CHAPTER XXVII.
Nine feet long and six wide was the underground cellar wherein they hadplunged our hero.
In this space, a select company was already assembled, eighteenindividuals all told. And Mathias Raby now made the nineteenth in thealready overcrowded cell, and how he was to find a place there was aknotty problem. It was lucky that the window over the door was notfilled with glass, but with an iron grating, which let in some air.
As a matter-of-fact, this cell was the best in the whole Assembly House,as could be testified to by old Tsajkos, the eldest of the prisoners,who was now quartered here. He was an old acquaintance of our hero, bythe way, and Raby had often provided the old man with tobacco, a luxurywhich the prisoners were not allowed to smoke, but might chew, if theycould get it.
Nor was Tsajkos long in recognising the new-comer. He limped up to him,rattling the heavy chains he wore on his legs, and clapped Raby on theback in greeting, while the other occupants of the cell looked on inwide-eyed amazement.
"So you have come to it at last, have you, my young friend? Now whowould have thought the likes of you would ever have tumbled into thiscompany? Why, I've always known you to be a well-brought-up fellow, whonever eat an apple that was not peeled. What can they have against you,I should like to know? 'Not guilty' may do well enough up above there,but you know as well as I, it does not do down here. Folks don't come toa place like this for nothing, we all know that! Now tell us what itis."
Disgust and repulsion almost choked Raby's powers of speech. He coveredhis face with his hands.
"Come now, none of that sort of thing! We want no blubbering here. Don'tdisgrace the company. If you want to cry, be off to the women's prison;we know you've got two wives already there!"
At this, the whole crew yelled with hoarse laughter.
"Aha!" exclaimed a voice from the furthest corner. "So that's thecelebrated husband, is it? Well, I can tell you what he's here for; thewomen themselves told me, and they had it from the heydukes; he is aspy."
At these words, the whole band were roused to sudden uproar. "A spy! atraitor!" they yelled in chorus. "He'll strangle us at night. Let'ssqueeze the life out of him now."
"Be quiet, all of you," cried old Tsajkos, as he thrust the crowd back."You don't know what you're talking about. Stop your barking and listento me. He may be a spy, but he only betrays the gentry, and he'll neverturn on us poor folk. If a great lord robs or steals, he's down uponhim, but never on us."
"That's another matter," shouted the rest. "Then we'll be friends withhim."
And Raby had thereupon to submit to the rough greetings of his newcomrades in misfortune.
"They are not a bad sort," remarked Tsajkos, and he proceeded to pointout each individual member of the crew to Raby, specifying which was ahorse-stealer, and which a highwayman, identifying as well the thievesand incendiaries among them. Most of them, however, it turned out, weremurderers.
To Raby the whole thing seemed more and more like a ghastly dream. Yethis five senses warranted its reality: the low vault of the cell whichsurrounded him, the fierce criminal faces of the prisoners, the clinkingof the fetters, the dirty grimy hands that grasped his own, the damp,mouldy odour of the dungeon, the taste of the brackish water from theprison well that the old man handed him to revive him--all these thingswarned him that this was no dream, but a grim reality from which he mustfind a speedy means of escaping.
He looked round, but his companion misconstrued the glance.
"You are wondering how you will manage to get forty winks here, eh,comrade? Yes, it's a difficult matter, I warrant you; all the placesare taken, and each one has a right to his own. Unless Papis will letyou have his corner for the night, I really don't see how you are goingto manage it."
"Why not, pray?" exclaimed a voice from another corner. "Of course Iwill, if I get well paid for it!"
Papis was a gipsy felon, already pretty advanced in years, hiscomplexion wrinkled and tanned like parchment, yet his hair was quiteblack, and his teeth shone like ivory.
"Bravo, Papis!" cried the old man, while the lithe gipsy crawled betweenthe others and grinned at Raby.
"Don't have any fear, Papis," said Tsajkos, "the gentleman will pay you,sure enough; he has no end of money. How much do you want for yourplace?"
The gipsy did not hesitate. "A ducat a day," he retorted promptly.
Raby began to enter into the humours of the situation. He reflected aminute on the proposal.
"That is not much, after all," he said politely.
"Ah, you are the right sort, you are," cried old Tsajkos. "I only hopeyou'll be long with us. You shall just see what a good place we'll makefor you against the wall with no one on the other side, and my knees canbe your pillow. We can't do feather beds down here, or even run tostraw, but one sleeps soundest on the bricks after all."
"But where will Papis sleep himself?"
For all his own misery, Raby could not repress the question.
The whole crew burst out laughing. As soon as they had stilled theirmirth, the prisoners looked at each other embarrassed, and then at theirleader to explain.
The old man smiled slily.
"Where will Papis sleep? Why, in the bucket, to be sure, up abovethere," he answered.
Raby looked up, and saw from the roof two chains hanging, through thelinks of which two poles were thrust, and on these hung the great bucketin which every evening the prisoners had to carry the water needed inthe kitchen of the Assembly House above.
They showed him how Papis got up. One of the prisoners seized the littlegipsy by the legs and hauled him up to the roof, after which, Papis tookthe cover off the bucket, crawled inside, and disappeared from sight.
Raby was still more astonished.
"But how can the man sleep in that pail?" he asked, puzzled.
Everyone laughed, but quickly suppressed it, and all looked again rathersheepish.
Tsajkos patted Raby's cheek patronisingly with his greasy hand, andcried,
"Bless my stars! what a simple greenhorn it is; Papis will sleep sounderto-night, thanks to you, on a comfortable bed."
"How may that be?"
"I'll whisper it in your ear. He will leave this place this evening onyour account."
"On my account, how can that be?" cried Raby astounded.
"Ay, sure enough, and come back early to-morrow morning again."
"Why, how is it possible?"
"That's not our affair. All that matters is he will come back. He doesthis whenever some poor devil has a message to send to anyone outside.To-day Papis will do it for you. Do you want to send a letter to anyone?Have it ready, and he'll see they get it. And what is more, you cantrust him with gold; he'll bring back what you give him, even were it ahundred ducats, all safe and sound. The Emperor himself has no moretrusty courier."
Raby's head began to whirl. How if he should take this means ofinforming Joseph of his present situation?
"Yes, but how can I write a letter?" he exclaimed anxiously; "they havenot left me a single morsel of paper, or even a pencil-end."
"Ay, you shall have any amount, only turn your head away, and don't lookwhere I get it from; we don't want new-comers to learn these things allat once."
The prisoners were already bent on widening their dungeon by breakingthrough the roof with implements which Papis had procured for them. Theyhad removed first one stone and then another from the roof, and eachnight and morning the stones were laid back in their places, in order toarouse no suspicion, the clefts being hidden with bits of bread, and thebreach carefully strewn with mortar dust. The warder would thus notnotice it. In the cavity from which two of the stones had been removed,they kept the more dangerous implements required for the work, andlikewise the writing materials.
A table was also improvised for Raby. At a sign from the old man, one ofthe prisoners, a broad-backed fellow, placed himself on all fours infront of him, so that Raby could make a desk of his shoulders.
"To whom is this letter add
ressed," 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, andseized the letter.
How he was ever going to get out with it was a mystery which Raby didnot pretend to fathom, but the gipsy clambered down again from hishiding-place. It was growing dark.
The prisoners prepared a sleeping-place for Raby in a corner, spreadinga bit of old sheepskin on the floor, so that he might not find it toohard.
When the guard was changed at six o'clock, and the great outer gate wasclosed, a rattling of keys was heard without, and the gaoler came intothe dungeon to visit the prisoners and bring them their food. He camefirst to Raby, tested the fetters on his hands and feet to see if theywere 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 bucketdown, and the gipsy slipped into it under the lid.
Then the two men took the poles on their shoulders, and accompanied byan armed warder, their chains clanking as they went, marched to thewell, Raby wondering the while how Papis was feeling during thisexpedition.
He had leisure for reflection, for he did not get a wink of sleep thewhole 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 cornerof the building, so familiar to him since his boyhood's days, from thegreat council hall to the dainty little parlour, where thespinning-wheel had hummed its well-remembered song. Only up till now hadthe subterranean part remained unexplored ground to him; now he had hadthe 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 tofree 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 themissive to the Kaiser. Full five days therefore he would have to spendin that frightful hole. But what would have been his thoughts could hehave foreseen how long his captivity was to endure? He would surely havedashed his head against the wall in despair.
At last day began to break, and the rattling of keys and the gaoler'sfootsteps were again audible outside. One night had gone!
Then the orders for the day were given as to which of the prisoners wereto sweep the court, and which to carry water.
Two of them thereupon lifted the bucket again on their shoulders, andoff they went, their fettered footsteps echoing along the corridor.Those left had now more room, so they stretched themselves and tried tosleep once again, for it would be some time before the others returnedto 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 weremissing. But none were wanting. When the roll was called, the littlegipsy rose from a corner where he had apparently been huddled up, andshowed an abnormally distended grin on his brown face.
Directly the gaoler's back was turned, the gipsy wriggled up to him andproduced from one side of his mouth a many folded note; from the other aroll of fifty ducats. No wonder he had grinned so broadly. He lay bothin Raby's hands.
Raby could fairly have embraced the mannikin, repulsive as he was. Thenote, however, contained nothing more than these words: "To-day, stepswill be taken," and by the side of it, the cipher which representedfifty ducats. Moreover, not one of the latter was missing.
How in the world had the fellow managed it all? But this demands anotherchapter.