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The third one of the 72nd men, the one with a forage cap, chanced to be posted at the point of the wall that was not overlooked and, after he had repeated the formula agreed upon, Terence said to him:

"You are one of those lads who sent me a message that you would assist me, if you could."

"That is so, mon Colonel. You assisted us when we were somewhat hotly pressed, and tis but good comradeship to repay such a service, if one can. We have been thinking it over and, although it would not be difficult for you to escape from here, we do not see how you are to be got out of the town."

"That is the difficulty I see myself," Terence replied. "We could not hope to pass through the circle of fortifications and, were we to take a boat and make off, we should be pursued and recaptured, to a certainty; for of course, as soon as our escape was known, there would be a hot search made for us.

"There are two things needed. The first is disguises. The second is a shelter, until the search for us slackens, after which it would be comparatively easy for us to make off."

"What sort of disguises would you want, monsieur?"

"If we go by land, peasant dresses; if by water, those of fishermen. We have money, which I can give you to purchase these."

"That we could do for you, monsieur, but the hiding place is more difficult. However, that we will see about. I am a native here, and have of course many friends and acquaintances in the town. When we have made our plans I will let you know. I will manage that, when it is my turn for duty, I will always be posted here; and then I can tell you what is arranged, and give you whatever is necessary to aid you to make your escape. My cousin, Jean Monier, will shut his eyes; but he will not do anything himself, and I think that he is right, for of course he will be the first to be suspected.

"As for us, it will be no matter. Everyone knows how you stood by us, and they will guess that some of us have had a hand in it; but they will never find out which of us was chiefly concerned. I expect that soon we shall all be taken off this prison duty, for which we shall not be sorry, and sent back to Spain with the first detachment that comes along; but after all, one is not so badly off in Spain, and certainly Madrid is a good deal more lively than Bayonne."

"I suppose," Terence said, nodding towards their guard, who was standing a few paces away gazing over the country, "he knows nothing about this."

"No, monsieur, we have kept it to just the men of our own regiment; but all feel the same about your being kept a prisoner, and there is no fear of his telling anyone that you spoke to one man more than another, when it is found out that you have escaped. Still, it might be as well that you should not speak to me again, until I tell you that it is a fine morning; for although all our own men can be trusted, if any of the regular prison warders was to notice anything he would not be slow in mentioning it, in hope of getting promotion."

Accordingly Terence made a point of only passing along that part of the wall once a day, and merely saying a word to the soldier, as he did to others, on the occasions when he was on duty.

Ten days later the man replied to his salutation by remarking that it was a "fair day." It happened that the man told off to guard them on this occasion was another of the 72nd; there was therefore nothing to be feared from him.

"I have arranged the matter, monsieur," the soldier said. "My sister's husband, Jules Varlin, will shelter you. He is a fisherman, and you can be safely hidden in the loft where he keeps his nets and gear. He is an honest fellow, and my sister has talked him over into lending his aid so far and, although he has not promised it yet, I think we shall get him to go down the river with you, so as to reply if you are challenged. You can put him ashore a mile or two along the coast.

"Now as to the escape, monsieur. Here is a sharp saw. With it you can cut round the lock of your door. There are two outside bolts, whose position I dare say you have noticed; by cutting a hole close to each of them, you can get your hand through and draw them. Here is a short-handled augur, to make a hole for the saw to go through.

"There are four sentries at night, in the courtyard. We shall manage to get all our men on duty, tomorrow evening. Our sergeant is a good fellow and, if he guesses anything, will hold his tongue; for I have heard him say, more than once, that it is monstrous that you should be kept a prisoner.

"Therefore you need not be afraid of them. They will take care to keep their eyes shut. I shall be on sentry duty here, and will get the disguises up, and a rope. When you have got down I shall let the rope drop, and you will carry it off and take it away with you; thus there will be no evidence where you descended.

"Here are two sharp files, with which you can cut through the bars of your window, and remove some of them; then it will not be known whether you escaped that way, or down the stairs; and the men on sentry in the courtyard at the bottom cannot be blamed because, for aught the governor will know, you may have gone out through this window into the other courtyard, and got over the wall on that side; so they would have no proof as to which set of men were negligent.

"No doubt we shall all be talked to, and perhaps kept in the guardroom a few days, but that won't hurt us; and soldiers are scarce enough, so they will hardly keep ten or twelve men long from duty. There are not enough in the town, now, to furnish all the guards properly; so you need not worry about us.

"I will give you instructions how to find my sister's house, tomorrow night. You must not escape until you hear the bell strike midnight. Our party will relieve guard at that hour. You see, we have four hours on duty and, as you may have gone either on the first watch, the second, or the third, they will not be able to pitch on us more than on the others; so that, in fact, the blame will be divided between forty of us. You will, of course, put on your disguises over your uniforms, and destroy your clothes, when you get to Jules' house."

"I thank you very warmly, my good fellow, for running all this risk for me. Here are two hundred francs to pay for the disguises."

"That will be more than enough," the soldier said. "Jules put it down at a hundred and fifty."

"Things may cost more than he expects. At any rate, please hand these to him. I can arrange matters with him when I see him.

"Then at about a quarter past twelve we will sally out. We will walk on now, lest any of the warders should happen to notice that we have been a long time on this part of the wall."

Ryan had understood but little of what was happening and, when Terence told him what had been arranged, he exclaimed:

"Well, after this, Terence, I will never say a word against a Frenchman. Here are these soldiers going to run a lot of risk, and a certainty of getting into a row for us, merely because we did the best we could against those wretched Spaniards; and without getting any reward whatever, for they must know that prisoners are not likely to have any money to spare about them."

"Quite so, Ryan; and what is more, if I had a hundred pounds in my pocket, I would not offer them a penny; for certainly they would take it as an insult if I did so. They would feel that it would be a sort of bribe and, though they are ready to help us as comrades, I am sure they would not do it for money. I sincerely hope they won't get into any serious row. As he said, authorities won't be able to tell which party was on guard at the time we went, and they could hardly put the whole of them under arrest–at least, not keep them under arrest. No doubt there will be a close search in the town for us, but there is little fear of our being discovered.

"Our dangers won't begin until we are fairly afloat. I know nothing about sailing. I have rowed a boat many a time, at Athlone; but as for sailing, I have never once tried it."

"Nor have I," Ryan said. "But I suppose there is no difficulty about it. You put up the sail, and you take hold of the rope at the corner, and off you go."

"It sounds all right, Dicky, and I dare say we shall manage to get along, somehow; but these things are not half as easy as they look. Now we had better have four or five hours' sleep this afternoon, for I expect it will take us the best part of the night to file through the bars. You must not cut quite through them, but just leave them so that we can finish them off in a short time, tomorrow night."

"But the warder might notice them?"

"He is not likely to look very sharply, Dicky; but at the same time, it is just as well not to put too great a strain on his loyalty. We will keep a piece of bread over from our supper, work it up into a sort of paste, fill up any cuts we make, and rub it over with dirt till it well matches the bars. Certainly they have planned the affair capitally, so as to throw doubt as to which way we descended, and so divide the blame between as many of the sentries as possible."

It took four hours' work, that night, to get through the bars. They were most careful not to let any of the filings fall outside for, had any of them dropped into the courtyard below, they might well catch the eye of a warder; and in that case an examination of all the windows of the rooms above would certainly be made, at once. Before the warder's visit the next morning, the holes had been filled up with bread worked into a putty and smeared over with dust; which so nearly matched the bars that it could not be observed, except by a careful examination.

The next day they abstained from saying more than a passing word to any of the French soldiers. They waited, after being locked up for the night, for two or three hours; and then began their work at the door. The saw was a very narrow one and, when they had made a hole with the augur, they found no difficulty in cutting the wood; therefore they thought it was well to leave that for the last thing, and so betook themselves to their files, and soon removed enough of the bars to enable a man to crawl through. Then they returned to the door, and had cut round the lock, and made holes through which they could pass their hands to draw back the bolts, a short time before the clock struck twelve.

Then they went to the window, and listened. They heard the bells strike midnight, and then a stir below, as the sentries were relieved. Waiting for a few minutes, until all had become quiet again, they drew back the bolts, took off their shoes, and went noiselessly down the stairs.

The night was very dark and, although they could hear the tread of the sentries in the courtyard, they could not make out their figures. They crossed the yard, keeping as far as possible from the sentries. They had no doubt that all would happen as arranged; but there was, of course, the possibility that at the last moment some change might have been made; and it was, in any case, as well that the men there should be able to declare, honestly, that they had seen no one.

They were glad when they reached the archway leading to the stairs that led to the top of the wall. Mounting, they kept along by the parapet, stooping so that their figures should not show against the sky for, dark as it was below, they might have been noticed had they not done so. Presently they saw the sentry.

"Diable, messieurs!" he said in a low tone, as they came up to him, "you gave me a start. I was expecting you, but I did not hear your footsteps nor see you and, had you been enemies, you might very well have seized and disarmed me before I could give the alarm.

"Well, here are your clothes."

They soon pulled the blue canvas leggings over their breeches, and over these the high boots, in which their feet felt lost. A rough blouse and a fisherman's oilskin cap completed the disguise. They put their boots into the capacious pockets in the blouses, and were then ready to descend. They had left their shakos in their cell when they started.

While they had been putting on their clothes, the sentry had fastened the rope and lowered it down.

"We are ready now, Jacques," Terence said. "Goodbye, my good friend. We shall never forget the kindness that you have shown us, and shall remember with gratitude, all our lives, how a party of French soldiers were ready to show themselves good comrades to men who had fought by their sides, even though the two nations were at war with each other. We shall always feel a kindness towards the French uniform, in future; and if you or any of your comrades of the 72nd should chance to fall into British hands, and you can send word to me or to Mr. Ryan, I can promise you that we will do all we can to have you released at once and sent back, or to aid you in any other way."

"We have done but our duty to brave comrades," the soldier said.

"Now, as to where to find my cousin. You will go down that street below, and take the third turning on the right. That will lead you down to the wharves. Keep along by the houses facing them until you come to the fourth turning. It is a narrow lane, and there is a cabaret at each corner of it. My cousin's house is the twelfth on the left-hand side. He will be standing at the door. You will say to him as you pass, 'It is a dark night,' and he will then let you in.

"Don't walk as if you were in a hurry: fishermen never do that. It is not likely that you will meet anyone, but if you do, and he sees two fishermen hurrying, it will strike him as singular; and when there came news of two prisoners having escaped, he might mention the matter, which might lead to a search in the right quarter."

"Will you go first, Ryan, or shall I?" Terence said.

"Just as you like."

"Well, then, you may as well go, as then I can talk with this good fellow till it is my turn."

Ryan shook the soldier's hand heartily, took hold of the rope, slung himself over the parapet, and began the descent. Terence and the soldier leaned over, and watched him until they could no longer make out the figure with certainty. As soon as the tension on the rope slackened, Terence grasped Jacques' hand, said a few more words of thanks, and then followed his companion. As soon as he reached the ground he shook the rope and, a minute later, it fell on the ground beside him.

He coiled it up, and then they started down the street. Following the instructions that they had received, in ten minutes they reached the end of the lane.

"We were to throw away the rope, were we not?" Ryan said.

"Yes, but now we are here, there can be no use in our doing so. If a length of rope were found lying in the road, people would wonder who had thrown it away; besides, it is a good stout piece of new rope, and may be of use to the fisherman."

Counting the doors carefully as they went along, they came to the twelfth where, before they reached it, the red glow from a pipe showed that a man was standing outside.

"It is a dark night, mate," Terence said in a low tone, as he came up to him.

"That is right," the man replied; "come in."

He stood aside as they entered, closed the door behind them, and then lifted a piece of old canvas thrown over a lighted lantern.

Chapter 6: Afloat

Jules Varlin held the lantern above his head, and took a good look at his visitors.

"You will pass very well for young fishermen, messieurs," he said, "when you have dirtied your faces and hands a bit, and rubbed your hair the wrong way, all over your head. Well, come in here. My wife is waiting up to welcome you. It is her doing that you are here. I should not have agreed, but what can one do when a woman once sets her mind upon a thing?"

He opened a door. A woman rose from her seat. She was some years younger than her husband.

"Welcome, messieurs," she said. "We are pleased, indeed, to be able to return the kindness you showed to my brother."

The fisherman grunted.

"No, Jules," she said, "I won't have you say that you haven't gone willingly into this. You pretended not to, but I know very well that it was only because you like to be coaxed, and that you would have done it for Jacques' sake."

"Jacques is a good fellow," her husband replied, "and I say nothing against him; but I don't know that I should have consented, if it had not been for you and your bothering me."

"Don't you believe him, monsieur. Jules has a good heart, though he likes pretending that he is a bear.

"Now, monsieur, I have some coffee ready for you."

"I need not say, madam," Terence said, "how truly thankful we both are for your and your husband's kindness, shown to us strangers; and I sincerely hope that you will have no cause to regret it. You may be sure of one thing: that if we are recaptured, we shall never say how our escape was effected, nor where we were sheltered afterwards; and if, after the war is over, we can find an opportunity of showing how grateful we are for your kindness, we shall not miss the chance."

"We are but paying the service you rendered to Jacques, monsieur. He tells me that, if it had not been for the aid the British prisoners gave them, that probably those Spanish bandits would have captured the church during the night; and we know that they never show mercy to prisoners."

The coffee was placed on the table and, after drinking it, the fisherman led them to a low shed in the yard.

"We could have done better for you," he said apologetically, "but it is likely that they may begin a search for you, early in the morning. This yard can be seen from many houses round about, so that, were you to sleep upstairs, you might be noticed entering here in the morning; and it is better to run no risks. We have piled the nets on the top of other things. You will find two blankets for covering yourselves there. In the morning I will come in and shift things, so as to hide you up snugly."

"We shall do just as well on the nets as if we were in bed," Terence laughed. "We are pretty well accustomed to sleep on the hard ground."

"I think we are going to have some bad weather," the man remarked, as they settled themselves on the nets. "I hope it will be so, for then none of the boats will put out; and there will be no comments on my staying at home, instead of going out as usual.

"And now, good night, and good sleep to you!"

"He is an honest-looking fellow," Terence said, when he had gone out, "and I have no doubt what his wife says of him is true; but it is not surprising that he held back at first. It is not everyone that is prepared to run the risk of heavy punishment for the sake of his wife's relations.

"This is not by any means bad; these nets make a very comfortable bed."

The next morning, at daybreak, the fisherman came in with a can containing hot coffee, two great slices of bread, and tin cups.

"Now, messieurs, when you have drank that I will stow you away. We shifted most of the things yesterday, so as to make as comfortable a bed for you as may be."

The nets were pulled off; and a mass of sails, ropes, and other gear appeared underneath. One of the sails in the corner was pulled away, and showed a vacant space, some six feet long and four feet wide, extending down to the ground, which was covered by old nets.

"Now, messieurs, if you will get down there, I shall pile a couple of sacks over and throw the nets on the top, and there is no fear of your being disturbed. I will bring your meals in to you, and let you know what is doing in the town; but I shall not come in oftener than I can help. I shall leave the doors open, as usual."

They took their places in the hole, and the fisherman piled sails and nets over the opening. There was no occasion to leave any apertures for air, for the shed was roughly built, and there were plenty of openings between the planks of which it was constructed. They had, before he came in, divested themselves of their uniforms; and these the fisherman put into a kit bag and carried indoors; where his wife at once proceeded to cut them up, and thrust the pieces into the fire.

"It is a pity," she said regretfully, "but it would never do to leave them about. Think what a waistcoat I could have made for you, Jules, out of this scarlet cloth. With the gold buttons it would have been superb, and it would have been the envy of the quarter; but it would never do."

"I should think not, Marie. Burn the clothes up, and give me the buttons and gold lace. I will put them in a bag with some stones, and drop them into the river. The sooner we get rid of them, the better."

As soon as the things were put into a bag, he went out with with them. The wind was blowing strongly and, as he had predicted the night before, the clouds were flying fast, and there were many signs of dirty weather. He returned a couple of hours later.

"There is quite an excitement in the town, Marie," he said. "Everyone is talking about it. Two rascally English prisoners have escaped, and the soldiers say that they must be somewhere in the town, for that they could never have passed through the lines. Some gendarmes have been along the quays, inquiring if a boat has been missed during the night; but they all seem to be safe. Written notices have been stuck up warning everyone, on pain of the severest punishment, not to give shelter to two young men, in whatever guise they may present themselves. The gendarmes say that the military authorities are convinced that they must have received assistance from without."

For the next three days, indeed, an active search was kept up. Every house was visited by the gendarmes but, as there was no reason for suspecting one person more than another, there was no absolute search made of the houses; which indeed, in so large a town as Bayonne, would have been almost impossible to carry out effectually.

The fisherman reported each day what was going on.

"The soldiers are giving it up," he said, at the end of the third day. "I saw Jacques today for the first time. He tells me there was a tremendous row when your escape was discovered. The warder, and every soldier who had been on duty that night, were arrested and questioned. The warder was the one first suspected, on the ground that you must have had assistance from without. He said that if you had, he knew nothing about it; and that, as you knew all the soldiers of the prison guard, and as he had heard many of them say it was very hard, after fighting as you did on their behalf, that you should be kept prisoner, any of them might have furnished you with tools for cutting the door and filing the bars. This was so clear that he was released at once. The soldiers were kept for two days under arrest. This morning the governor himself came down to the prison, and the men under arrest were drawn up. He spoke to them very sharply, to begin with.

"'One or more of you is assuredly concerned in this matter. A breach of trust of this kind is punishable with death.'

"Then he stopped, and looked fiercely up and down the line, and went on in a different tone:

"'At the same time, I admit that some allowance is to be made for the crime, and I can understand that as soldiers you felt sympathy with soldiers who, although prisoners at the time, did not hesitate to cast in their lot with you, and to fight side by side with you. Still, a soldier should never allow private sentiments to interfere with his duty. I myself should have been glad, when you arrived here and I heard of what had happened, to have been able to place these British officers and soldiers in a ship, and to have sent them back to their own country; but that would have been a breach of my duty, and I was forced to detain them here as prisoners. Of course, if I could find out which among you have been concerned in this affair, it would be my duty to punish them–for there must have been more than one–severely. However, although I have done my best to discover this, I am not sorry, men, that I have been unable to do so; for although these men may have failed in their duties as soldiers, they have shown themselves true-hearted fellows to run that risk–not, I am sure, from any thought of reward, but to help those who had helped them.

"'You can all return to your duty, and I hope that you will, in future, remember that duty is the first thing with a soldier, and that he should allow no other feeling to interfere with it.'

"Jacques and his comrades are all satisfied that, although the general felt it was his duty to reprimand them, he was at heart by no means sorry that you had got off.

"The gendarmes are still making inquiries, but of course they have learned nothing. Nobody was about on the wharves at that time of night, and I don't think that they will trouble themselves much longer about it. They will come to believe that you must, somehow, have managed to get through the line of fortifications, and that you will be caught trying to make your way across the country.

"In another three or four days it will be quite safe for you to go down the river. For the first two days every boat that went down was stopped and examined, and some of the vessels were searched by a gunboat, and the hatches taken off; but I hear that no boats have been stopped today, so I fancy you will soon be able to go down without fear."

Although at night Terence and Ryan were able to emerge from their place of concealment, and walk up and down the little yard for two or three hours, they were heartily glad when, a week after their confinement, Jules told them that he thought they might start at daybreak, the next morning.

"Now, messieurs, if you will tell me what you want, I will buy the things for you."

They had already made out a list. It consisted of a nine-gallon breaker for water, a dozen bottles of cheap wine, thirty pounds of biscuits, and fifteen pounds of salt meat, which Jules's wife was to cook. They calculated that this would be sufficient to last them, easily, until they had passed along the Spanish coast to a point well beyond the towns garrisoned by the French, if not to Corunna itself.

"But how about the boat?" Terence asked, after all the other arrangements had been decided upon. "As I told you, we don't wish to take a boat belonging to anyone who would feel its loss; and therefore it must be a ship's boat, and not one of the fishermen's. If we had money to pay for it, it would be another matter; but we have scarcely enough now to maintain us on our way through Spain, and there are no means of sending money here when we rejoin our army."

"I understand that, monsieur; and I have been along the quay this morning taking a look at the boats. There are at least a dozen we could choose from; I mean ships' boats. Of course, many of the craft keep their boats hauled up at the davits or on deck, but most of them keep one in the water, so that they can row off to another ship or to the stairs. Some simply leave them in the water, because they are too lazy to hoist them up. That is the case, I think, with one boat that belongs to a vessel that came in, four days since, from the West Indies. It's a good-sized ship's dinghy, such as is used for running out warps, or putting a sailor ashore to bring off anything required. The other boats are better suited for a voyage, but they are for the most part too large and heavy to be rowed by two oars and, moreover, they have not a mast and sail on board, as this has. Therefore that is the one that I fixed my eye on.

"The ship is lying alongside, and there is not another craft outside her. The boat is fastened to her bowsprit, and I can take off my boots and get on board and drop into her, without difficulty; and push her along to the foot of some stairs which are but ten yards away. Of course, we will have the water and food and that bundle of old nets ready, at the top of the stairs, and we can be out into the stream five minutes after I have cut her loose. We must start just before daylight is breaking, so as to be off before the fishermen put out for, if any of these were about, they would at once notice that I have not got my own boat. At the same time I don't want to be far ahead of them, or to pass the gunboats at the mouth of the river in the dark, for that would look suspicious."

"And now, Jules, about yourself. Of course, I know well that no money could repay you for the kindness you have shown us, and your risking so much for strangers; and you know that we have not with us the means of making any return, whatever, for your services."

"I don't want any return, monsieur," the fisherman said. "I went into the matter a good deal against my will, because my wife had set her mind upon it; but since you came here I have got to have just as much interest in the matter as she has. I would not take a sou from you, now; but if, some day, when these wars are over, you will send a letter to Marie with some little present to her, just to show her that you have not forgotten us, it would be a great pleasure to us."

"That I will certainly do, Jules. It may be some time before there will be an opportunity of doing it, but you may be sure that we shall not forget you and your wife, or cease to be grateful for your kindnesses; and that, directly peace is made, or there is a chance in any other way of sending a letter to you, we will do so."

That evening Jacques paid a visit to his sister. He had abstained from doing so before, because he thought that the soldiers who were suspected of being concerned in the escape might all be watched; and that if any of them were seen to enter a house, a visit might be paid to it by the gendarmes. He did not come until it was quite dark, and made a long detour in the town before venturing to approach it. Before he entered the lane he took good care that no one was in sight.

When, after chatting for an hour, he rose to leave, Terence told him that when he wrote to his sister he should inclose a letter to him; as it would be impossible to write to him direct, for there would be no saying where he might be stationed. He begged him to convey the heartiest thanks of himself and Ryan to his comrades for the share they had taken in the matter.