THE PLAN OF ESCAPE.
Humphrey Armstrong sat gazing through the opening of his prison at the dark forest vistas and dreamed of England and its verdant fields and gold-cupped meadows.
The whole business connected with the Dells came back to him, and with it the figure of the handsome rustic fisher-girl standing as it were vividly before him, and with her his cousin, the cause of all the suffering.
"How strange it is," he thought again, "that I should be brought into contact with her brother like this! Poor fellow! more sinned against than sinning; and as for her--"
"Poor girl!"
There was a slight sound as of someone breathing hard, and the buccaneer stood before him.
He smiled gravely, and held out his hand; but Humphrey did not take it, and they remained gazing at each other for some few minutes in silence.
"Have you thought better of my proposals, Captain Armstrong?" said the buccaneer at last. "Are we to be friends?"
"It is impossible, sir," replied Humphrey, quietly. "After what has passed I grieve to have to reject your advances; but you must see that it can never be."
"I can wait," said the buccaneer, patiently. "The time will come."
Humphrey shook his head.
"Is there anything you want?"
"Yes," said Humphrey, sharply. "Liberty."
"Take it. It is in my hand."
"Liberty chained to you, sir! No. There, place me under no further obligations, sir. I will not fight against you; but pray understand that what you ask can never be."
"I can wait," said the buccaneer again, quietly, as he let his eyes rest for a few moments upon his prisoner's face, and then left the room.
Humphrey sprang up impatiently, and was about to pace the chamber like a wild beast in a cage when he heard voices in the corridor, and directly after Dinny entered. The man looked troubled and stood listening, then he stole to the curtain and went down the corridor, to stay away for quite a quarter of an hour before he returned.
"He's gone, sor, safe enough. Faix, captain, dear, I fale as if I ought to be hung."
"Hung, Dinny?"
"Yis, sor, for threachery to as good a friend as I iver had."
"What do you mean, Dinny?" cried Humphrey, eagerly.
"Mane, sor! Why, that all the grate min in the world, from Caesar down to Pater Donovan, have had their wake side. I've got mine, and I'm a fallen man."
"Speak out plainly," cried Humphrey, flushing.
"That's just what I'm doing, sor," said Dinny, with a soft smile. "It's Nature, sor. She was bad enough, and thin you helped her. Oh, there's no foighting agen it! It used to be so in Oireland. She says to the little birds in the spring--choose your partners, darlin's, she says, and they chose 'em; and she said the same to human man, and he chooses his."
"Oh, Dinny, if you hadn't quite such a long tongue!" cried Humphrey.
"Faix, it's a regular sarpint, sor, for length, and just as desaving; but as I was saying, what Nature says in owld Oireland in the spring she says out here in this baste of a counthry where there's nayther spring, summer, autumn, nor winther--nothing but a sort of moshposh of sunshine and howling thunderstorms."
"And--"
"Yis, sor, that's I'm a fallen man."
"And will you really help me to escape!"
"Whisht, sor! What are ye thinking about? Spaking aloud in a counthry where the parrots can talk like Christians and the threes is full of ugly little chaps, who sit and watch ye and say nothing, but howld toight wid their tails, and thin go and whishper their saycrets to one another, and look as knowing as Barny Higgins's pig."
"Dinny, will you speak sensibly?"
"Sinsibly! Why, what d'ye call this? Ar'n't I tellin' ye that it's been too much for me wid Black Mazzard shut up in his cage and the purty widow free to do as she plases; and sure and she plases me, sor, and I'm a fallen man."
"You'll help me?"
"Yis, sor, if ye'll go down on your bended knees and take an oath."
"Oath! What oath?"
"Niver to bethray or take part in annything agen Commodore Junk, the thruest, bravest boy that iver stepped."
"You are right, Dinny. He is a brave man, and I swear that I will not betray or attack him, come what may. Get me my liberty and the liberty of my men, and I'll be content. Stop! I cannot go so far as that; there are my men. I swear that I will not attack your captain without giving him due notice, that he may escape; but this nest of hornets must be burned out, and my men freed."
"Ah, well, we won't haggle about thrifles, sor. Swear this, sor:--Ye'll behave to the captain like a gintleman."
"I'll swear I will."
"Bedad, then, I'm wid ye; and there's one more favour I'll be asking ye, sor."
"What is it!"
"Whin we get safe home ye'll come and give Misthress Greenheys away."
"Yes, yes, Dinny. And now, tell me, what will you do?"
"Sure an' there's no betther way than I said before. I'll have an oi on a boat, and see that there's some wather and bishkits and a gun in her; and thin, sor, I'll set light to the magazine, for it'll be a rale plisure to blow up that owld gintleman as is always leering and grinning at me as much as to say, 'Och, Dinny, ye divil, I know all about the widdy, and first time ye go to see her I'll tell Black Mazzard, and then, 'ware, hawk!'"
"But when shall you do this?"
"First toime it seems aisy, sor."
"In the night?"
"Av coorse, sor."
"And how shall I know?"
"Hark at that, now! Faix, ar'n't I telling ye, sor, that I'll blow up the magazine! Sure an' ye don't pay so much attention to it when ye go to shleep that ye won't hear that?"