Early in August he heard of another event that filled his German fellow prisoners with fury and apprehension. In a brilliantly-executed coup, Davout had taken over Hanover without a shot being fired, and that country had become part of the French Empire. As Davout commanded not only in Hanover, but also the French garrisons in all the major fortresses in north Germany, the Prussians naturally feared that Napoleon's next move would be to dethrone their King, and that they, too, would be deprived of even the shadow of independence.
During these weeks, Roger had studied with the utmost care the prison routine and the precautions taken to prevent prisoners from escaping. To his great disappointment he found that in this respect the Prussians were much more thorough than the people of most other nations, so that, apart from the remote possibility of some unexpected happening, there seemed no likelihood of his regaining his freedom. He was still further depressed by his belief that, given the co-operation of a group of his fellow prisoners, he might possibly have organized a mass break-out; but their antagonism toward him put that out of the question.
However, Hanover having become a French province overnight had resulted in a new wave of unrest in Prussia. In every town, crowds singing patriotic songs marched through the streets and demonstrated outside the town halls. In several places troops mutinied and manifestos were reaching the King and his Ministers daily, urging them to throw off the French yoke.
Although Frederick William was the most unwarlike of Kings, he was an intelligent and liberal-minded man. Before the French invasion, the common people had groaned under a serfdom similar to that in Russia; but defeat had brought to the nations benefits previously undreamed of. Stein, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Shon, von Hardenberg and others of the King's advisers had urged! upon him that the only way to put fresh heart into the nation was by sweeping reforms; and he had agreed.
Serfdom had been abolished, the ownership of land previously restricted to the upper classes was made available to all, centralization was replaced by local government, and a great programme for increasing education entered upon.
For the first time a university was established in Berlin, and others were given large grants which enabled them to increase their student bodies greatly. And now it was the students who were the mainspring of the anti-French agitation. Incited by the writings of Stein, Fichte, Steffens, von Humboldt and many more, they were demanding with patriotic frenzy that their country should no longer remain subservient to the hated Emperor. Since his victory he had milked Prussia of over six hundred million francs, and his Continental System was leading to the bankruptcy of hundreds of merchants. A secret society for the liberation of Prussia, named the Tugenbund, had been formed, and was joined enthusiastically by members of all classes.
With October there came a fresh wave of riots aimed at forcing the Government to act and break off the alliance with France. Many of the leaders of these demonstrations were arrested and several score of them were brought to Roger's prison. It soon became so crowded that another truckle bed was put into his cell, and he was given for a companion a long-haired youth who was one of the agitators.
The young man's name was Hans Grotten. On learning that Roger was a Frenchman, he abused him and his master until he was out of breath. Roger took it quietly, then told him that the majority of Frenchmen, and even more their women, now hated the Emperor as much as the Germans did. This greatly surprised Grotten, and when Roger explained how Napoleon was bleeding France white, and that the greater part of his soldiers had not seen their homes for half a dozen years, the fiery student became less antagonistic.
Even so, his bitterness was not against the tyrant Emperor only, but the French as a nation. He said that wherever their garrisons were stationed, they regarded themselves as a superior race, and behaved like ravening beasts. In the daytime they pushed people out of their way and, at night, waylaid and robbed them. They made constant requisitions of horses, carts, cattle and poultry, for which they did not pay, and no woman was safe from being dragged off into the bushes by them. Complaints against them were useless, as their officers treated the Prussian authorities with contempt.
With the introduction of the students and liberal intellectuals into the prison, a new excitement began to seethe among the older inmates. This was caused by daily demonstrations outside the prison by mobs demanding the release of the newcomers. Bets of clothing and small personal possessions were being freely made on whether the Government would or would not give way. The demonstrations developed into riots and, on two evenings in succession, shots were fired. It then leaked out that the authorities had become frightened that the mob would break into the prison and forcibly release the captive agitators; so the prison was to be evacuated and the prisoners transferred to the fortress of Spandau.
On October 10th, the prisoners were roused in the early hours of the morning, hustled downstairs by the warders, now reinforced by troops, and herded into a long line of prison vans. While this measure was being carried out, Roger looked eagerly about him, hoping for a chance to escape. But one of the soldiers had a bayonet pointed at his back, so he dared not make a dash for it. Within a few minutes of having reached the main courtyard, he was compelled to enter one of the vans, into which were already crowded a dozen other prisoners.
The doors were slammed and locked. The van moved off at a walking pace. It traversed about a mile; then faintly, its occupants heard shouts. They increased to a roar. The van came to a halt. Pressed against one another inside, the prisoners were seized with a fever of excitement.
It was evident that the plan to transfer them to Spandau in the middle of the night had become known to the insurgents, who had laid an ambush with the intention of rescuing them. Shots were fired. Their hearts sank, as it seemed very doubtful if the mob would be able to overcome the armed escort. The hubbub increased. The captives hammered with their fists on the sides of the van and threw their weight against the doors in an endeavour to burst them open. They yielded a little, but the lock and bolts were too strong to be forced. With cries of desperation, they renewed their efforts, but still the doors could not be opened.
Suddenly there came the crash of steel on iron. The whole van shook. Blow after blow followed. Someone outside was making a mighty effort to smash the doors in with a big axe or crowbar. The wooden panels splintered. Eager hands tore aside jagged pieces regardless of splinters and laceration. Another minute and the captives were tumbling pell-mell out of the van into the cheering crowd that milled about it.
Roger scrambled to his feet. There was a quarter moon, which gave enough light for him to take in the wild scene. Not a soldier was in sight; neither were there any dead or dying students lying in the roadway. Evidently the troops were in sympathy with the would be liberators of their country. They must have fired over the heads of the crowd, then made off to avoid having to use their bayonets. Without waiting to thank his deliverers,
Roger pushed his way through the mob and ran down a side road as fast as his legs could carry him.
He did not pause until he was breathless, then he continued on at a fast walk till he had put well over a mile between himself and the spot where the prison vans had been ambushed. The shouting had died away in the distance. Feeling himself safe now from immediate recapture, he sat down on a grassy bank at the roadside to bless his luck and consider how best he could retain his freedom.
He still had the six gold pieces that he had kept concealed under the soles of his feet during the seventeen miserable weeks he had spent as a prisoner. That would be enough to get him to Hamburg, but nothing like sufficient to bribe a smuggler to run him across the North Sea. Moreover, he felt an overwhelming urge to settle accounts with de Brinevillers before leaving Berlin.
Having rested for a time, he began to walk again, now heading towards the eastern end of the city. When he reached k, dawn was coming up and people were already stirring in the tumbledown shacks and tenements. For an hour he loitered in a deserted alley, then when the shops bega
n to open he furtively made his way along the street until he came to a second-hand-clothes dealer. Peering cautiously in, he saw that the proprietor was an elderly Jew. Well aware that this downtrodden race was always sympathetic toward those in conflict with the authorities, Roger went in.
The suit he was wearing gave away the fact that he was an escaped convict, and he did not seek to conceal the fact. Instead he said that he was a journalist who had been imprisoned for writing an article abusing the Government for its subservient attitude to the hated French, and was desperately anxious to obtain clothes that would enable him to make his way back to his home in Hesse Kassel, He could not have posed as a Berliner, but his hoch-deutch was quite good enough for him to be accepted as a south German; and when he produced one of his pieces of gold, the Jew, displaying his yellowed fangs in a smile, showed that he was quite willing to bargain with him.
The bargain driven was a hard one, as Roger had to part with two of his pieces of gold. But in exchange he got a patched pair of trousers, a padded cotton jacket, a dark cloak ragged at the seams and a felt hat with a floppy brim that would partly conceal his face.
Now confident of avoiding trouble should he run into a patrolling policeman, his next visit was to a shop that, among other things, sold aids for the war wounded. Many poor wretches had lost an eye in the fighting, so a black eyeshade would help to make him more difficult to recognize without making him conspicuous. Having purchased one, in the same shop he bought a long, sharp knife, which he concealed in the upper part of his trousers, and several lengths of thin, but strong cord.
Now hungry, he went to a small general store, at which he obtained a loaf of bread, a pound of ham, some slices of apfel strudel, a slab of chocolate and a bottle of wine. His mouth watering at the thought of consuming these delicacies after several months of prison fare, he hurriedly sought a place where he could lie up for the day. After twenty minutes spent exploring noisome alleys, he came upon a big timber yard. The place seemed to be deserted, so he decided that it would serve and, further exploration having brought him to a shed, he settled himself comfortably in it on a pile of sacks. After gorging himself on the good things he had bought, he stretched himself out and was soon fast asleep.
He did not wake until well on in the afternoon. Hungry again, he had another enjoyable meal, then whiled away the evening hours as well as he could, thinking of Georgina, the joy of being back in England and how he could best get de Brinevillers on his own.
Patiently he waited until he judged it to have been dark for well over two hours; then he started on his long trudge to the other end of the city. When he reached it a clock in a tower told him that it was still much too early to carry out the plan he had formed, so he went into the Tiergarten and sat on a bench there for a long spell. At last the hour of ten chimed from a nearby steeple. Getting up, he stretched himself and, after taking several wrong turnings, found his way to the French Embassy.
As he had spent the best part of a day at the Embassy, he knew the general layout of the big mansion and that it had a fine garden. An ill-lit alley ran along the wall at the end and, after carefully reconnoitering the wall, he found a place where he could scale it. On the spikes at the top he tore his cloak, but it was already so ragged that the additional tear made little difference. He was only apprehensive now that there might be a watch dog loose in the garden. But as he scrambled to the ground, only the crunch of his feet on dead twigs disturbed the stillness.
Advancing cautiously, he surveyed the back of the house. There were lights in the uncurtained windows of two of the ground-floor rooms. Above them was a terrace, from which a broad flight of stone steps led down to the garden. Along the terrace ran the reception rooms. To Roger's relief they were all in darkness, showing that de Brinevillers was not entertaining that night. From all but one room on the second floor, the gentle glow of candles showed through drawn curtains. In all such mansions they were the best bedrooms, and the people who occupied them would be getting ready for bed. He had little doubt which was de Brinevillers' room, because the central room was much larger than the others and had a big bay window. It could be taken as certain that the
Ambassador would have chosen this principal bedroom for himself and, as he was unmarried, sleep alone there.
The moonlight was sufficient for Roger to see that one window of the room was open. Had it not been, he would either have had to take a far greater risk to reach the room by some other means, or abandon his project altogether. There were also lights in several of the lesser bedrooms on the two upper floors.
Withdrawing, Roger went in search of the gardener's domain. It proved to be a good sized outhouse with a loft. On the ground floor, with spades, scythes and other implements, there were two ladders. The longer would easily reach from the terrace to de Brinevillers' bedroom windows. On trying its weight, Roger found that, although it would need all his strength, he should be able to haul it upright.
Not far from the back of the house there were several lofty trees. Gliding over to one of them, Roger climbed up into a fork. From there he could see down into the uncurtained ground-floor rooms. In one, a secretary was still at work, in the other a footman in his shirt sleeves was belatedly cleaning silver. The light in one bedroom had now gone out, but one showed in that which had previously been unlit. As it was next to the principal bedroom, Roger guessed that it was probably the Ambassador's clothes closet.
One by one during the next hour the lights went out, until the great building was in darkness. Coming down from his perch, Roger went again to the gardener's outhouse. Going up to the loft he found some sacking and a ball of stout twine. Descending, he bound thick pads of sacking round both ends of the ladder, so that when he dragged it up the stone steps to the terrace, it would make no noise. He then partly lugged and partly carried it to the foot of the steps and laid it down there. He had more than halved the effort needed to bring it into use but it was still much too early to make his attempt on de Brinevillers.
Another hour or more went by. When he heard one o'clock chime from a nearby steeple, he decided that the time had come to act.
9
Death Stalks at Midnight
By that time, unless there was someone ill or wakeful in the house, all the inmates should be in their first deep sleep. Lifting one end of the ladder, Roger drew it slowly up the steps until he had it on the terrace. Next came the critical stage. Could he get it up against the windowsill? To raise it needed every ounce of his strength. For one awful moment he feared that it was going to overbalance and fall backwards on him; but a final effort was just sufficient to sway it in the right direction.
Standing back, he closed his eyes and mopped the sweat from his forehead, then remained quite still until his heart had ceased pounding and his breathing had returned to normal. Testing every rung of the ladder before putting his full weight on it, he made his way up to the window. As he opened it further,, it creaked a little. For a full minute he held his breath, but no sound came from inside the room. Putting a leg over the sill he slipped inside. He was now behind the heavy curtain. Gently he drew it a little aside, so that the moonlight should filter in and, by it, he could see the position of the bed. It was a big four-poster, half way along the room and sideways on to the window. The mound of bedclothes showed that someone was sleeping there. For a second it occurred to Roger what a fool he would have made of himself if, after all, it was not the Ambassador.
Having edged round the curtain, he drew the long knife from his trouser belt and, putting his feet down flat as he took each step, advanced to the bedside. Laying a hand on the sleeper's shoulder, he gave it a gentle shake. As the shoulder moved with a jerk, he said in a low, clear voice:
'Attempt to call for help and I will drive my knife straight down into your heart.1
A man's head came up and a voice gasped, 'Who… who are you?'
The voice was that of de Brinevillers. His mind now at rest, Roger whispered, 'My name is Death, and I have come to cl
aim you.'
'No, no! This cannot be!' the Ambassador exclaimed. Struggling up into a sitting position, he stared in terror at the dark, cloaked figure wearing a hat with a floppy brim.
'If I am not Death, at least I carry it,' Roger said quickly. 'Reach for your tinder box and light your bedside candle. Then you will know me. But one cry and you will never speak again.'
With trembling hands, de Brinevillers lit the candle, then jerked round his head to look at Roger's face. As he recognised him, he whispered hoarsely, 'De Breuc… I thought…'
'No matter what you thought,' Roger cut him short. 'I am here to ask you only one question. Why did you not send a courier to the Emperor?'
'I… I assumed that the Prince d’Eckmuhl was doing so,' the terrified Ambassador stammered.
'Ha!' Roger exclaimed. 'I guessed as much; but, in fairness to you, had to make certain. Had you had the sense to lie and maintain that you had sent the courier, I could not have proved otherwise. As it is, you have condemned yourself out of your own mouth. It is you who are Ambassador to the Court of Prussia, not Davout. It was your responsibility to do your utmost to protect a French officer from the malice of Prussia's Chief Minister.
By your callous indifference, you left me to die. Tell me now, can you give me any good reason why I should not make you pay for that with your life?'
Tears started to de Brinevillers' eyes and began to run down his cheeks. Clasping his hands, he broke into desperate pleading:
'Colonel! Monsieur le Comte! I beg of you to spare me. At the thought of my negligence I now grovel for pardon. But clearly God did not intend you to die for your sentence was commuted. And now you must have escaped from prison. You are far from safe yet though. Without help the chances are you will be caught before you can get out of Prussia. I offer myself now as your life line. I will provide money, horses, a good disguise everything and make certain that you get safely across the border.'
The Ravishing of Lady Jane Ware rb-10 Page 9
