there was not one whit of mercy in him, nor any belief in my story.
He turned at last. “Damn him for a liar, Swalley!” he said. “I told you this
would do no good. I say the rack … or a thumbscrew. He’ll speak the truth fast
enough. His kind have no belly for pain.”
“How is yours?” I said roughly. “I think you have no stomach for it, either.
Have done with this. I have spoken the truth. If you do not care to believe, do
what you will, for I have nothing else to tell you.”
He looked at me for a moment, and then he struck me across the face with the
back of his hand. It was not much of a blow, and I smiled.
“If we each held a sword,” I said, “I’d have your blood for that.”
“What? You threaten me? Why, you—!”
“I am an Englishman. I am freeborn. A man who strikes a prisoner so is a coward,
and you, sir, are doubly a coward.”
“Here! That will be enough of that!” Swalley came to his feet suddenly. “I am
sorry, Sir Henry.”
He pointed a finger at me. “You! You will tell us where lies the royal treasure
or, by the Lord, you shall be put to the question.”
“I have told you all I know. You waste time. Would I be going to America if
there were such a treasure?”
Swalley stared at me, then smiled with thick lips that repelled me. “How do we
know you were not for Spain? Or for Italy? We know you have the treasure, for
word has been given us that you have it, that you took it from the Wash this
past year. It is sworn to.”
Appalled, I stared at him. Then I shook my head. “That is obviously a falsehood.
There is no treasure.”
“Think of it,” Swalley said quietly. “We will talk again.”
So I was returned to my cell. I looked about the bare room with its cot, its
white-washed walls and bare ugliness, and felt hatred for the first time.
What right had they to seize and confine me in this manner? Taking me from all I
loved, from my chance at a future of some worth, and bringing me to this horror?
Yet moaning and wailing was not my way. I had never complained, for who cares
for complaints? If something is wrong, one does something.
Hyatt … I must see Hyatt. I went forth from my room, guessing very well that
once questioning began there would be no longer such freedom, even though many a
malefactor enjoyed it. I should be taken, held, confined, tortured.
Suddenly I stopped. Before me was Peter Tallis, talking to a thin, wiry little
man whom I had seen about before. He glanced my way but gave no indication that
he knew me. I walked swiftly past him, looking about for Hyatt.
He spoke as though talking to the small man. “Barnabas, this is Feghany. In
prison he is known as Hunt, for Feghany means a huntsman or something like. He
is a good man, and will help.
“I have word. If you escape, it must be now. No delays. You are to be taken to a
dungeon and they will have the treasure out of you or you shall die. It is in
the hands of the men you saw.”
“I will need a horse … three horses.”
I was standing, looking about as if for someone, seeming not to be aware of his
presence or that of Feghany. Others moved about us. Across the larger room I saw
Hyatt.
“There will be horses at house you know, a house you once visited after the
theatre.”
Tempany’s!
“Go there when you leave. Waste no time. Ride far north and west. The Queen will
be desperate. Her men will be everywhere searching for you. You can rely on
Feghany.”
He moved on to talk to another prisoner, while Feghany loitered near me. “Have
you got a Kate?” he said, low-voiced.
“A Kate?”
“A pick, for opening locks. You’re going to need one. I’m thinking they’ll have
the cramprings on you before night.”
At my blank look, for I knew nothing of thieves’ cant, he said, “Cramp rings …
irons … shackles.” He looked disgusted, “Don’t you know nothing?”
He promised to bring me one.
Whatever else happened, I had to be away from this place. The stench on the main
floor was disgusting. Crossing the floor I went to my own cell.
Once inside, I looked at the window. Six feet from the floor, over four feet
wide and slightly arched at the top, it was crisscrossed with iron bars. The
bars were at least six inches apart, and there were two horizontal bars that
crossed also.
There was a bench and a bed in my cell, and a wooden bucket. The bench was heavy
to move, and could not be moved back quickly, so I upended the bucket and stood
on it to get a better look at the sill.
The bars were set into the stone, but I noted with satisfaction that weathering
had worn the stone on the outside. Peering out, I could just make out a wall
beneath my window. If I could lower myself to that …
Footsteps alerted me and I stepped down and moved the bucket. I was sitting on
my bed when the cell door opened amid a rattle of shackles.
A guard was there, and Feghany was helping him carry the irons.
The guard grinned. His teeth were broken and yellow. “You git the cramp rings
again, lad! Tomorrow.”
“But I paid you!” I protested.
“Aye, so you did, but there’s a voice louder than mine that says back you go, so
into the irons it is.”
“Sorry,” Feghany said to me, “but it’s no doing of the guard’s. Remember him.
Later he may take them off, if you’ve a bit of the necessary.”
“Now hold up there!” the guard protested. “Not so loud!”
Feghany slapped me on the shoulder and something cold touched my neck below the
collar. “There! Don’t worry now!”
When they had gone I put my hand inside my collar. A thin bit of metal. A Kate
with which to pick the lock.
There was no time to waste. I was bound for a dungeon and more questions. I was
headed for torture that could only end in death.
So what was to be done must be done tonight.
I heard the yowlings and screams that came from the cells and the larger rooms
below where the prisoners mingled.
I checked the bars at the window again. Rain and wind had done their worst with
the exposed walls, and some of the bars were loose in their sockets.
I was devoutly grateful. Gripping the pick in my hand, I went to work to break
away the stone, scratching away with my lock-pick at the crumbling edge of the
socket.
Then, putting down the pick, I took the bars in my two hands and strained,
pushing them out. The bars gave a little, then held. I worked longer, then
hearing footsteps in the passage I sat down on my bench, leaning my elbows on my
knees, my back to the door. There was a momentary pause outside my door as the
guard peered through the tiny window, then went on.
Once more I returned to the bars. If I could but remove two, at most three, of
the uprights, and one of the horizontal bars, I could get myself through. I
worked, picked away very carefully. Then I tested one of the bars. My strength
served me well now, for the bar gave. Then as I exerted more pressure, the
bottom moved outward.
Very carefully I extracted the top from its socket and placed it on the floor.
The second bar was more stubborn. Again and again I strained and worked at it.
At last the bottom came loose and it joined its mate on the floor between myself
and the door.
The horizontal bar was not so deeply set, and the grains of rock came loose each
time I scraped with the pick. The wall was old and crumbling. By this time I was
soaked with sweat and my knuckles were scraped and torn. It was after midnight
before I had removed the third bar, and by that time the prison was quiet.
Carefully, I moved the heavy bench under the window. I sacrificed my coat to
cover the irons on my bed and give some shape of a man lying. My foot was on the
bench when suddenly a key rattled and the door behind me opened.
“Ah!” It was Henry Croppie. “Caught!”
He sprang to seize me from behind, but his foot landed on the iron bars which
rolled under him. His feet shot up and he fell.
Turning from the bench, I met him as he rose to come at me, and I hit him.