The String of Pearls 138The Progress of the Operations to Escape from Newgate
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 138
The Progress of the Operations to Escape from Newgate
PrestEnglish
"Who's there? Who are you?" cried Todd.
"The deuce!" said a voice, from the adjoining cell. "Sold at last, after all my trouble. Confound you, why didn't you speak before, and save me the last hour's work?"
"What do you mean?" cried Todd. "I am a desperate man. Do not tamper with me. Do you belong to the prison, or do you not?"
"I belong to the prison! I should think not. Don't you?"
"Oh, no--no--no--no."
"Why, you don't mean to say that you are a prisoner?"
"I am, indeed, and condemned to die."
"All's right then. Bravo! This is capital. I thought I was in the end cell, do you know, and that by working through the wall by the assistance of Providence always--Bah! I can't get out of the old trade. I mean to say, that I thought I was working through a wall that would have taken me into one of the corridors of Newgate, and then there would have been a chance of getting off, you know."
"I do not know, and did not know," said Todd; "but if there be really any chance of escape, I am a desperate man, and will risk anything for it. Only say that you will help me."
"Help you? Of course I will. Do you think I am in love with these cold walls? No, I will get a light in a moment, and we can then have a look at each other. Are you in fetters?"
"I was, but I have a file, and have succeeded in freeing myself from them completely. Are you?"
"Yes, but I have muffled them with some pieces of my clothing that I have torn up for the purpose, and please the Lord they will make no noise."
Todd was rather amazed at the religious expressions of the other prisoner; but he forbore to make any remark concerning them, and as something had been said about getting a light, he resolved to wait patiently until it was procured, when he would be able to see who it was that chance had so very strangely thrown him into companionship with.
"You see," added the other prisoner, "a religious lady left me some tracts, and as I told her they did not allow light here, she was kind enough to smuggle me in some phosphorous matches, in case in the night I should wish to read."
"Very kind of her," said Todd.
"Oh, very. Let us praise the--Bother, I shall never get out of the habit of chaunting, I do believe."
In a moment, now, a faint blue light illumed the cell adjoining to Todd's, and as the religious lady had been kind enough to bring some little wax ends of candles, the prisoner lit one, and placing it upon the ledge left by the displaced brick in the wall, he put his face close to it, and looked at Todd.
Todd did the same thing, and looked at him.
"Humph," said the prisoner. "They are not going to hang you for your beauty, whoever you are, my friend."
"Nor you," said Todd, who was a little stung by this cool remark, "for I must say a more villanous looking countenance than yours I never saw in all my life."
"Then you certainly never looked in a glass."
"Hark you, my friend," said Todd. "If we are to aid each other in getting out of Newgate, it will not be by railing at each other through a square hole in the wall of our cells. We had better leave all remarks about our looks to other folks, and at once set to work about what is much more important, namely, breaking our way out of this most detestable of all places."
"Truly," said the other; "you speak wisdom, and the Lord--Pho! The deuce take it, when shall I get rid of the cant of the conventicle? My dear sir, you see before you a man who has been a great victim."
"What is your name?"
"Lupin they used to call me. The Reverend Josiah Lupin."
"Ah," said Todd. "I heard something of your case. I believe you murdered a woman, did you not?"
"Why, my friend," said Mrs. Oakley's old acquaintance, for indeed it was no other, "I don't mind confessing to you, that a woman met with a slight accident at my place, and they say I did it. But now that I have been so candid, pray who are you?"
"They call me Todd."
The Reverend Mr. Lupin screwed up his mouth, and whistled.
"Humph," he said. "The religious lady only this morning told me all about you. You used to polish the people off in your barber's shop, and then make them into pork pies, I believe?"
"Ha! ha!" said Todd.
"And you had a charming assistant in the shape of a lady, named Lovett, I have been informed, who used to help you to scrape the bones of the poor devils who had only just slipped in for a shave, and by no means expected such a scrape."
"Ha! ha!" said Todd.
"Stop a bit," said Mr. Lupin, "don't come that sort of laugh again. It don't sound at all pleasant. Well, I think we may manage to get out of Newgate, do you know, by a little hard work, if you are willing; but mind you, I don't want to be made a pork or a veal pie of, if you please."
"I never ate them myself," said Todd, "so there is no temptation; but I sincerely hope, my friend, that you do not believe one word of the many calumnies that have been heaped upon my character?"
"Oh, dear no; and you, too, are well aware that I am the most falsely accused and innocent clergyman that ever lived."
"Perfectly."
"My dear, sir, you are a very reasonable man, and I don't see any reason on earth that we should not be capital friends from this moment. Just help me to move another of these stones and I shall be able to creep through the opening into your cell."
Todd very kindly assisted the Reverend Mr. Lupin, and in the course of a few minutes, another of these large square blocks of stone that formed the wall of the cell being removed, he was able to creep through the aperture with the assistance of Todd.
"All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend, I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your fetters, and git rid of mine."
"Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is everything."
"It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything until I am free of these confounded irons."
They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like Todd, he stood so far free from restraint.
"Now," he said, "I have some first-rate picklocks, and if providence--Tush! tush! I mean if we are lucky, we shall get on capitally. The next thing we have to do is, to get out of here, and by far the shortest way is to work through the wall. Have you any other tools beside the files, for they are not much use now to us?"
"Yes, a chisel."
"A chisel? Oh, my friend, you are indeed a wonderful man. A chisel? What may not be done with a chisel! A strong, good chisel, too. Oh, if we do not chisel our way out of Newgate now, it will be very hard indeed. Come, you shall see an old hand at work. Perhaps you have not had much experience at prison-breaking?"
"Certainly not," said Todd.
"Well, this will be a good lesson to you. Now you will see how nicely I will get one of these old square blocks of stone out of its place."
Todd smiled grimly. Perhaps he thought he could have given the Reverend Josiah Lupin a good lesson in some things; but at that time he was only too happy to meet with a companion who promised such great things in the way of immediate escape.
Certainly Mr. Lupin showed great dexterity in handling the chisel, with which he had been furnished by Todd; and in a much less space of time than any one would have thought the work could have been performed in, he had loosened the stone in the wall that he wished to dislodge.
"Let us both push it," he said, "and we shall get it through easily."
"But its fall will make an alarm," said Todd.
"Oh, no. The distance is too short, and it will go down easy. Now for it."
They pressed upon the stone both of them, and by a skilful joggling movement, Lupin got it to move along until it was beyond its centre of gravity, and then, with a heavy bump, down it went on the other side. They both now paused for some moments, and spoke not a word, for they were anxious to discover if the fall of the stone into the passage beyond the cells had made any noise sufficient to attract the attention of the prison officials.
All was still.
"It's as right as possible," said Lupin. "They are asleep, the greater part of them. The pretended vigilance in this place, and the sleepless watchfulness, is all a fudge. Turnkeys, and police officers, and Governors of Newgate, are but flesh and blood, and they will take things easy if they can."
"You are quite a man of the world," said Todd.
"Oh, yes; I have seen a little of it. But I say, Master Todd, deal candidly with me now. Have you not some secret hoard of cash, upon which we can make ourselves comfortable, when we get out of this mousetrap? I have not a penny piece; but you ought to have something, I should say. I don't mean to say but that I had money, but it was not hidden, and the police have got hold of that. If I were acquitted, they kindly said they would let me have it. But if found guilty, of which they did not entertain the smallest doubt, I could not want it."
"Curses on them!" said Todd; "they had enough of mine to have made us both rich men--very rich men. Oh, that I had been off a month ago!"
"Don't fret about that. We are all in the hands of a gracious provi--Psha! I am forgetting again. Whatever you do, Todd, in this world, don't turn parson to a parcel of old women, for the phraseology will stick to you as long as you live, if you do. But come--tell me now. You do know where to lay your hand upon money?"
Todd thought that it would be very indiscreet to say no to this little proposition, so with a nod and a smile he replied--
"Only a few hundreds. That's all."
"A few hundreds? That is a pretty good all, and will do very well indeed, my dear friend. Is it an understanding that we go halves?"
"Quite, quite."
"Then, if we don't get out of the stone-jug pretty soon, it will be a strange thing to me. Now let us work away like bricks, and we will show them that two determined men can laugh at their bolts, and bars, and stone walls."
"How confident you are," said Todd. "You surely forget that we must go through much, before we can see the outside of the walls of this dreadful place. I wish I could be as sure of the result as you are, or as you seem to be."
"It is one-half the battle to make sure; there goes another of the stones. Now follow me through this opening in the wall. It leads to a passage from which we can reach one of the smaller inner courts; and from that we shall get on through the chapel to the Governor's house, and if we can't get out there, it's a bad case."
Mr. Lupin, who had, in a great measure, now that he no longer had any sanctified character to keep up, thrown of his timid nature, ventured to scramble through the opening in the wall, and he assisted Todd to follow him.
They both now stood in a narrow vaulted passage, and then they paused again for several minutes to listen if any noise in the prison gave intimation that any one was stirring; but everything was perfectly still, and so death-like was the silence, that, but that they well knew to the contrary, they might have supposed that they were the only living persons within that gloomy pile of building.
The little bit of wax candle that had been brought to Lupin by the pious lady, and which he had lit in his own cell, for the purpose, at first, of having a good look at Todd, was now upon the point of going out; but he was very well provided with wax candle-ends, and he speedily lighted another, as he said in a tone of irony--
"The sheriffs will write a letter of threats to the pious lady, when they find how much she aided us in escaping."
"They ought," said Todd. "We will pray for her."
Lupin laughed, as he with a light step now crept along the vaulted passage, and reached a massive door at the end of it, up and down which he passed the light several times. Then he muttered to himself--
"Good! Only the lock, and it will need to be a good one if it resist me. I used to be rather an adept at this sort of thing."
"Then you are," said Todd, "a professional--"
He paused, for he did not like to say thief; but Lupin himself added the word, cracksman, and Todd nodded.
"Yes," added Lupin, "I was a cracksman, but I got known, so I thought the chapel dodge would suit me, and it did for a time, and would for some time longer, but that the little accident of which you have heard something took place in the chapel, and that idiot Mrs. Oakley found me out. Ah! you never after all can be a match for a crafty old woman. They will have you at some moment when you least expect it. She regularly sold me."
