CHAPTER TWENTY.
HOW THE ADVENTURE TERMINATED.
The new-comers proved to be a couple of the kitchen servants. They wereprovided with a basket, in which they removed the fish selected byMonsieur Lemaitre, taking them up and conveying them away withoutvouchsafing to favour me with so much as a single word.
The time passed on without any one else appearing; a silence, as if ofthe grave, prevailed in the building; and had it not been for the bugle-calls in the adjacent barrack-yard, the shouts of command and themeasured tramp of the men at drill, together with the loud and frequentboom of artillery from the walls, and the fainter echo of our ownordnance in the distance, I might have supposed myself to be in adeserted city.
At length the tramp of horses became audible outside; the soundincreased rapidly; and in another minute I became aware that a cavalcadeof some sort had approached the great door of the building; then therecame the sound of champing of bits, the clatter of accoutrements, thejingle of spurs, and loud voices talking and laughing. Finally theheavy latch of the door was turned, one leaf swung heavily back upon itswell-oiled hinges, and a group of some fourteen officers entered thehall; among whom was one who I had no doubt was the general.
The majority of the officers merely glanced carelessly at me and passedon; one of them, however, apparently a lieutenant, stopped and asked mewhat I wanted.
I replied by telling him shortly the story I had arranged; adding that Ihad been advised to come up and report myself to the general. When Ihad finished he ordered me to follow him; and we made sail in the wakeof the others; passing through a door at the far end of the hall, whichled, not, as I had supposed, to a room, but to a long passageterminating in a yard, in one side of which was an archway leadingthrough the building into the barrack-yard, and on the opposite side agroup of one-storey buildings, the first of which appeared to be a sortof guard-room.
Entering this room, in which were some twenty men, who rose and salutedmy conductor as we passed, we continued on through it into another andvery large room, the tables in which were strewed with plans anddrawings.
Here we found a great many of the officers who had preceded us, engagedin unbuckling their swords, etcetera, preparatory, as it seemed to me,to sitting down to work upon some of the drawings which lay scatteredabout.
Crossing this room also, followed by curious glances from many of itsoccupants, we paused before a door, at which my guide tapped.
"_Entrez_," exclaimed a voice from the inside.
The lieutenant turned the handle, threw open the door, and passed intothe other apartment, signing to me to follow. I did so, and foundmyself in a small but very comfortably furnished room, containing apress full of papers, a case of books, half a dozen chairs, and a largewriting-table, at which the individual whom I had rightly taken to bethe general was just seating himself.
He was a man apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, a trifleabove medium height, thin and spare of body, with a bronzed complexion,and grey hair and moustache, both cut quite short. His eyes were darkand piercing; the expression of his features severe and cruel; and hisbeauty--if he ever had any--was completely destroyed by a great ghastlyscar which reached from the outer corner of his right eyebrow to hischin, splitting both the upper and under lip in its course.
"Well, Saint Croix; what now?" exclaimed he sharply, as we entered.
"I have taken the liberty of introducing this man to you at once, sir,"said my guide. "He informs me that he is an escaped prisoner from theEnglish fleet; and that in accordance with advice received, he wishes,as a stranger in the town, to report himself to you and to be dulyregistered."
"Call Montrouge here."
The lieutenant retired into the adjoining room, and presentlyreappeared, accompanied by another officer; the general, meanwhile,taking no notice whatever of me, but busying himself in searching amonga large bundle of papers which lay on the table.
On the entrance of the two officers, their surly senior looked fiercelyat the new-comer, and pointing to the opposite side of the table said,--
"Sit down there; take paper; and note down what this fellow has to sayfor himself."
Then turning angrily to me, he ordered me to proceed.
I told my story; stopping at intervals, when desired, in order that theofficer who was taking it down might properly follow me. When I hadfinished, the officer called Montrouge was ordered to read over to mewhat he had written; and at the close I was asked by the general if thatwas a correct transcription of my story.
I replied that it was.
I was then ordered to give all the information I possessed with regardto the fleet; its strength; number and calibre of guns; and so on.
To this I replied that having been confined during the whole of mycaptivity between two guns, on the lower-deck, I had had no means ofgaining any information whatever, either upon the points mentioned, orindeed any others.
My statement was received with a look of incredulity and a dissatisfiedgrunt.
"What think you, gentlemen," exclaimed the old martinet, "does thisyoung man's story strike you as being truthful?"
"It sounds plausible enough," replied the officer called Montrouge. "Isee no reason to doubt it."
"What is your opinion, Saint Croix?"
"I believe it to be the truth," replied the individual addressed.
"Good! We differ slightly in opinion, that is all, gentlemen," remarkedthe general. "For my own part, I am convinced that this story,"--striking disdainfully the written statement, which he held in hishand--"is a simple tissue of falsehood. Luckily, we possess the meansof putting the matter to the test. Send for Guiseppe the Corsican."
Guiseppe the Corsican! the man who had sold me into the hands of theenemy once already, and who, I had every reason to believe, had betrayedCount Lorenzo di Paoli also. If this man and I were brought face toface, I was hopelessly lost.
At that moment, and not until then, did I feel what a shameful anddespicable course of conduct I had entered upon. I had not only assumedvoluntarily the _role_ of a spy; but I had sought to shelter myselfbeneath a cloak of falsehood; and now, out of my own mouth was I to bejudged--and surely condemned.
I felt thoroughly crestfallen and humiliated; not so much at my certaindetection as a spy, but at having placed myself in a position wheredeliberate falsehood had become an absolute necessity to my safety,which after all it had not only failed to assure, but had hopelesslycompromised.
A long and--to me--most painful pause ensued, neither of the officersquestioning me further. Had they done so, I feel certain I should havethrown off the mask and avowed myself to be that hateful thing, adisguised and secret enemy.
At length a tap came to the door; and Lieutenant Saint Croix, who hadgone out in search of Guiseppe, returned, bringing the man with him. Asingle glance was sufficient to satisfy me that my former enemy oncemore stood before me.
He approached the table, and, saluting the general, stood waiting, as itseemed to me, with some trepidation, to learn why he had been summonedto the dreaded presence of the chief.
"Attention, sir!" exclaimed the general harshly. "Do you recollect thecircumstances connected with the theft of Captain Leroux's yacht,`Mouette,' from Ajaccio?"
"Perfectly, sig-- I mean, monsieur," he replied.
"Did you happen to know the lad who was taken away in her?"
"Francois? Yes, I knew him," he replied.
"Is he at all like this fisherman?" asked the general.
The fellow turned his gaze on me with an expression of stolidindifference. Regarding me steadfastly for a full minute, I saw hiseyes brighten and gleam with an expression of fiendish malice; heapproached me so closely that his hot breath fell full upon my cheek,his eyes glaring into mine like those of a tiger when he scents blood;then, turning to the general, he replied,--
"No, _monsieur le general_. This is the young naval officer whoconveyed the despatches to Count Lorenzo di Paoli, and who, it isbelieved, stole the `
Mouette' on the night when the count's chateau wasattacked; afterwards leading the `Vigilant' into an ambush whereby shewas captured."
"Are you certain?" inquired the general.
"Quite certain," replied the Corsican. "It was I who watched him landfrom the frigate, and afterwards discovered his lurking-place in thewoodman's hut. And I also saw him frequently, after his escape from thetroops, in the chateau of Count Lorenzo."
"That is sufficient," replied the general. Then, turning to me, heremarked sarcastically,--
"If you have anything to say in refutation of this man's statement, sayit. But no, I see you have not. It is well, sir. You have chosen toenter this town in disguise and with a false story; the inference isplain. You are a spy; and as such you will be shot at daybreak to-morrow morning."
"Take him away," he continued, turning to Lieutenant Saint Croix;"confine him securely in the tower; and you, Guiseppe, take charge ofhim; I can spare none of my own men to play the part of gaoler. Andremember, I shall hold you responsible for his safety!"
"I will answer for it with my own life," exultingly exclaimed thescoundrel, as he roughly seized me by the collar and led me away.
As we passed through the guard-room, Lieutenant Saint Croix summoned afile of soldiers, who promptly placed themselves one on each side of me;and in this humiliating manner I was conducted to the prison from which,in a few short hours, I was to go to my grave.
On leaving the guard-room, we crossed the small open court, and passedunder the archway into the passage which led through to the barrack-yard.
Midway through the passage we came to a halt before a low door of solidoak, which was opened with the aid of a ponderous key, when a steepnarrow stairway of stone lay before us. It wound upwards, corkscrewfashion, in the thickness of the wall, and, ascending it, we eventuallyreached a stone landing or short passage, very dimly lighted by twonarrow unglazed windows, one at each end. There were two doors on eachside of this passage, one of which the young officer unlocked and flungopen, motioning me to enter. I did so, seeing that I had no choice inthe matter; the door slammed heavily to, the massive bolts gratedharshly back into their places, and I was alone.
It was so dark that, until my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Icould see nothing except a narrow opening in the wall, far above myhead, which admitted all the light and air the architect had considerednecessary for the miserable occupants of the dungeon.
I shut my eyes, and clasped my hands tightly over them, keeping them sofor about five minutes; and when I opened them again, I was able to seewith tolerable distinctness.
I then found that I had been thrust into a chamber about ten feet squareand as many feet high, the walls of which were of massive masonry. Astone bench ran along one side of the wall, and that was all; furnitureof any kind there was absolutely none. The aperture in the wall, whichI have already mentioned, was close up under the stone ceiling of thecell, and measured about two feet long and six inches wide. _So_ thickwas the wall in which this was pierced, that standing back against theopposite wall I was unable to see the sky out through it. I felt allround the walls of my prison. They were perfectly smooth, and slimywith the accumulated damp of centuries. I then examined the door. Itwas of oak or some other hard wood, and evidently very thick, from thedead sound which my knuckles made when I rapped upon it. It was quiteuseless, then, to think of escape. So strong, indeed, was the place,that they had not thought it worth while to search me, being no doubtconvinced that it would be impossible for me to break out with any toolsor weapons I might happen to have in my possession. I had a stout knifein my pocket; but five minutes' work with it on the door satisfied methat it would be a labour of days, instead of the few hours whichremained to me, to carve my way out with such an instrument.
Nothing then remained but to devote those few remaining hours to thework of preparation for my inevitable fate.
I flung myself down upon the rough stone bench, and let my thoughtswander far away to my dear old Hampshire home, and to the loved onesthere whose hearts the vague tidings of my uncertain fate would go farto break. They would of course hear, through Captain Hood, of the madventure upon which I had embarked; and would doubtless also be furnishedwith full details of my doings up to the moment when I disappeared fromBob's lingering gaze into the darkness of the murky night. And fromthat moment all further trace of me would be lost, unless indeed Bastiashould eventually fall into the hands of the British; and even then itwas improbable that, in the general bustle and excitement, anyone wouldremember to make inquiries about me. And so the years would drag slowlyon; and while my body lay mouldering in an obscure and unmarked grave,those loved ones would be hoping against hope for tidings of me, until,under the long-continued and cruel strain, their hearts would slowly butsurely break.
The subject was of too painful a character to be longer dwelt upon; andI turned from it to seek in my hour of need the support and consolationof religion. I recalled to mind some of those sublime passages, solavishly scattered through the pages of the "Book of Books," each solemnword breathing comfort, hope, and promise; but the words chased eachother idly through my throbbing brain, which refused to grasp theirmeaning; turning aside instead to interest itself in all manner of idlefancies. Then I strove to quell the tumult of my mind by earnestprayer; but it was of no use; words came readily enough to my dry andfevered lips; but they were words only, not aspirations of the soul.And so at length I had to abandon my useless efforts and allow mythoughts to be dragged away a helpless prey to every mad fancy born ofmy whirling brain. And all the while I was conscious that the sands inthe hour-glass of my life were fast running out, and that the preciousmoments which were passing so swiftly away bore with them thepossibilities of an eternity of bliss or an eternity of woe for mebeyond the great Boundary Line which I was so soon to cross.
And thus the hours sped swiftly on, until a thin shaft of golden lightstreamed in through the narrow opening above my head, and, striking onthe opposite wall, gleamed there for a few minutes in radiant anddazzling beauty, passing obliquely upward the while until it grewnarrower and more narrow, dwindled down to the thinness of a thread, andfinally vanished. I had witnessed the last gleam of earthly sunlight Iwas ever to see.
Darkness now rapidly gathered round me; and in a short time it wasimpossible for me to distinguish anything but the faint outline of theloophole in the wall above me.
As night descended upon the earth, a soft and gentle breeze sprang up,which, entering through the loophole, cooled my fevered blood andpermitted me so far to regain control of myself that I once more becamecognisant of outward sounds, of which I seemed to have lost allconsciousness from the moment I had been thrust into that horribledungeon. There was the roar of the artillery, the fainter boom of ourown guns, the occasional rattle of vehicles along the street, the rumbleof heavy ammunition waggons, the frequent clatter of horses' feet; and,now and then, the sound of a human voice. Gradually most of thesesounds lulled, and became more infrequent, until finally they died awayaltogether; and long intervals of perfect silence ensued, broken only bythe occasional crashing discharge of a single gun. And so I knew thatnight had fallen upon the earth without as well as upon the unhappyprisoner within.
After the lapse of some hours, as it seemed to me, I became conscious ofa faint sound outside my prison-door; a key rattled in the lock, thebolts jarred back; the door was flung open; a stream of light floodedthe cell, blinding me for the moment; and when my eyesight returnedGuiseppe the Corsican was standing in the chamber, in the act of closingthe door carefully behind him.
Placing upon the floor the small hand-lamp which he carried, he flunghimself carelessly down on the stone bench; and, with an evil smilehovering about his lips, began to jeer at my unfortunate situation.
"Well, signor Englishman," he commenced, "how like you your new lodging?It is scarcely so large, and I fear it is not as elegantly furnished,as Francesca Paoli's silken chamber, is it? But never mind, my friend;your stay
here is but short; and I daresay you can contrive to put upwith a little temporary inconvenience in the meantime, can you not?"
"Are you here to make sport of my misfortunes?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied; "what other purpose do you suppose I could havein visiting you here in the dead of night? Perhaps you thought I hadcome to set you free and help you to rejoin your accursed countrymen?No! I hate you all--you Englishmen--and _you_ especially; and I couldnot deny myself the pleasure of looking in upon you to see how you facethe approach of a disgraceful death. I am rejoiced to see how pale andhaggard you look. It has told upon you, as it must necessarily tellupon all cowards. Let me note carefully how you look, now; so that Imay compare it with your appearance a few hours hence, when you face themuskets of your executioners. Pah! why you are quailing already, youwhite-livered poltroon; what will it be in the morning?"
I had resolved the moment I perceived the villain's object, that nothinghe might say or do should wring any outward manifestation from me. Butas he went on, the apathy which had before possessed me gave way underthe influence of his taunts; my indignation was gradually aroused untilmy blood boiled; and now, rising suddenly, I sprang upon him with thebound of a tiger, clutching his sinewy neck with both hands and pressingmy thumbs with all my strength into his throat.
The ruffian was so completely taken by surprise by the suddenness andviolence of this unexpected attack that he went down unresistinglybefore me, the back of his head striking violently upon the hard stonebench upon which he had been seated.
I was now fully roused; I felt possessed of the strength and fury of ademon; and, still retaining my vice-like grasp upon his throat, I raisedhis head again and again and again, only to dash it with intensifiedviolence against the stones each time. The miserable wretch grasped atthe knife in his belt and drew it out; but before he had time to use itI had dashed his head yet once more against the stones, with suchsuperhuman strength and violence that a dull crushing sound accompaniedthe blow, the man uttered a deep groan, and the knife fell clinking onthe floor from his nerveless hand. Relaxing my grasp upon his throat, Iraised the lamp and allowed its rays to fall upon my victim's face. Itwas of a livid purple hue. The tongue, hanging out of the mouth, wasbitten nearly through; his whiskers were wet with blood, which oozed intwo thin streams from his throat where I had grasped it; and a slowlywidening pool of blood was steadily spreading over the bench beneath hishead.
The first thought which presented itself was, "Is he dead, or merelystunned?" The next--which flashed into my brain with the rapidity oflightning--was, that there lay my gaoler, the man who stood between meand liberty, helpless before me; and the chance of escape was once morein my hands.
I rolled the senseless body off the bench on to the floor. It fell, andlay there motionless; the muscles all relaxed, and the same livid hueupon the face.
Hastily unrolling the crimson sash which encircled his waist, I cut itinto convenient lengths; and, rolling the body over face downwards,quickly and with all the dexterity of a seaman secured the arms togetherat the wrists, and the feet at the ankles; after which I lashed theheels and hands close together, rolled the body back as far as it wouldcome, and thrust into the mouth, as a gag, the long haft of hismurderous sheath-knife, securing it in position by means of thehandkerchief which he wore round his throat.
I next possessed myself of the keys, of which there were two; one, ofcourse, for the cell-door, and the other, doubtless, for the door at thefoot of the stairs.
I had no difficulty in fitting the right key to the cell-door; and assoon as I had done so I blew out the lamp, and placed it outside thecell, closed and locked the door, and, removing my boots, stealthilycrept down the winding staircase.
The door at the bottom was open; and as it folded inwards I noiselesslyadjusted the key in the lock before venturing outside. I then steppedthrough the doorway; drew the door quietly to, and, with the utmostprecaution, turned the key in the lock, managing to do so with verylittle noise.
As I removed the key, and stood back in the recess to deliberate upon mynext steps, I became conscious of the sound of running water; andlooking along the passage into the barrack-yard, and the courtyard atthe back of the tower, I saw, by the faint light of one or two lamps,that the ground was flooded, and that it was raining heavily. So muchthe better; there would be fewer people about, and my chances of escapewould thereby be all the greater.
The first question was, how to get beyond the boundaries of thebarracks. The front or barrack-yard was bounded on three sides by loftybuildings and on the fourth by a high wall, with gates in it, it istrue, but gates which would be closed and locked at that hour of thenight. The difficulties of escape by way of the front were great, andmight very possibly prove insurmountable; I therefore determined to makemy first attempt at the back.
Keeping close within the deepest part of the shadow, I moved cautiouslyin the direction of the guard-room; and had just gained the courtyardwhen I heard footsteps entering the passage behind me. I darted outfrom under the archway, and hastily concealed myself behind one of themassive buttresses which supported the back wall of the building.Peering cautiously out from my hiding-place, I saw the individual,whoever he was, emerge from the archway, cross the yard, and enter theguard-room.
Still crouching close behind the buttress, I looked carefully round tonote the possibilities of escape which presented themselves in the rearof the tower. The yard, like the one in front, was enclosed by a wall,but it was only about twelve feet high. On the other side of this wall,looming indistinctly up against the murky sky, were some trees, one ortwo of which appeared to be near enough to enable me to spring intotheir branches, could I but reach the top of the wall.
At first I could see no way of doing this. But a little closerscrutiny, and the exercise of a little consideration, at lengthsuggested a means of escape. A sort of wing, projecting out from themain building of the old castle, formed one boundary of the courtyard,and joined the wall, the top of which I desired to reach; and I suddenlyremembered the rough, uneven, and time-worn appearance of the masonry ofthis building which had attracted my attention in the morning. Ithought that perhaps the masonry might be rough and uneven enough topermit of my climbing the face of it; and, as it seemed to be the onlyroad of escape, I resolved to try it.
I accordingly made my way to the point which I had resolved to attack,and set about the attempt. But I was unable to manage it. I found Irequired something more than the slight hold I was able to obtain withmy hands, while working my way upward with my feet; and after a trialwhich must have lasted quite an hour I found myself just where I hadstarted; namely, on the pavement of the courtyard.
Trembling with my violent exertions, and weak from my long fast (I hadneither eaten nor drank since breakfast the previous morning), I wasalmost on the point of despairing, when a bright idea occurred to me. Iwould attempt my climb at the point where the wing jutted out from themain wall of the building, the two walls forming an angle.
A stream of water was pouring down the wall from somewhere off the roof;and I took a hearty draught from this, which greatly refreshed me. Ithen renewed my attempt; and found to my great satisfaction that, thoughthe labour was still severe, I was able to make slow but steady progressby bracing myself into the angle between the two walls with my arms andknees.
In this way I gradually worked my way up the wall, until I arrived at apoint where a bold moulding--called, I believe, a string-course--ranhorizontally along the wall. I continued my climb until my feet restedupon this moulding, which constituted quite a firm foot-hold comparedwith what I had hitherto been able to obtain.
I was now about five-and-twenty feet from the ground; and had it beenlight I should have been able to see over the wall; but as it was Icould distinguish nothing but the indistinct masses of the trees, and,among them, a few greyish objects which looked to me like tomb-stones.
The next thing was to pass along the face of the wing-wall to the pointw
here it joined the boundary-wall of the courtyard; and the sooner thisjourney was accomplished the better; for the muscles of my hands werebeginning to feel cramped and nerveless from the extraordinary strainwhich had been put upon them. I accordingly set out on my dangerousway; and, with the aid of the string-course, got on better than Iexpected; but my strength was going so rapidly that, by the time I hadaccomplished about a quarter of the distance, it was all I could do tosupport myself. I had no choice, however, but still to push on; and Ipersevered a short time longer; when, just as I felt that I wasincapable of further effort, when my nerveless fingers were actuallyrelaxing their hold upon the slight irregularities in the surface of thewall, and I felt that I must go helplessly crashing down again to theground, I distinguished, within a yard of me, on my right, a dark cavityin the face of the wall; and the remembrance at once flashed upon methat I had noticed when crossing the yard in the morning, without payingany attention to it at the moment, a large window in this part of thewall. One more feeble but despairing effort enabled me to reach theopening; and with a frame quivering with exhaustion, and an incoherentthanksgiving upon my lips, I flung my body forward, and lay, breathlessand half-fainting, partly in and partly out of the unglazed window.
After recovering myself a little, I raised myself into a somewhat moresecure and comfortable position, and took a good look round me.
It was still as dark as ever--a circumstance at which I greatlyrejoiced, since it would still take a considerable amount of time tomake good my escape--but my eyes had by this time become so accustomedto the darkness that I was able to discern with some degree of clearnesssuch objects as happened to be in my immediate vicinity; and the firstthing I noticed was that there was another window at no great distancefrom me, but it was pierced in the _end_ wall of the building, andconsequently overlooked the piece of ground which I took to be acemetery. The next thing which attracted my attention was a sort ofledge about a foot wide on the inner side of the wall, which hadapparently, at some time or other in the history of the building,supported a floor. This ledge seemed to offer an easy and safe approachto the other window; and I at once scrambled in through the openingwherein I was perched, and, lowering myself cautiously down on theinside, soon had the satisfaction of finding my feet firmly planted onthe ledge. Somewhat restored in strength, and my nerves steadied by myshort rest, I set forward once more; and at length, without muchdifficulty, gained the other window.
Peering anxiously out through it, to see what facilities might exist forenabling me to effect a descent, I was overjoyed to find that the time-worn wall was covered with a thick growth of ivy. A descent by means ofthis was, after my perilous climb and passage along the face of thewall, a mere trifle; and in a couple of minutes more I was standing,safe and sound, in the burial-ground, and _outside_ the boundaries of myprison. I wasted no time in looking about me; but rapidly crossing theenclosure, and stumbling over the graves as I went, I soon reached ahigh railing, which was easily surmounted, when I found myself in a darkand lonely road, bounded on one side by a wall and on the other by asteep descent thickly planted with trees.
Pausing here for a moment, I rapidly recalled to mind the route by whichI had arrived at the barracks on the previous day, and was by this meansenabled to decide upon the direction which I ought to take in order toreach the harbour. This point settled, I stepped quickly out; and aftertwo or three turns and windings, found myself in a street which Iremembered passing through before.
The rain was still pouring down in torrents, and not a soul was to beseen in any direction, nor a sound heard; and if any one had seen meflitting noiselessly along the silent and deserted street, I shouldassuredly have been taken for a washed-out ghost, for I had left myboots behind, and my feet gave only a faint, scarcely audible, pit-paton the flooded causeway.
Half an hour of sharp walking brought me down to the harbour; and I atonce proceeded to the slipway where I had moored the boat on theprevious night. The previous night? Ay; it was only some twenty-fourhours since I had entered Bastia; but it seemed as though I had beenthere at least a month.
The boat was still there, with several others; and as my own safety wasjust then of more importance to me than any one else's convenience, Idid not hesitate, on finding a much smaller and lighter boat among them,to help myself to her.
Casting the little craft adrift, I shipped the oars and paddledleisurely down the harbour until I approached the pierheads, when,noiselessly laying in my oars, I shipped one of them in the notch at thestern; and, sheering close in under the walls of the pier from which Ihad been hailed on the previous night, I sculled gently out to the opensea. I almost held my breath until I had gone far enough to lose sightof the pier altogether in the darkness, when I once more shipped my oarsand pulled steadily out toward a line of twinkling lights whichindicated the position of the fleet.
The dawn was just breaking, grey, cheerless, and chill, as I reached thecutter and stepped in on deck over her low bulwarks, wet to the skin,nerveless from exhaustion and hunger, and with my feet, elbows, andknees lacerated and bleeding from my battle with the rough stone wallsof my prison.