Читать книгу Castle Vane - J H M Abbott - Страница 5

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IT was a quiet, unobtrusive, dark little shop with small and dingy windows, and it stood not far from where a great grey trachyte building of an American insurance office stands to-day in George Street. A plain and unadorned stone cottage of the Macquarie regime, without a verandah, but having a sort of low stone pavement, a couple of yards in width, dividing it from the building alignment of the street—it was one of scores of little primitive dwellings, solid and substantial, and exceedingly ugly, that gave shelter to the majority of the citizens of Sydney in 1840.

It was not until the goldfield days that the capital of the Australias began to adorn itself architecturally by means of private enterprise. Nearly all the imposing buildings, scattered here and there through the towns, were official before the fifties—gaols, barracks, churches, stores, and Government offices. Up on the Rocks, and out by Woolloomooloo, were some fine mansions of the merchants and rich emancipists, but in Sydney itself the streets were for the most part rows of cottages, broken here and there by larger buildings that were still severely simple in design.

In one of the two small-paned windows of the cottage were displayed the backs of several dingy rows of books, and over the door was a sign that intimated that Jacob Losky conducted within a Subscription Library, and sold Books, Prints, and Periodicals. Also that the establishment rejoiced in the patronage of his Excellency the Governor and his Honor the Chief Justice.

The provost-sergeant and his two men, blocked by a broken-down hay waggon, and a gathering crowd about it, reached the door of the shop a good forty seconds after Private Richard Delane had dived through its narrow portals into the dim interior.

"In there he went," directed a small and eager boy. "I see him run in."

But within the dark little book-shop the pursuers drew a blank.

"Where is he?" demanded the sergeant. "Where's the man who ran in here just now?"

A girl, reading behind the low counter, seated upon a stool, put her book down and rose to her feet. She was a black-haired handsome Jewess, about eighteen years old, shapely and well developed, and with a magnificent pair of flashing, dark eyes, that the sergeant noted and admired, as she turned their wondering gaze upon him.

"What man, sir? There has been no one here this last half-hour. Indeed, I have not yet had a customer this morning."

"Nonsense, my gal," shouted the sergeant, impatiently. "Nonsense! One of our men ran in here this very minute. He was seen to. Come, where is he?"

"No one has been here. How should I have missed seeing him? I have been here since we opened the street-door at nine o'clock. There has been no one, sergeant. I am sure of it. There could not have been anyone. It is you who talk nonsense."

There was an inflection of impatience in her speech. But the sergeant was not impressed by it. He turned to the two soldiers standing in the doorway. The tousled head of the small boy thrust itself between them.

"Come in here, you!" he cried, seizing the urchin by the hair. "You say you saw the man run in here—a soldier? Come—speak up!"

"O-o! Leggo my hair!" the boy squealed. "Yes, I did. 'E came runnin' across from th' barrack gate, when t'other sojer fired 'is gun off. I seen 'im. An' 'e jumped in 'ere. Seen 'im do it. My colonial oath, so I did."

"There, miss—what have you to say to that? This boy saw him run in here just now. Where is he? Where has he gone? He must be hiding here."

There was anger in the girl's voice as she replied: "He is not here. I tell you no one has been here. The boy is mistaken. He is a little liar."

"I ain't no liar!" the small boy protested shrilly. "'E come in 'ere. I knows 'oo it was. It was Mister Delane. I knows 'im all right."

"I'll search the house," cried the wrathful provost-sergeant. "Stay you at the door, Jenkins. Marshall, you come with me. The beggar's listening to us now, I'll be bound. And laughing at us."

One of the soldiers entered the room, and the sergeant took a stride towards the door at the back, over which hung a pair of heavy green curtains. As he did so they were drawn aside, and an old, white-bearded man appeared in the opening—a little old man, who stooped somewhat, but in whose bright eye and alert appearance there was nothing of feebleness.

"Who are you who will search my house?" he demanded of the sergeant. "What is this disturbance? What—it is you, Mr. Baylis! What do you want—and what are these armed soldiers doing here?"

"A prisoner has escaped from over yonder, Mr. Losky, and I'm after him. He's badly wanted. He bolted from my custody, after assaulting Major Vane, cleared through the guard at the gate, and ran across the street into your shop. I must have him. Stand aside while I search the place."

"Softly, Sergeant Baylis—softly! How can you search my house? Where is your authority? Have you a warrant?"

The sergeant spluttered, but fell back a pace.

"Rachel," continued the old man, "did any soldier come in here? It is useless my asking, for if he had I should have heard him. I have been in the back room since opening the shop half an hour ago. But did you see anything of this man?"

"No, grandfather," replied the girl. "No one has been here—soldier, bond, or free—since you opened the door. I have told the sergeant so."

"This boy saw him," said the sergeant doggedly.

The old man smiled.

"Then the boy has wonderful powers, which he should cultivate. He can see the invisible. Sure, it must have been a ghost he saw."

"Will you let me see for myself, Mr. Losky?" demanded the sergeant.

"At your request, willingly, Mr. Baylis. But it is not your right. You could not force an entrance legally without a search warrant. However, to humour you, and to convince you that no soldier has been here this morning—pray, come this way."

The old man bowed, and waved his arm towards the back of the house.

"Look first, however, in this front room," he went on. "'Tis my granddaughter's. You do not object, Rachael?"

"No, grandfather. But the sergeant might spare himself the trouble. He will find no soldier beneath my bed."

The old man conducted the sergeant into the girl's bedroom. In a few seconds they came out, and he led the way to the back of the cottage. The two rooms and the kitchen, which made up the rest of the premises, yielded no better results. Nor the garden and outhouses at the back. So presently they returned, the sergeant crestfallen and anxious as to the anger of the major when he should return empty-handed; the old man smiling.

"The boy has been mistaken, you see, Mr. Baylis. I wish you good morning. Perhaps you will have better luck elsewhere."

Withdrawing his men, the provost-sergeant braced himself to face the wrath to come, and marched back, empty-handed, to the barracks.

The old Jew smiled a farewell as he stood in the middle of the little shop. Then he turned to his granddaughter. She was laughing too.

"Well, Rachel," he said softly, "It is a good get-away. That was a fair test. And now we must dispose of our guest."

"It will not be easy," answered the girl; "but I've no doubt you will find a way, grandfather."

"Yes, yes—it is simple enough. But watch how well it works; how easily I vanish. The thing was well worth the trouble."

He walked through the door, and halted just inside the inner room. Over his head, within easy reach, a metal vase, with handles at either side, in which grew a flourishing cluster of maiden-hair fern, was suspended by three brass chains from a ring-bolt in the painted wooden ceiling. It was an innocent-looking and graceful ornament. The old man turned about, and glanced at the street door to make sure that no one was looking in.

"See, my Rachael," he laughed—"our disappearing trick!" He reached up and tugged at a handle of the vase. The next instant the floor opened and the old man disappeared into a yawning pit. At once the trap-doors sprang back into place, and the floor was apparently sound and solid again. The handsome Jewess clapped her hands and laughed musically.

"Oh, but he is clever," she murmured. "The cleverest man on earth! It was well for Dick Delane that he knew the trick of it. I wonder what grandfather means to do with him—what use he will put him to. He surely has him now—body and soul. And such a man should prove useful. Ah, well—I will know in good time, I suppose."

She picked up her book and resumed her reading, as she awaited the coming of custom.

It was a strange place into which the old man had so suddenly vanished, as the young soldier had done not ten minutes before him—a strange and cunning place.

There was a deep cavern hollowed out beneath the floor of the cottage, and at its bottom coarse sacking covered a great pad of straw some 3ft. deep. The sides of the pit were padded also to a height of about 5ft. The drop was a good 10ft., but so soft was the landing that no man might injure himself who fell through the trap-doors. In a far corner was a narrow opening, through which a man might squeeze himself, and through it shone a dim light, as from a candle or lantern, in some cavity beyond.

The old man picked himself up and made towards the gleam of light, squeezing through the opening, and emerging into a wider tunnel, where, in the light of a ship's lamp, he found the soldier seated upon a bench.

"What ho, Father Jacob!" The young man stood up to greet him, grasping both his hands, and wringing them vigorously. "I salute my preserver!"

"Gently, gently, my pretty fellow," cried the old man. "So you are the first to benefit by my invention! It seems that it made a mighty convenience to you. Sergeant Baylis was eagerness itself to lay his hands upon you. What does it mean? Why were you in such a hurry to leave the army?—for that is what I presume you have done?" His voice sank to a murmur, and he eyed the young man narrowly.

"Is it murder?" he whispered hoarsely, laying his hand upon the soldier's knee. "Come—tell me. I am your friend—else I would not have made you free of this—convenience."

The private laughed.

"Murder! Good God—no! 'Tis not so bad as that. But I have broken Black Jack's nose for him, I think. I have spoiled his beauty for a day or two. Like this!"

He doubled up a great fist and smashed it into the open palm of the other hand.

"Black Jack! Major Vane—you have beaten him?"

"Well—not exactly 'beaten him.' Just a tap, that is all. But a hard enough tap to land me with the iron gang for longer than I care to think about."

"How—why?"

"I was on the main guard when he came into barracks this morning. That blundering clown, Roarty, turned us out when he was almost between the gate-posts. I missed two buttons in my jacket, and he saw it, cursed me, and made me a prisoner, had me up before him at orderly-room on the instant, and—what think you?—sentenced me to fifty lashes. Good God! Me at the triangles. Me, Dick Delane—as smart a soldier as is in the 'Perishers.' For a thing like that! Something had made him mad with rage. You could see it in his face as he inspected the guard. So I left the army," he laughed defiantly.

"Yes—but to strike him! Why, 'tis almost a hanging matter!"

"It would be so—if we were upon active service."

"And now?"

"Well, now, I suppose, I am in your hands, Father Jacob. Will you sell me to the floggers and the road gang's overseers?"

"No, no. But Dick, lad,"—the old man leaned forward and peered into his face—"will you join us now? Is there anything else you can do? Will you not be one of us?"

The soldier remained silent for a time, his arms folded across his great chest, staring into the lamp. At last he sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He held out his right hand to the Jew, and the latter grasped it eagerly.

"All right, Father Jacob. There is nothing else for it. I am with you. 'Tis my fate, I suppose. I am with you. I can do no otherwise."

The Jew wrung his hand.

"Good!" he cried joyfully. "You will not regret it, Dick."

"And what's to be done now?"

"You must lie low here until after dark. I will find some clothes for you. Your red jacket will be found upon the cliffs at South Head to-morrow. And to-night I will send you to a safe enough place. My son—I am glad that you are with us in the Free Company. We could have no better recruit. Give me your hand again!"