CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CASTLE DUNGEON.
For some time after Hugh John was thus imprisoned, he stood looking upwith a face of set defiance through the narrow aperture above, wherehe had last seen the triumphant countenances of his foes.
"Who's afraid? They shan't say Hugh John Picton Smith is afraid!" werethe words in his proud and angry heart, which kept him from feelinginsult and pain, kicks and buffetings. Gradually, however, as thesound of retreating footsteps died away, the rigid attitude of thehero relaxed. He began to be conscious that he was all one great ache,that the ropes were drawn exceedingly tight about his wrists, thatthe gag in his mouth hurt his cheeks, that he was very tired--and, oh!shame for a hero of battles and martyr in secret torture-chambers,that he wanted badly to sit down and cry.
"But I won't cry--even to myself!" said Hugh John. Yet all the same hesat mournfully down to consider his position. He did not doubt that hehad been left there for altogether, and he began at once (perhaps tokeep himself from crying) to argue out the chances.
"First," he said, "I must wriggle my hands loose, then I can get thegag out of my mouth easy enough. After that I've got to count mystores, and see if I can find a rusty nail to write my name on thewall and the date of my captivity."
(Hugh John wanted to do everything decently and in order.)
"Then I must find a pin or a needle (a needle if possible--a pin ispoisonous, and besides it is so much more easy to prick blood fromyour thumb with a needle), and then I have got to write an account ofmy sufferings on linen like the abbe, or on tablets of bread likeLatude. As I have no bread, except the lump that was left over atbreakfast, I suppose it will need to be written on linen; but breadtablets are much the more interesting. Of course I could make one ortwo tablets, write secret messages on them, and eat them after."
General Smith would have gone on to make still further arrangementsfor the future, but the present pain of the blood in his hands andthe tightness of the rope at his wrists warned him that he had betterbegin the practical work of effecting his release.
Now General Smith was not one of that somewhat numerous class ofpersons who take all day to do nothing, and as soon as he wasconvinced by indisputable logic of the wisdom of any course, he threwhimself heart and soul into the accomplishment of it. On his hands andknees he went half round the circuit of the wall of his prison, butencountered nothing save the bare clammy stones--with the mortar looseand crumbly in the joints, and the moist exudations of the limecongealed into little stony blobs upon the surface which tastedbrackish when he put his lips to them.
So Hugh John stood up and began a new search on another level. Thistime he did find something to the purpose.
About three feet from the ground was a strong nail driven firmly intoa joint of the masonry. Probably it owed its position to one of theHighland prisoners of the Forty-five, who had used it to hang hisspare clothes on, or for some other purpose. But in his heart HughJohn dated it from the days of the Black Douglas at least.
Either way it proved most useful.
Standing with his back to the wall, the boy could just reach it withhis wrists. He had long thin hands with bones which, when squeezed,seemed to have a capacity for fitting still more closely into oneanother. So it was not difficult for him to open the palmssufficiently to let the head of the nail in. Then biting his teethupon his lip to keep the pain at a bearable point, he bent the weightof his body this way and that upon the iron pin, so that in five orsix minutes he had worked Nipper Donnan's inartistic knotssufficiently loose to slip over his wrists. His hands were free.
"HE BENT THE WEIGHT OF HIS BODY THIS WAY AND THAT."]
His first act was to take the red cravat out of his mouth, and thenext after that to lie down with all his weight upon his hands,holding them between the floor of the dungeon and his breast, for thetingling pain of the blood returning into the fingers came nearer tomaking the hero cry than all that had happened that day. But he stillrefrained.
"No, I won't, I am a Napoleon--Smith!" he added as an afterthought, asif in loyalty to the father, whose legal and territorial claims he hadthat day so manfully upheld.
But suddenly what was due to his dignified position as a stateprisoner occurred to him. Casanova had struck at the wall till hisfingers bled. Latude had gnashed his teeth, howled with anguish, andgnawed the earth.
"I have not done any of these things," said Hugh John; "I don't likeit. But I suppose I've got to try!"
However, one solid rap of his knuckles upon the hard limestone of thedungeon wall persuaded him that there were things more amusing in theworld than to imitate Casanova in that. And as at the first gnaw hismouth encountered a tiny nettle, he leaped to his feet and declared atthe pitch of his voice that both Latude and Casanova were certainly"dasht fools!"
The sound of his own words reminded him that after all he was within amile of home. He wondered what time it might be. He began to feelhungry, and the cubic capacity of his internal emptiness persuaded himthat it must be at least quite his usual dinner-time.
So Hugh John decided that, all things being considered, it would benothing against his manhood if he called for help, and took his chanceof any coming. But he remembered that the mouth of the dungeon was ina very retired part of the castle, in the wing nearest to the river,and shut off from the road across the island by a flanking tower anda thirteen-foot wall. So he was not very sanguine of success. Still hefelt that in his perilous position he could not afford to neglect anychance, however slight.
So he shouted manfully, "Help! Help! Murder! Police! Fire!" as loud ashe could bawl.
Then he tried the "Coo-ee" which Sergeant Steel had taught him, underthe impression that it would carry farther. But the keep of afourteenth century castle and thirteen feet of shell lime and rubblemasonry are proof against the most willing boyish voice in the world.So General Napoleon made no more impression upon his friends than hisgreat original would have done had he summoned the Old Guard from thecliffs of St. Helena.
But the younger warrior was not discouraged. He had tried one plan andit had failed. He sat down again to think what was the next thing tobe done.
He remembered the thick "hunk" of bread he had put in the pocket ofhis jacket in the morning. He could not eat it at breakfast, sogreatly had he been excited by the impending conflict; so, to preventwaste, and to make all safe, he had put it in his pocket. Besides, inthe absence of his father, it was not always possible to be in formeals. And--well, one never knew what might happen. It was best to beprepared for all emergencies.
With trembling hand he felt for the "hunk." Alas! the jacket pocketwas empty, and hung flat and limp against his side. The staff of lifemust have fallen out in the progress of the fray, or else one of theenemy had despoiled him of his treasure.
A quick thought struck his military mind, accustomed before all elseto deal with questions of commissariat. It was just possible that thebread might have fallen out of his pocket when the Smoutchies wereletting him down so roughly into the dungeon of the castle.
He went directly underneath the aperture, from which a faint light wasdistributed over the uneven floor of hard trampled earth whereon acentury's dry dust lay ankle deep.
There--there, almost under his feet, was his piece of bread!
Hugh John picked it up, blew the dust carefully off, and wiped thesurface with his handkerchief. It was a good solid piece of bread, andwould have served Caesar the Potwalloper for at least two mouthfuls.With care it might sustain life for an indefinite period--perhaps asmuch as twenty-four hours.
So, in accordance with the best traditions, the prisoner divided hisprovision with his pocketknife, as accurately as possible under thecircumstances. He cut it into cubes of about an inch square, exactlyas if he had been going to lay down rat poison.
Napoleon Smith was decidedly beginning to recover his spirits. For onething, he thought how very few boys had ever had his chances. A Latudeof twelve was somewhat unusual in the United Kingdom of Great Britainan
d Ireland, and even in the adjacent islands. He began at once towrite his memoirs in his head, but found that he could not get on verywell, because he could not remember which one of his variousgreat-grandmothers had danced with Bonny Prince Charlie at Edinburgh.This for a loyal prisoner was insuperable, so he gave the memoirs up.
The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith Page 19
