Part 15 (1/2)
The darkness of the dungeon was too profound for Phil to detect that glance; nevertheless he must have guessed at it, for he replied:
”No, my son, I don't think anything of the sort; I know! Don't ask me how I know, for I cannot tell you; but the knowledge is nevertheless here,” tapping his forehead. ”Keep up your courage, youngster,” he continued. ”Those chains are nothing. Neither chains nor stone walls can long hold in restraint the man who is destined to be free; and I tell you that neither you nor I are doomed to die at the hands of the Spaniard. More I cannot tell you; for although I am as certain as I am of my own existence that we shall escape, my foreknowledge is not clear enough to enable me to say how that escape is going to be effected.”
”I wish I felt half as confident as you seem to do about it,” grumbled d.i.c.k. ”At present it appears to me that nothing short of a miracle can help us. But--well, we shall see.”
The lad's pessimism seemed to be fully justified when, on the following day, the pair were once more released from the chains that confined them to the wall, and were summoned by their jailer to follow him. They obeyed the summons with alacrity, each of them animated by a secret hope that an opportunity might present itself for them to break away from their custodian and effect their escape from the building, and eventually from the city; but this hope was nipped in the bud when, immediately outside the door of the dungeon, an armed guard, consisting of half a dozen soldiers and a corporal, were seen to be awaiting them.
Evidently, the moment for escape was not yet.
To the surprise of both, when the prisoners arrived at the top of the flight of stone steps leading from the dungeon they found that, instead of being again conducted along the pa.s.sage which led to the Governor's quarters, as on the previous day, they were marched along another corridor, and presently they found themselves in the street. But even now there was no encouragement for them to attempt to escape, because, besides being hemmed in by their escort of half a dozen soldiers, the entire party were surrounded by a gaping, scowling, execrating mob of ragged, unwashed ruffians, apparently the sc.u.m of the city, who would have effectually frustrated any attempt on the part of the Englishmen to break away from their guard and take to their heels; indeed if one might have judged from the expression of their coa.r.s.e, brutal features, and the remarks which fell from their lips, nothing would have pleased them better than for the prisoners to have made such an attempt, since it would have afforded the mob a legitimate excuse for hunting the pair to death. Nor were the prisoners permitted to remain very long in suspense with regard to their destination; for when presently the soldiers wheeled their charge into a certain street a loud murmur swept through the accompanying mob of--”Heretics! they are heretics, and are being taken to the Inquisition!”
So indeed it proved; for some five minutes later they arrived before a big, gloomy, jail-like building, constructed of great blocks of stone, and having a number of exceedingly small apertures in the wall, each aperture being guarded by iron bars of quite unnecessary thickness. The entrance to this place was a great gateway some twelve feet wide and nearly twice as high, fitted with a pair of enormously solid wooden doors, so heavy that each leaf was fitted with a roller running upon a quadrant rail let into the pavement to facilitate opening. But it soon became evident that these ponderous gates were only opened on special occasions; for when, having halted the little party, the corporal in charge tugged at a handle attached to a chain which hung down from an aperture in the wall, and a bell was heard to clang somewhere in the far interior of the building, a small wicket cut in one of the big gates was presently thrown open by an individual in the garb of a lay brother, and the soldiers with their prisoners were invited to pa.s.s through it.
The party now found themselves in a lofty, vaulted pa.s.sage, some twenty-five feet in length, the farther end of which opened upon a paved courtyard surrounded by cloisters surmounted by lofty buildings ma.s.sively constructed of the same dark-grey stone as the building through which they had just pa.s.sed, and, like it, provided with windows strongly protected by ma.s.sive iron bars, only instead of being all small, as were the windows in the exterior walls, some of those which looked out upon the courtyard were of very considerable dimensions. At the opposite side of the courtyard, facing the pa.s.sage through which the party had just pa.s.sed, was another door, giving admission to what appeared to be the main building, and to this they were now conducted by the lay brother, who, having unlocked the door, threw it open and bade them enter the big, gloomy cavern-like, ill-lighted hall which now stood revealed. Once inside this place, the prisoners were delivered over to the custody of a huge, brawny brute in the shape of a man who, from the fact that he bore a bunch of big keys attached to his belt, was no doubt the jailer of the inst.i.tution. Then a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man in the garb of a priest stepped forward, scanned the two prisoners attentively, carefully compared their appearance with the description of them contained in a doc.u.ment, which the corporal handed to him, signed the doc.u.ment and returned it to the corporal, dismissed him and his followers, and waved the jailer to lead his charges away, which the fellow immediately did, in morose silence. Their way lay down a long, narrow corridor, having doors opening out of it at intervals on either side; and at the precise moment when the prisoners arrived opposite one of these doors a long-drawn wail, rising to a piercing shriek, rang out from behind it, causing their flesh to creep upon their bones with horror, so eloquent of keen, excruciating, almost unendurable physical anguish was the sound.
The jailer, who was leading the way, glanced over his shoulder at his prisoners with a smile of such gloating, Satanic suggestiveness and cruelty on his heavy features as the cry pealed forth that, on the instant, the feeling of pa.s.sive repugnance with which the two Englishmen had thus far regarded the fellow was converted into fierce, hot, active, unreasoning hatred; for the fraction of a second they glanced questioningly into each other's eyes, then, each reading in that lightning glance the thought of the other, the pair flung themselves upon the fellow. And while d.i.c.k, exerting all his giant strength, pinned the man's arms to his sides, and at the same time, by a deft movement of his left foot, tripped the fellow up so that he crashed violently forward upon his face on the stone pavement of the pa.s.sage, Phil clasped the man's throat with his two hands, compressing his windpipe in such a vice-like grip that it was utterly impossible for the fellow to utter the slightest sound, and thus locked together, the three went down in a bunch under the impetus of the sudden attack, the jailer being undermost. The hard pavement seemed to fairly ring with the violent impact of the man's skull upon it, and the next instant d.i.c.k felt the fellow's tense muscles relax as though the violence of the blow had either partially or wholly stunned him, whereupon the youngster, still acting upon an impulse that seemed to emanate from somewhere outside himself, pushed Phil on one side, flung himself in a kneeling posture upon the prostrate jailer's shoulders, and, grasping the man by the hair with both hands, pulled up the fellow's head and dashed it furiously upon the pavement again thrice, after which the victim lay silent, inert, to all appearance dead.
”Roll him over, quick, and unbuckle his belt; we must have his keys,”
hissed Phil in d.i.c.k's ear, and before five seconds had pa.s.sed the two Englishmen were on their feet standing over their victim, while Phil rapidly examined the keys, one after the other. Quickly he selected one that showed signs of more frequent wear than the others, and then glanced keenly about him. They were near the far end of the corridor, which ended in a wall lighted by a fair-sized window, and there were only four more doors to be pa.s.sed, two on either side, before the end of the corridor was reached.
”Stay here until I beckon you, and then bring the man to me,” whispered Phil, and darted off to the end of the corridor, leaving d.i.c.k to mount guard over the prostrate body of the jailer. Rapidly, yet with the utmost coolness, Phil tried the key which he had selected in the lock of one of the farther doors. It slid in, turned, and the door swung open.
A single glance sufficed to a.s.sure Phil that the door was that of a cell, and that the cell was unoccupied, whereupon he beckoned d.i.c.k, who hoisted the unconscious jailer upon his shoulders, bore him to the cell, and flung him unceremoniously upon the heap of straw which was apparently intended to serve as a bed.
”Now, the belt, quick,” whispered Phil, who had followed, gently closing the door behind him; and, rolling the still insensible body over on its face, the pair bent over it and with deft fingers contrived to fasten the ankles and wrists of their victim together in such a fas.h.i.+on, that the more the man struggled the tighter would he draw the ligature. Then using the formidable-looking knife which the man had worn suspended from his belt, they formed a gag by cutting strips from their skin clothing and wrapping it round the largest key of the bunch, which they detached from the chain and inserted in their victim's mouth, thus rendering it as impossible for him to cry out as it was for him to move. Having disposed of the jailer in such a fas.h.i.+on that he would not be likely to give trouble for the next hour or two, the pair left the cell, closed and locked the door behind them, and stood listening intently to ascertain whether the sounds of the recent struggle had attracted attention.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE INQUISITION AT CUZCO.
For perhaps half a minute the pair stood outside the cell door, listening with all their ears, but not the slightest sound broke the silence which seemed to pervade the whole of the vast building. Then, from somewhere in the far distance, there came the sound of a door being closed, and almost at the same instant a quavering cry, rising to a long-drawn shriek of agony, again pealed forth from behind that awful door a few paces along the corridor.
”For mercy's sake, what is it?” whispered d.i.c.k, with ashen lips.
”Surely such sounds can never be human?”
”They are, though!” replied Phil in a low, tense whisper. ”They are the cries of some poor soul under the torture--'being put to the question'
as these fiends of Inquisitors express it. Oh! if I could but lay my hands upon one of them, I would--but come along, lad; we must not dally here. If we are again taken after what we have done our fate will be-- well, something that won't bear thinking of!” Then, seizing d.i.c.k by the arm and dragging the lad after him, Stukely proceeded softly on tiptoe along the corridor.
They had arrived within a yard of the door from behind which those dreadful sounds had emanated when it suddenly opened and a tall, dark man emerged, clad in a long black habit girt about his waist with a cord of knotted rope; his features were partially obscured by the hood of the garment, which he wore drawn over his head so that it stood up in a sort of peak, and wearing round his neck a ma.s.sive gold chain, from which a gold crucifix depended. His back happened to be toward them, and he had closed and latched the door behind him before he turned and saw the two Englishmen within arm's length of him. For a second he stood motionless, regarding the two wild-looking figures with blank amazement; then a look of mingled terror and anger leapt into his eyes, and it was evident that he was about to open his mouth and shout an alarm. But the cry never pa.s.sed his lips, for in that instant Stukely was upon him with the silent, irresistible bound of a jaguar, and in the next he was dragging wildly at the Englishman's hands to tear them away from his throat. Nevertheless he might as well have striven to force his way through the solid masonry of the adjoining wall as to tear away those two relentless thumbs that were compressing his windpipe and choking the life out of him, and presently he grew black in the face, his eyes rolled upward until only the whites of them were visible, his grip on Phil's wrists relaxed and gave way, his arms fell limp to his sides, his knees yielded, and he sank slowly to the ground, or rather, was lowered to it by Stukely, who still maintained his remorseless grip upon the other's throat, kneeling upon one knee beside the now prostrate body.
Presently, however, Phil rose to his feet, and with his eyes still fixed upon the body of the priest, whispered to d.i.c.k:
”I would fain break the fellow's neck, and so in some sort avenge that poor soul in there; but we have no time for vengeance now. We must be clear of this accursed building before that villain revives or our fate is sealed; so come along, lad.” Therewith the pair resumed their pa.s.sage along the corridor.
A few seconds later they found themselves back in the great, gloomy entrance hall of the building, with not a soul in sight in any direction. Phil came to a halt.
”Now, where is that lay brother who admitted us?” he whispered to d.i.c.k.
”We must have him, or rather, his keys; for without them we cannot get out of the place.”
”I believe,” whispered d.i.c.k in reply, ”he went in there”--indicating a door--”after he had let out the corporal and his guard.”