anyone I know to be in such a predicament. I say, I don't feel frightened,for they are cowards and no mistake. Fancy their being ready to runfrom a boy like me! They won't dare to hurt me, because I'm English.I'd give something, though, to have poor old Wing here. I do hope hehas escaped--'scaped--I'd--'scape--hah-h-h-h!"
This last very softly, and then Stan heard no more, for weariness andhis large meal had proved too much for him. He was fast asleep.
He was not wide awake when he sprang to his feet with spear levelled,ready to drive it at the first Chinese soldier who made a rush at himfrom the door he believed to have been burst open with a sharp,crackling sound.
The thrust was not delivered, because no one made a rush; in fact, allwas perfectly still. And when, after a long pause, during which hisimagination had been very busy peopling the dark cage with crouchingenemies in various corners waiting for their opportunity to spring athim, he began cautiously to make little pushes with the steel point hereand there, without result and ended by advancing softly towards the opendoor, to be checked by the spear bringing him up short with the point inthe wood, it began to dawn upon him not only that the door was shut, butthat he must have been asleep.
"How queer!" he muttered. "I was perfectly certain that the door wasburst open, and I'm sure I heard a crackling sound."
Thoroughly satisfied, after a little feeling, that the door was closeshut, he turned round to face the bars, finding that while all elsewherewas pitch-dark, there was a faint suggestion of light there; inasmuch ashe could just make out the black bamboo bars with the darkest of greystreaks between them, clearly enough cut save in one place, where, highup, there was a big blur.
He stood with his heart still beating heavily, consequent upon thestartling manner in which he had been awakened.
And as he stood gazing with eyes whose pupils were dilated in thedarkness, that blur, high up towards the top of the bars, seemed to weara familiar shape, which idea grew and grew upon him to such an extentthat he tried to give it a name, and said softly:
"Tchack!"
He was right, for in an instant it began to glide down the bars like acouple of the beads on a scholastic numeration frame, reaching thebottom lightly, to utter the same word.
"Why, however did you get out there?" said Stan excitedly. "Whatnonsense! I'm looking at the side instead of the front."
He turned sharply, extended his hand, and the next moment touched thepartition bars, and grew more confused.
"It isn't the side," he muttered; "this is the side; and that is thefront, by the light coming there. Have you got out, Tchack?"
Stan's heart beat fast at the idea, for it was full of suggestions ofescape.
But a soft, peculiar sound changed the current of his thoughts, andlooking to his left, he was conscious of the dark blur passing quicklyup to the top of the bamboo bars, and passing horizontally along; then,as the blur died out in the darkness, he heard the monkey come closer,working itself high up from bar to bar of the partition against which hestood, and glide swiftly down, brushing his breast with one hand as itdropped to his feet.
_Tchack_! it said softly, and the next moment the thin, sinewy hand wasforaging about him to get at his, into which it nestled, and the pooranimal uttered a low, heavy sigh of content.
For some minutes Stan could only think in a puzzled, confused way,feeling that he must be dreaming; but at length things settledthemselves in an orderly way in his brain, till it became perfectlyclear to him that the monkey must have some way out of the top of itscage which enabled it to pass along to his place.
If so, he reasoned, the yard must be open to it; and if it could getinto the yard, it was quite possible that it could get through thedoorway or over the wall; and if so, it was probable that it could getinto some court or lane by the gate-house.
If the monkey could do this, he argued directly after, why could not he?
And now he could think clearly, his reason suggested that the cracklingand splintering noise he had so frequently heard must have been causedby the animal trying to gnaw its way out, the noise which woke himhaving been made during the final efforts.
Stan's heart began to beat faster and his ideas to flow more freely. Hewondered now why it had not all seemed clear to him at once, for it wasevident that if he could get through the partition and into the monkey'scage, there was the way open for him also to escape. He had nevertroubled himself about the bars between him and his fellow-prisoner.Why should he have done so? He did not want to escape from one cage tothe next. But now he recalled that the bamboos were smaller than thosein front; a few touches of his hand confirmed this, and withdrawing theother from the monkey's grasp, he seized two of the bars, and the animalsprang up them at once.
"Oh, if I could only climb like you!" said Stan to himself as he wentfrom bar to bar, trying them and giving them a shake, when, after a fewtrials, to his surprise he heard one of those he held creak in apeculiar way; and upon seizing it with both hands, to his astonishmentand delight he found it give way with a sharp crack, the middle havingbeen gnawed through, while, climbing up a little, he was able to use itlever fashion and wrench it so much on one side that in another minutehe managed to force himself through and stand in the place from whichthe monkey had escaped.
It is only the first step that costs, the French say in their proverb,and Stan found it so here. After a time he was able to make out whatthe monkey did to escape, for, close up in the left corner, he made outthat instead of the bars looking regular black streaks against the greylight, there was one large, ragged patch of grey; and upon climbing up,by clinging leg helped, to a couple of the bars, he soon reached thetop, where one had been gnawed right through and was now a splintery,sharp mass of fibres. Here, after some difficulty and a good deal oftearing, Stan managed to get through and slide down outside the bamboos,to drop the next minute into the yard.
It seemed too good to be true, and he paused in doubt to look rou
nd forand speak to the monkey; but he could not make out where it was, and hehad no time to spare.
There was no sound of sentry near, no sign of danger; so, making for thegateway, he found it possible to climb, and soon reached the top of thewall in which it was placed.
Still no sound--nothing but darkness around; and thoroughly strung upnow, the lad lay flat on the wall for a few moments, before lowering hislegs, hanging at full length, and then dropping, to come down heavilyupon rough paving-stones, but with the delight thrilling through himcontained in the thought that to some extent he was now free.
He hesitated for a few moments, listening and looking to right and left,thinking of the dark and devious lane along which he had passed withWing upon that unlucky morning, and wondering whether he could retracehis steps. But he felt that it would be madness to attempt it; andbesides, his one great idea was to reach the river, feeling sure thatsooner or later he would find an empty boat moored somewhere, and onceon board that, he felt that he would be safe.
He had determined to start off and follow the first turning he came to,in the hope of reaching the riverside before daylight, when somethingseemed to induce him to look up.
His blood began to turn cold, for there on the wall above, dimly seen inthe darkness, he could make out the head of some one intently watchinghis every movement.
It was for life and liberty that, giving a violent start, he dashed off;breathing freely the next minute, for he realised the fact that he hadbeen watched by his dumb fellow-prisoner, the monkey starting asviolently as he did at the first movement, and disappearing instantlyinto the precincts of the prison.
For the moment Stan felt as if, owing so much as he did to thequaint-looking animal, he would have liked to coax it to follow him; butcommon-sense told him that he would be wasting valuable time, andperhaps sacrificing the liberty he was on the point of securing, so hekept right on, feeling damped by the fresh thought that perhaps he wason the wrong side of the great city-wall.
"Can't help it," he said; "there is no choice. This one may turn outthe best."
In the spirit of this thought he hurried along the narrow lane, whichwas so dark that he could hardly pick his way, and seeing nothing butthat it was shadowed by low-roofed, overhanging houses, whose occupantswere so far silently asleep; but from the way in which house and _hong_followed one another, he felt what he had noted when with Wing, that thecity must be densely populated, and that he must find some hiding-placebefore daybreak.
He tramped on for quite a couple of hours through what seemed to be adeserted city, doubling here and there, but without a sign of the mainartery he sought, till, just as he was in despair and ready to sink withweariness and the thought that all his toil had been in vain--for thetops of the houses were beginning to show clearly against the grey sky--he came upon a wider turning. Glancing hesitatingly down it to see ifit offered anything like a hiding-place, he rushed forward at once; forthere, stretching to right and left, was the black, flowing river, withbig junks moored close together, and beyond them and the smaller boatscrowding the stream were the house-boats and dwellings by the farthershore.
A couple of minutes later Stan was on the hither bank, hurrying by boatafter boat, but all too big to be manageable; and he kept on and on,feeling that he had not a minute to spare, for at any moment earlyrisers might be on the move, and the sight of a fugitive English ladwould be sufficient to raise a shout--and a hue and cry to hunt himdown.
"It's all over!" he groaned to himself suddenly; and he made a dartforward to get in the shelter of a great junk aground right up to thebank, for all at once he heard the splash of an oar, and a boat wasbeing pushed off from the far side, looking wonderfully plain now in thefast-broadening dawn.
It was for liberty, so there was no time to put in practice the familiarold proverb of "Look before you leap," Stan was running as he placed thestranded junk between him and the rowers, so he made a bound as hereached the lowest part midway between the high bows and the toweringstern, springing from a rough kind of wharf on to the junk's deck, whichseemed to be about a couple of feet lower than the wharf.
The leap was nerved by despair; he had a good take-off, and for a briefmoment or two he saw flowing water below him; then he came down on therough bamboo deck. There was a soft, crushing sound, and he wentthrough some of the rotten wood down into darkness, to fall upon hisside and lie motionless, looking up at the grey, ragged patch he hadmade, and holding his breath as he listened for the coming of theboatmen, who must have heard the noise.