Adventure stories; Fugitives from justice -- Fiction
In very truth there was no window, though I prayed as fervently for one
as it had been a glimpse of paradise, but I was bound to cozen the
old man into effort for his own life and for mine. What I had from the
higher building taken for the glow of skylights had been really the
light of windows on the top flat of the other prison block, and its
roof was wholly unbroken. At least I had made up my mind to that with
a despair benumbing when I touched wood. My fingers went over it in the
dark with frantic eagerness. It was a trap such as we had come out of at
the other block, but it was shut. Before the priest could come up to me
and suffer the fresh horror of disappointment I put my weight upon it,
and had the good fortune to throw it in. The flap fell with a shriek of
hinges and showed gaping darkness. We stretched upon the tiles as close
as limpets and as silent. Nothing stirred within.
“A garden,” said he in a little, “as sweet as ever bean grew in, with
the rarest plum-tree; and now I am so cold.”
“I could be doing with some of your complaint,” said I; “as for me, I'm
on fire. Please heaven, you'll be back in the garden again.”
I lowered myself within, followed by the priest, and found we were
upon the rafters. A good bit off there was a beam of light that led us,
groping, and in an imminent danger of going through the plaster, to
an air-hole over a little gallery whose floor was within stretch as I
lowered myself again.
Father Hamilton squeezed after me; we both looked over the edge of the
gallery, and found it was a chapel we were in!
“_Sacré nom!_” said the priest and crossed himself, with a genuflexion
to the side of the altar.
“Oh, Lord! Paul,” he said, whispering, “if 'twere the Middle Ages, and
this were indeed a sanctuary, how happy was a poor undeserving son of
Mother Church! Even Dagobert's hounds drew back from the stag in St.
Denys.”
It was a mean interior, as befitted the worship of the _misérables_ who
at times would meet there. A solemn quiet held the place, that seemed
wholly deserted; the dim light that had shown through the air-hole and
guided us came from some candles dripping before a shrine.
“Heaven help us!” said the priest. “I know just such another.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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