CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE CROWNING MERCY.

We must now take up the story of the third division of the great expedition, the plan and execution of which so fully reflects the military genius of our distinguished hero; for though this part was carried out by Billy Blythe, the credit of the design, as well as the discovery of the means of carrying it out, were wholly due to General Napoleon Smith.

When the second boat swept loose and the futile anger of Sir Toady Lion had ceased to excite the laughter of the crew, the gipsy lads settled down to watching the rush of the Edam Water as it swept them along. They had, to begin with, an easier task than the first boat expedition. No enemy opposed their landing. No dangerous concealed stepping-stones had to be negotiated on the route they were to follow.

Leaving all to the action of the current, they swept through the entrance to the wider branch, and presently ranged up alongside the deserted water-front of the ancient defences. They let the castle drop a little behind, and then rowed up into the eddy made by the corner of the fallen tower, where, on the morning of his deliverance, Hugh John had disturbed the slumbering sheep by so unexpectedly emerging from the secret pa.s.sage.

Billy stepped on sh.o.r.e to choose a great stone for an anchor, and presently pulled the whole expedition alongside the fallen masonry, so that they were able to disembark as upon a pier.

The Bounding Brothers immediately threw several somersaults just to let off steam, till Billy cuffed them into something like seriousness.

"Hark to 'em," whispered Charlie Lee; "ain't they pitching it into them slick, over there on the other side. It's surely about our time to go at it."

"Just you shut up and wait," hissed Billy Blythe under his breath.

"That's all your job just now."

And here, in the safe shelter of the ruined tower, the fourteen listened to the roar of battle surging, now high, now low, in heady fluctuations, turbulent bursts, and yet more eloquent silences from the other side of the keep.

They could distinguish, clear above all, the voice of General Smith, encouraging on his men in the purest and most vigorous Saxon.

"Go at them, boys! They're giving in. Sammy Carter, you sneak, I'll smash you, if you don't charge! Go it, Mike! Wire in, boys! Hike them out like Billy-O!"

And the Bounding Brothers, in their itching desire to take part, rubbed themselves down as if they had been horses, and softly squared up to each other, selecting the tenderest spots and hitting lightly, but with most wondrous accuracy, upon breast or chin.

"Won't we punch them! Oh no!" whispered Charlie Lee.

But from the way that he said it, he hardly seemed to mean what he said.

Just then came a tremendous and long continued gust of cheering from the defenders of the castle, which meant that they had cleared their front of the a.s.sailants. The sound of General Smith's voice waxed gradually fainter, as if he were being carried away against his will by the tide of retreat. Still at intervals he could be heard, encouraging, reproving, exhorting, but without the same glad confident ring in his tones.

Flags of red and white were waved from the ramparts; pistols (charged with powder only) were fired from embrasures, and the Smoutchies rent their throats in arrogant jubilation. They thought that the great a.s.sault had failed.

But behind them in the turret, all unbeknown, the Bounding Brothers silently patted one another with their knuckles as if desirous of practising affectionate greetings for the Smoutchies.

Perhaps they were; and then, again, perhaps they weren't.

"Now's our time," cried Billy Blythe; "come on, boys. Now for it!"

And with both hands and feet he began to remove certain flag-stones and recently heaped up _debris_ from the mouth of a narrow pa.s.sage, the same by which Hugh John had made his escape. His men stood around in astonishment and slowly dawning admiration, as they realised that their attack was to be a surprise, the most complete and famous in history, and also one strictly devised and carried out on the best models. Though the rank and file did not know quite so much about that as their Commander-in-Chief, who was sure in his heart that Froissart would have been glad to write about his crowning mercy.

It is one of the proofs of the genuine n.o.bility of Hugh John's nature, and also of his consummate generalship, that he put the carrying out of the final _coup_ of his great scheme into other hands, consenting himself to take the hard knocks, to be mauled and defeated, in order that the rout of the enemy might be the more complete.

The rubbish being at last sufficiently cleared, Billy bent his head and dipped down the steps. Charlie Lee followed, and the fourteen were on their way. Silently and cautiously, as if he had been relieving a hen-roost of its superfluous inhabitants, Billy crept along, testing the foothold at every step. He came to the stairway up to the dungeon, pausing a moment, to listen. There was a great pow-wow overhead. The Smoutchies were in the seventh heaven of jubilation over the repulse of the enemy.

Suddenly somebody in the pa.s.sage sneezed.

Billy turned to Charlie Lee. "If that man does that again, burke him!"

he whispered.

Then with a firm step he mounted the final ascent of the secret stair.

His head hit hard against the roof at the top. He had not remembered how Hugh John had told him that the exit was under the lowest part of the bottle dungeon.

"Bless that roof!" he muttered piously--more piously, perhaps, than could have been expected of him, considering his upbringing.

"If Billy Blythe says that again, burke him!" said a carefully disguised gruff voice from the back--evidently that of the late sneezer.

"Silence--or by the Lord I'll slay you!" returned Billy, in a hissing whisper.

There was the silence of the grave behind. Billy Blythe made himself much respected for the moral rect.i.tude and true worth of his character.

One by one the fourteen stepped clear of the damp stairs, and stood in the wide circuit of the dungeon.

But the narrow circular exit of the cell was still twelve feet above them. How were they to reach it? The walls were smooth as the inside of the bottle from which the prison-house took its name, curving in at the top, without foothold or niches in their smooth surface, so that no climber could ascend more than a few feet.

The Bounding Brothers stepped to the front, and with a hitch of their shoulders, stood waiting.

"Ready!" said Billy.

In a moment Charlie Lee was balancing himself on the third storey of the fraternal pyramid. He could just look over the edge of the platform on which the mouth of the dungeon was placed. He ducked down sharply.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE LIVING CHAIN."]

"They are all at their windows, yelling like fun," he whispered, with the white, eager look of battle on his face.

"Up, and at 'em!" said Billy, as if he had been the Great Duke.

And at his word the Bounding Brothers arched their shoulders to receive the weight of the coming climbers. One after another the remaining eleven scrambled up, swift and silent as cats; and with Charlie Lee at their head, lay p.r.o.ne on the dungeon platform, waiting the word of command. Close as herrings in a barrel they crouched, their arms outstretched before them, and their chins sunk low on the masonry.

Billy crept along till his head lay over the edge of the bottle dungeon. He extended his arms down. The highest Bounding Brother grasped them. His mate at the foot cast loose from the floor and swarmed up as on a ladder. The living chain swayed and dangled; but though his wrists ached as if they would part from their sockets, Billy never flinched; and finally, with Charlie Lee stretched across the hollow of his knees to keep all taut behind, by mere leverage of muscle he drew up the last brother upon the dungeon platform.

The fourteen lay looking over upon the unconscious enemy. The level of the floor of the keep was six feet below. The Smoutchies to a man were at their posts.

With a nudge of his elbow Billy intimated that it was not yet time for the final a.s.sault. He listened with one ear turned towards the great open gateway, till he heard again the rallying shout of General Napoleon Smith.

"_Now then! Ready all! Double-quick! Char-r-r-ge!_"

With a shout the first land division, once repulsed, came the second time at the foe. The Smoutchies crowded to the gateway, deserting their windows in order to repel the determined a.s.sault delivered by Hugh John and his merry men.

"Now!" said Billy Blythe softly, standing up on the dungeon platform.

He glanced about him. Every Bounding Brother and baresark man of the gipsy camp had the same smile on his face, the boxer's smile when he gives or takes punishment.

Down leaped Billy Blythe, and straight over the floor of the keep for the great gateway he dashed. One, two--one, two! went his fists. The thirteen followed him, and such was the energy of their charge that the Smoutchies, taken completely by surprise, tumbled off their platforms by companies, fell over the broken steps by platoons, and even threw themselves in their panic into the arms of Hugh John and his corps, who were coming on at the double in front.

Never was there such a rout known in history. The isolated Smoutchies who had been left in the castle dropped from window and tower at the peril of their necks in order that they might have a chance of reaching the ground in safety. Then they gathered themselves up and fled helter-skelter for the bridge which led towards the town of Edam.