Read Ebook: The Spider and the Fly; or An Undesired Love by Garvice Charles

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Ebook has 4249 lines and 109289 words, and 85 pages

As he speaks, with a bitterness beyond description, he stoops and fumbles at his leg again. The sharp ears of his companion catch the grating of steel on iron.

"What's that, guv'nor?"

"A file," was the reply.

"Where did you get it from?" asks the other, with undisguised astonishment.

"I made it, Jem," replies his companion, quietly.

"What with?"

"An old piece of iron and my brains. It's a good one; try it for yourself."

As he speaks, he shakes the horrible link of iron from his foot and passes the instrument to the other.

No. 99 takes it, with a muttered oath.

"You're a wonderful man, captain, a wonderful man. There ain't nothing as you can't do--or won't do if we gets clear of this frightful torment. I'll be sworn, the game's all planned out a'ready."

"It is," replies the other, with quiet coolness.

The grating of the file stops for a moment.

"I thought so! S'help me, if I didn't! Might a humble pal, as has always stood by you, captain, ask what the move is? It 'u'd pass the time away and keep the shivers off. There's a curse in the very air o' this place that cramps a man's heart and a'most chokes him. Tell us the plot, captain. I'm yourn, and you know it."

The captain looks into the darkness before him in silence for a moment; then, speaking in the whisper above which their voices had never for a moment been raised, he says:

"I'll tell you, Jem, as we swim together, as you say. We must, taking all things into consideration, and so--Jem, give me your hand."

The man he called Jem feels about in the darkness until his hard-grimed hand is clasped in the softer one of his companion, and waits silently.

"I'm going to take your oath," says the captain, coolly. "Swear that you'll follow me faithfully--as, to give you your due, you always have done--right to the end of what is to come. Swear it, Jem, and I'll open up the game. You'll keep your oath, I know, because I'll swear at the same time that this hand of mine shall wring your neck if you break it. You swear?"

"I swear, captain!" replies Jem, hoarsely. "I've never played you false yet, captain. Would it pay me to do it now after this little bout? Would it pay me, I asks yer?"

"No; now nor ever. Come closer; these cursed cliffs seem to me to have ears. Keep a look out all round. I'm watching for the lights of the fishing yawls."

"All right, captain," replies the other, eagerly. "Go on, if it's only for talking's sake," and he shivers under the strain of long-sustained fear and excitement.

"You're right, Jem, I have a game on the board already. It wouldn't be me if I hadn't. It's a good game, too, and worth playing. Better than the last, which landed us here--not so risky, either. Did I ever tell you where I came from? No? Well, it isn't likely, when I come to think of it. I am not one of the communicative sort. What do you say to India--to Madras? I am a captain, Jem, by something more than courtesy. Captain Murpoint's a good enough name and title, and they're my real ones. They'll do again, too."

For a moment he relapses into silence, his eyes scanning the sea before. Then he takes up the thread again, in a tone rather of soliloquy than communication; but his companion, though apparently forgotten, listens eagerly.

"John Mildmay," repeats the man, Jem, to show his companion that he is listening carefully.

"John Mildmay, a merchant, a prince among merchants, with a fortune in England, India--and I know not where else also. He was a fine fellow, but simple--simple as a schoolgirl, and too bountifully supplied with those awkward incumbrances called feelings. We were bosom friends. I borrowed his money, and he loved me too well to remind me of the debt--you understand that, Jem--that is something within your comprehension."

Jem chuckles with hoarse enjoyment.

"'Good-by, old fellow,' he said. 'It's a long journey; but I feel safe. I've written about you in every letter to my little darling; I shall be able to tell her now what a grand guardian she'll have. Good-by, and Heaven bless you!'

"Jem, my friend, don't believe the good people of this world when they talk of a special providence for honest men; Jack Mildmay was drowned on that homeward voyage, and I, Captain Howard Murpoint, was left to live and rot in a convict station.

"Yes, the ship went down, and soon after Captain Howard Murpoint went down likewise. I got tired of the army; that's the mild way of putting it, though if the truth must be spoken, the army got tired of me--or rather my wonderful luck at cards. You know my little trick with the ace? Enough. It suited me to cut the military life. How was I to do it? A fool would have deserted and got shot. I, not being a fool, managed differently. There was a slight skirmish on the frontier one moonlight night. My men were cut to pieces like packthread. I, by a miracle, escaped. Walking over the corpse-strewn field, one of those happy thoughts which are the inspiration of knaves, struck me. My corporal, a good fellow, had fallen at his post. I knew it was my corporal by his accoutrements, his face and features had been obliterated by a cannon ball. Supposing, was my thought, that Captain Howard Murpoint's regimentals were upon that poor fellow, then every one would say that the said Captain Murpoint had fallen with glory and honor, and that the missing corporal had either been carried away by the Sepoys or deserted.

"Jem, my friend, I lost not a moment, but there and then exchanged clothes with the corpse, threw a cloak over my new corporal's regimentals and started for the coast.

"I reached Paris--unfortunately for the Parisians. When Paris grew too hot I gracefully fluttered to my native land. My native land for eighteen months proved as rich a harvest as a man of talent could wish.

"During those eighteen months I cleared--no matter--it is all gone, swallowed up in that fiasco. Idiot that I was to descend to the level of such poor vermin as you! What could I expect? Were these hands made for burglary, were these brains? Bah! this is wasting time. Some sweet friends of yours persuaded me to change my line, and I came to grief; dragging you in for revenge's sake. Plain truth, you see, Jem. I scorn to tell a falsehood--when there is nothing to be got by it. Transportation for life! It was a hard sentence, and I wished when I heard it, and a hundred times since, that they had not balked Jack Ketch. I wished it every day till a week ago.

"What changed me? A mere bagatelle. A newspaper. A year-old newspaper, which that lout of a warder had dropped from his pocket. I snatched it up and hid it in my bosom. It would lighten many a hateful hour in that horrible cell. I opened it next morning, and the first words my eyes rested on were:

"'Grand F?te at Mildmay Park, Penruddie.--On the occasion of Miss Mildmay's sixteenth birthday a large party of personal friends and the tenants of the Mildmay estate was gathered at the Park, where most extensive preparations have been for some time in progress to insure success for the various festivities. In the morning the numerous gayly dressed visitors gave themselves with a zest to the enjoyment of archery, boating and the subtleties of croquet. In the evening the grand hall--which was decorated by Owen Jones--was opened for a ball to which invitations to the number of two hundred had been issued. It is needless to say that the whole affair was brilliantly successful, and that the twelfth of July will be a white stone in the lives of Miss Mildmay's tenants and those fortunate friends who were enabled to partake of her hospitality. Miss Mildmay is at present staying, in company with her aunt, Mrs. W. Mildmay, at her residence, Mildmay Park.'

"That is something like it, Jem--all glitter and sparkle, diamonds and rubies. I swear, much as I reveled in that greasy paper a moment before, I could not read another line of it. Every time I tried my eyes looked back to Mildmay Park and the wealthy Miss Mildmay.

"This Violet was to have been my ward, and Jack's money, his enormous estates, ay, the very diamonds she wore, were to have been under my charge. What an opportunity I had lost! With such a chance, what might I not have accomplished? I might have feathered my nest, ay, have filled it even, with every penny of Jack's gold; for what was a puny little bit of a girl to count for?--if I had been free. Free! that was the word, and it haunted me. One day it rang in my ears, making a chorus to the grand doings at Mildmay Park, and at last I swore that I'd give this place the slip or die in the attempt. Once away from here--once in England, the way to Jack Mildmay's gold is as plain as the road to Rome. I am once more Captain Murpoint. I turn up, looking the gentleman that I am, at the Park in the character of her father's friend. She knows all about me, remembers me almost as well as she does her father. Keeps all his letters, those letters in which he tells her that he is hunting, fighting, playing, or dining with his dear Murpoint, on her bosom, perhaps. Here is dear Murpoint, and she welcomes me to Mildmay Park with open arms and a shower of tears."

There was a moment's pause; Jem crept closer to the daring schemer.

"And me, captain? You won't forget me?"

"No; you go with me as my servant. No thanks. I shouldn't take you if I didn't want you, my friend. I never did a generous action in my life, I leave that for idiots. I want you for a hundred things. I want a man who is completely under my thumb--in my power. You are in both those situations, so I help you to escape and take you with me. If you have any gratitude, keep it bottled up, don't let it evaporate in words. Well?"

The man mutters something, faintly.

"But, captain, is that all the game? Don't we hold no more cards than that? It seems a chance, a regular chance."

"And what else is life?" says the captain, with a short laugh of contempt. "But those are not all the cards. Even to you, my bosom friend, I do not choose to show my whole hand. Enough that I hold sufficient cards to play the game, and that I have sufficient brains to win it. You, my poor Jem, have neither cards nor brains! Stop! what's that?" and his low, subtle voice sinks to a sharp hiss.

"That's the light of the fishing smack," hoarsely returns his companion.

"Not that, idiot!" is the retort, in a sharper voice. "That up above. A thousand fiends! It is the moon!"

A smothered cry breaks from the parched lips of the convict Jem.

He springs to his feet, then falls to the ground with a quiver of excitement.

"Captain, we are lost! In two minutes it will be like day! The soldiers can see every speck on the water for a mile round!"

"Silence!" cries the captain, crouching so motionless that his gray-clad figure looks part and parcel of the rock against which it presses. "The tide is in. That is the smack before us. Swim like the fiend! If we reach it we are safe. I have enough to bribe them. Swim for liberty and life!--now!"

And, with the word, he rises to his feet, leaps over the patch of beach that intervenes between cliff and sea, and plunges into the foremost wave.

His companion follows, and not a moment too soon.

The moon that had been battling with the dark mass of clouds, rises conqueror at last, and swims majestically into the clear heavens, lighting up the sea till it glows like a plain of diamonds.

Not a moment too soon, for the monotonous tramp, tramp of the nearest sentinel upon the ramparts above is suddenly broken, and his sharp voice gives the challenge:

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