CHAPTER XVI.

_Jaff_. Ha! _Pierre_. Speak; is't fitting? _Jaff_. Fitting! _Pierre_. Yes; is't fitting? _Jaff_. What's to be done? _Pierre_. I'd have thee undertake Something that's noble to preserve my memory From the disgrace that's ready to attaint it. OTWAY.

The attorney's sleep was long and sound; and, by and by, notwithstanding the exciting nature of the midnight events, sleep visited the eyes of all others in the prison, even those of the hapless Hyland. The misery of his situation was complete. His hopes of escape, confirmed almost to certainty by Affidavy in his last visit, in which the whole plan was explained to him by this honest gentleman, threw him into a frenzy of joy; and it was with unspeakable agitation that he listened to the subdued murmurs below, which told him the first and most critical scene of the conspiracy had already begun. How the attempt of Affidavy upon the head of the jailer terminated has been already seen; how the scheme might have eventuated, had this rapacious wretch followed out the plan he had proposed to the others, which was to bribe the jailer into connivance, it is not so easy to say, Lingo being perhaps too much of a philosopher in his way, to refuse a good price for his honesty. But Affidavy, while he held the bone in his mouth, hungered exceedingly for the shadow, or, to speak more strictly, for that smaller morsel destined for the jaws of his friend; and, in consequence, adopted the foolish device of the 'hocussed' cup, in which he encountered so signal a failure. While Hyland sat in his cell, devoured by expectation, the door was opened, and the jailer's assistant entered, bearing a heavy set of fetters, which he forthwith proceeded to fasten upon his limbs. This was the first moment they were ever thus dishonoured; but the unhappy youth thought not of the disgrace; he saw at once that the scheme of flight was defeated, and that his hopes had been encouraged, only to be blasted. The agitation of his spirits threw him into a swoon; rousing from which, he gave himself up to despair, until his thoughts were diverted into a new channel by an unexpected commotion below, which was indeed caused by nothing less than the entrance into the prison of the five men whom Hanschen had secretly summoned to his assistance. He heard them pass into the yard, and inferred at once that the scheme for his escape was intended to be turned against his unsuspecting friends. For this reason, he gave the alarm, the instant he heard the gate swinging on its hinges, and would have done so sooner, had he been able to approach the window, so as to look out upon the proceedings of the jailer. Let his sufferings be imagined, when he heard the sudden din of pistols and voices, followed by execrations and groans, without knowing aught of the result of the rencounter, except that it had been fatal to his own hopes. He saw the jailer look into the apartment, his visage stained with blood, and then depart without satisfying his painful curiosity; and then followed a long period of silence, equally oppressive and distracting. Great as was his distress, however, it contributed in the end to stupify his mind; and towards morning, he fell into an uneasy slumber, to add the tortures of the ideal to those of the material world. From this he was aroused by a noise, as it seemed, at his window; and starting up, he distinctly heard a voice pronounce his name. It was but a whisper, and that fainter than the lowest chirping of the insects; but he recognized at once the tones of Oran; and, scarce repressing a cry of joy, he rushed towards the window. The chain was still upon his body, and its clash, with the rattling of the ring by which it was attached to the floor, told to Oran, as well as to his own spirit, how vain was the effort. The cell which he inhabited was in a corner of the building, and the wall of the yard was perhaps within six or seven feet of the window, which was more elevated, and therefore overlooked it. It was possible for a man, standing on the top of the wall, and of sufficient strength of body to support himself, lizard-like, while leaning towards the window, almost to reach it with his arms; and Hyland, who had noted these circumstances before, easily understood the situation of his visiter, which besides being extremely dangerous, was also exposed to observation.

"I cannot approach, Oran," he cried in the same whispering tones; "I am chained to the floor."

"Hold forth your hand," muttered the refugee, "and cast me the end of your neckcloth. You shall have files and aquafortis; and to-morrow night you shall be free. Cast out the neckcloth."

"I cannot," replied the prisoner, with a voice of despair; "I cannot reach the bars, even if I had files to cut them. What shall I do? Oh, brother, brother! why did you leave me? Speak, brother, for Heaven's sake, speak! Can you help me?"

The refugee remained silent, apparently struck dumb, either by the reproach of his brother, or by the discovery of his inability to help himself; and Hyland, imagining that his silence was owing to some sudden alarm, held his own peace, awaiting the event. In a short time, however, the refugee spoke again: the whisper was as low as before, but it was broken by some strong tumult of feeling.

"I can _not_ help you, Hyland," he said,--"unless, unless----But hold; I will fling a file through the bars, and you can saw yourself free. Throw your bed on the floor under the window, that it may make no noise. Are you ready?"

"I am," said Hyland; and the next instant he heard the steel instrument strike upon the bars of the grating, whence it fell ringing among the stones in the yard. A second was cast with better effect, and entering the window, fell upon the couch. But as if fate now designed to tantalize the unhappy youth into distraction, he no sooner sought to obtain it by dragging the bed towards him, than he heard it fall off upon the floor, where it remained beyond his reach, and must remain until discovered by the jailer. This mishap being communicated to Oran, drew from him an exclamation, in which Hyland was made aware of his hopeless situation:

"God help you!" he cried, "I can do no more."

"Yes, Oran, yes!" exclaimed the prisoner, "you can help me yet. Throw me a knife"----

"Hah!" said Oran, "and you will use it on the jailer? ay! as he bears you to the court house, in the morning! Strike him in the throat--I will be by, and, perhaps--Well, well, you will at least die like a man, not like a dog. Will you kill him?"

"No!" said the youth; "God pardon me the blood I have shed already: I will never more harm a human being--no, not even to save my wretched body from shame. Yet throw it to me, throw it to me!"

"And for what?" muttered Oran, in tones scarce audible.

"For what?" replied the prisoner. "Oh God, do you ask me, brother?"

"For your own bosom then? Ay, can we do no more? And the lawyers, then, can give you no hope, not even for money?"

"None, none: I am condemned already--The knife, the knife!"

"The dream's out!" said Oran, with what seemed a laugh. "When I was a little boy, and the rest were but babes about me, I dreamed, one night, that there were seven of us together, though there were but four of them born, and that I killed them. And so they say _I have_ indeed! Well, boy, I have killed you, as well as the rest, and now I am alone. You shall have the knife--yet be not in a hurry. Something may turn up: Sir Guy may demand a military trial--But no, I am lying to my own heart: you must die, Hyland, you must die! for even I cannot help you."

"The knife will help me."

"Take it!" said the refugee, with a voice so loud as to show his feelings had got the better of his caution,--and indeed his accents betrayed the most vehement agitation; "take it!" he cried, flinging it against the window with a motion so reckless or perturbed, that it did not even strike the bars, but coming in contact with the stone framework, it rebounded and fell, like the file, to the ground below. "Ha ha! you see, brother! there is no hope for you,--no, not even in the knife!"

"Brother!" cried Hyland, "you can help me yet."

"It is false!" said the other: "my band is broken, my body bleeding, and now, if they would send a boy against me, why a boy might take me."

"Listen, brother--it is my dying prayer," said Hyland, "and nothing else can be done. Before midnight of the coming day--perhaps earlier--I shall be a doomed man--doomed to death--doomed to the gallows? Brother, don't let me die on the gallows! Where is Staples? He can send a bullet through the eye of a leaping buck; I have seen him kill a night-hawk on the wing. Brother, you will be my heir--give him what you will, give him _all_, and let him come to-morrow night on the square, and when he sees a candle held at this window, let him fire at it,--let him aim well,--at the candle, brother, at the candle! Oh heaven! do you not hear me?"

"I hear," said Oran. "A wild freak that, but good! ay, boy, good, good, good! But Staples--ha, ha! Choose another: take the whole band; one will be as ready to serve you as another."

Had not the prisoner been prevented by his own feelings from giving note to any thing save the mere words of the refugee, he might have detected the traces of some extraordinary emotion in the unusual abruptness of his expressions. He even failed to observe the incongruity between Oran's invitation to choose an executioner from his whole band, and the late declaration he had made, that the band was broken up. He repeated the name of Staples, adding, "Let it be Staples, brother, for he is the boldest and truest: he fears nothing, and he misses nothing."

"Call him out of the yard then," said Oran; "he lies there cold as a stone."

"Ashburn then, Tom Ashburn!" cried Hyland, after an exclamation of dismay at the intelligence; "he is the next boldest, and a true shot."

"Another, another! They fished him out of the river at the Foul Rift, yoked fast to the carcass of his horse."

"Bettson, then!"

"He lies, with Staples, dead in the yard here."

"Good God! is there none left then to save me from this horror. Oh brother, send any one. Is there not one?"

"There is _one_," said Oran, and his teeth chattered as he spoke; "there is one, and only one; but he shoots well too, and is as bold as any. Farewell, young brother--the streaks are in the sky: we will never see one another more. Reach forth your hand, brother, and let me touch it."

"Alas, Oran, I am chained to the floor."

"Ay,--I forget: 'tis all one. Say that you beg God to forgive me, and that you forgive me yourself--let me hear you say it."

"Wherefore, Oran? Alas, wherefore?"

"For what I have done to you; for what--But it is nothing. But say it, though; say it, or hope for no friend in the thing you speak of."

"God forgive you then, Oran," muttered the brother, almost mechanically; "I forgive you myself."

"It is enough," said Oran--"Farewell." And these were the last words Hyland ever heard him utter. He descended from the wall--_how_ the prisoner knew no more than how he had climbed it,--and that so suddenly, that although Hyland called to him again, the moment the farewell had past his lips, he was already beyond hearing. Finding that he was really gone, the prisoner fell upon his knees, and strove to invoke forgiveness of the act he meditated: for he rightly felt that it must be but a form of self-murder.

He then threw himself on his couch, looked back upon the events that had marked his existence in the valley, and wept over the misery they had entailed upon one whom his love had wrapped in the same destruction with himself.