On the third night of my imprisonment in the overseer's house (the fourth since my arrival) I was very restless. My enforced inactivity, and the lack of fresh air, were producing the natural effect; every night I slept less, waking frequently, to toss and heave until I sank again into a troubled slumber.

In one of these intervals, I heard a scratching sound--just such a sound as a mouse makes behind the wainscot. I had not noticed it before, and it caused me nothing but irritation now, for when a man is wakeful, such sounds, however slight they may be, become magnified to his overstrung nerves. I endured the sound for a time; then shooed to scare the gnawing animal away. But it did not desist for an instant, and at last, vexed beyond measure, I got out of bed, groped my way to the spot whence I thought the sound proceeded (it seemed to come from the floor) and stamped heavily on the boards.

My action was heard by the men outside the door, and one of them cried out angrily to know what I was about.

"'Tis a wretched mouse will not let me sleep," I replied.

"And what can you expect, you fool, when your room's over an empty stable?" he said. "Curse me! what a fresh-water fair-weather fowl you be!"

The scratching having ceased, I went back to bed. But in a few moments it recommenced, at what seemed to be a spot nearer to me, and, marveling somewhat at the persistence of the beast (for a mouse is easily scared), I covered my head, and so endeavored to shut out the annoyance.

I think I must have dozed again, for suddenly I found myself sitting bolt upright, straining my ears as a man does when he is suddenly wakened from sleep and is not sure whether 'twas by an actual sound or by a sound heard in dream. And in a moment my doubt was resolved; a.s.suredly I heard a sound, and 'twas like a human voice, but m.u.f.fled. I listened intently; it appeared to come from beneath me. While I was wondering who could have chosen the stable as a place for conversation in the dead of night I could have sworn (though half-believing it must be an hallucination) that I beard my own name. In a trice I was out of bed, and groping my way under it, my hand struck against something projecting from the floor, and at the same moment I heard distinctly, and as it were in my very ear, a low whisper, "Ma.s.sa Bold, Ma.s.sa Bold!"

"Who is there?" I whispered in return, and, clutching the thing my hand had touched, I felt it move.

I tightened my grasp upon it; it was round, and as I discovered by laying my other hand upon its top, hollow. Struck by a sudden thought I bent my face down, and whispered again into the hole, "Who is there?" afterwards turning my ear upon it.

"Ma.s.sa Bold, lill Missy sends a letter."

The words came clearly up the tube.

"Me poke it up," said the voice again.

I withdrew my ear, and waited in a tense breathlessness of amazement. Then I heard a slight rustling, and placing my hand on the tube, I felt a small piece of paper thrust against it. Grasping this, all my frame thrilling with excitement, I whispered again:

"Who are you?"

"Me Uncle Moses," said the voice. "Good night, sah; come again tomorrow."

And then all was silent.

Picture if you can my state of mind as I crept back into my bed and lay down again, the precious note in my hand. I was trembling with happiness: Lucy knew of my presence, and had written to me. And yet I was doomed to lie in a tantalizing impatience until the dawn should give me leave to read her message. I had no more sleep that night, wonderment, conjecture, pleasure, hope, setting up a whirl in my brain.

As soon as there was the faintest tremor in the darkness I sat up and, unfolding the paper, sought vainly to decipher it. Never had time seemed so long to me as I waited for the oncoming of the beneficent light of day. And at last, lifting the paper almost to my eyes, I was able to make out the words.

'Twas in French, and I blessed the chance which enabled me to understand it, and the woman's wit that had prompted Lucy to choose this disguise. She said she had learned of what had happened through the gossip of the servants; the man who had heard my name in the rest house had mentioned it. She told me that she was virtually a prisoner. She knew not what Vetch intended (she did not name him, but wrote of him as cet homme mechant), but she was kept under strict surveillance; her movements were dogged; and though she had three times endeavored to make her escape along with the old nurse who had accompanied her from England, she had always been prevented, and those who had a.s.sisted her had been terribly punished. Uncle Moses, her father's bodyservant, who was devoted to her, had been whipped almost to death, and she dared make no further attempt, for the sake of the poor black people.

d.i.c.k Cludde had come up from Spanish Town, she told me, and crushing down her repugnance to meet him, she had besought him to interpose. He had seemed troubled, and had gone away, as she thought, to plead with Vetch, but she had not seen him again. It was after that that she had heard of my imprisonment. She thanked me for coming to help her; she knew that was my purpose; had I not helped her before? and she prayed that I might find some means of escaping, so that I might take her away and save her from the wicked man who had her in his power.

I ground my teeth as I read all this, and vowed that if I could but get free I would wreak a vengeance on Vetch that he would not easily forget. But the knowledge of my impotence wrought me to a pitch of fury that for a time almost bereft me of my senses, and I could only rage and fume in desperate misery. My guardians, when they came in to attend to my wants, seemed to be conscious of my state of mind; they eyed me with suspicion, and the man at the door took up his musket ostentatiously, though neither said a word to me.

After a time my pa.s.sion subsided, and with recovered calmness I saw that my only chance of doing anything for Lucy depended on my patience and self restraint. I waited eagerly for night. The negro had said that he would come again, and this could only mean that Lucy had some hope of our being able between us to devise some means of escape. The man ran a great risk; if the buccaneers heard us speaking they would discover him, and then all hope would be lost. Fervently as I longed to hear his voice again, I was consumed with anxiety lest he should come too soon, or that by some accident, some incautious movement, he might reveal his presence.

The day pa.s.sed and when I went to bed I lay in restless impatience, straining my ears to catch the slightest whisper, and starting up several times in the belief that I heard him. At last, when all was silent save for the heavy breathing of the men outside the door, I caught the faint sound made by the pushing of the tube (a length of sugar cane, as I afterwards learned) through the hole he had bored in the double floor. I stole noiselessly out of bed, and crept cautiously to the place beneath it.

"Is that you, Moses?" I whispered.

"Yes, ma.s.sa, me's here."

"Is Mistress Lucy well?"

"Welly miserable, sah. Missy say Ma.s.sa Bold take care; she say 'G.o.d bless Ma.s.sa.'"

Inwardly I blessed her for her thought of me; then I said:

"We must both be careful, Moses. Now, I must escape from this, and you must help me."

"Yes, Ma.s.sa, me want to help, but dere is no way for po' Uncle Moses."

"We must find a way; we must," I said in a fierce whisper. "Could you come up and help me if I burst open the door? Are you strong?

Could you knock a man down?"

"Me plenty strong, sah, but what good dat? Ma.s.sa might get away, but what den?"

"Why, we could get among the trees in the darkness, and you could lead me to the road, and perhaps find me a horse, so that I could ride to Spanish Town."

"No, no, sah, me berry much 'fraid in dark, sah. Me shake like leaf now, sah; but in forest, wiv de bugaboos, me melt all away to water."

I had heard of the dread with which the negroes regarded the bugaboos, the evil spirits of the woods, and knew that there was but a poor chance of escaping if my guide were in a state of panic terror. Moses had shown unusual courage in coming alone in the darkness to the stable beneath me, and there was a tremor in his voice which showed that even now but little was wanted to make him go howling away. I thought it best not to risk so inopportune and fatal a calamity, so I bade him go away and come again next night, by which time I hoped to have been able to think out a plan that offered reasonable prospects of success.

Chapter 24: I Make A Bid For Liberty.

I slept heavily when Uncle Moses had gone, making up for my wakefulness the night before; and next day I was more composed in mind, and readier to take thought. Ignorant as I was of the plantation and the country round, I saw that to escape in the night without a guide would be to court disaster, and a timorous guide like Uncle Moses, with his fear of the bugaboos, might lead me to my undoing. Therefore my flight must be contrived by day. The door of my chamber was opened three times, when the guards brought me food, and 'twas possible that, with the negro making a diversion outside, I might seize such an occasion to fell one of the men and evade the other. But this plan scarce promised success, for the house was situate in the sugar plantation, and doubtless many negroes would be at work, and the overseer would be at hand, with possibly others of the piratical dogs whom Vetch had brought up from the coast.

There was one period of the day, however, when few people, if any, would be astir, and that was the middle part from eleven till about three, when work ceased, everybody seeking shelter from the heat. I could reckon on my guards being sleepy and sluggish then; and, moreover, seeing that during several days I had given them no trouble, they would be quite unprepared for any violent outbreak.

True, my door was always locked, but looking at it, I did not doubt that if I threw myself upon it with all my strength it would give way. And if Uncle Moses had the courage at the same time to tackle the men, there was a chance that we might seize their arms and make good our escape before they had recovered from their surprise. At any rate, I saw nothing better.

Being resolved on this first step, I had to consider the next. What should I do if I escaped? Should I endeavor to make my way to Spanish Town and return with a force of tars, or of soldiers from Collingwood's regiment then in garrison, sufficient to deal with Vetch's desperadoes? This idea I soon dismissed. I felt that time was of the greatest moment. I did not know the exact date of Mistress Lucy's coming of age, but 'twas very clear that it was not far distant; it might be, indeed, within a few days, and I had such a belief in Vetch's villainy that I feared he might force Lucy into a marriage with Cludde the very moment she was free from the authority of the Chancery Court. Cludde had arrived, I remembered, and was perhaps still at the house awaiting the day of Lucy's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and I clenched my fists at the thought.

It would take me a full day on a swift horse to reach Spanish Town, even if I rode at peril of sunstroke through the hot hours, and another day, perhaps two or three, to return with a.s.sistance; and it was in the highest degree unlikely, first that I should be able to get a horse, and if I did, to ride the whole length of the estate without being intercepted. And further, supposing all happened as favorably as I could wish, at the news of my flight Vetch would without question carry off Mistress Lucy to the brig that lay on the coast, and would sail to England or elsewhere, secure in the knowledge that I could not pursue him.

I can relate the course of my reasoning in cold blood now, but on that day of anxious pondering every other consideration was outweighed by the feeling that I must not go far from Mistress Lucy. And so I resolved that if I got free I would ask Uncle Moses to lead me to some spot near by, difficult of access, where I might lurk while concerting some means of a.s.sisting her. It pa.s.sed my wit to conceive of any plan that promised success; but certainly I could do nothing while a prisoner, and to be free was my one consuming desire.

How impatiently I waited for the dark needs no telling. And some words I overheard pa.s.s between my jailors, as they talked over their supper, drove me to such a state of desperation that I had almost there and then dashed myself against the door and ruined everything.

"'Twill be summat new for Parson Jim," says Jack.

"Ay, 'tis many a year since he tied a knot o' that sort," replied the other.

"D'ye reckon he can tie it safe and proper, seeing he bean't no more a parson?" asked Jack.

"Never you fear," says Bill; "once a parson always a parson, as I've heard tell. 'Tis no matter he's a swab and a tosspot like you and me, only worse, and fit for nothing but a Newgate galley; he'll read the words o' the book, if so be he's sober enough to see 'em (though to be sure his talk is always most pious when he's drunk), and they'll be lawful man and wife, same as if they'd bin spliced by the Pope of Rome himself."

This wrought me into a very fever of apprehension. I could only guess who Parson Jim might be; the buccaneers gathered all manner of strange recruits; it was enough that there was talk of a marriage, and I was sick with dread lest after all I should be too late. And when at last I heard the welcome rustle below me, the first words I spoke through the tube were an anxious inquiry for Lucy's welfare.

"Missy lots better now, sah," replied the negro, and with the vanity of youth I inferred that she was better for the knowledge that I was near.