A Jacobite Exile

Seeing the stick in his hand he leaped up, exclaiming, "You young fool!" and sprang towards him.

He had scarce time to feel surprise, as Charlie quickly raised the club. It described a swift sweep, fell full on his head, and he dropped to the ground as if shot.

Charlie ran in again, seized a coil of rope, bound his hands and feet securely, and dragged him into the hut. Then he dashed some cold water on his face. The man opened his eyes, and tried to move.

"You are too tightly bound to move, Pauloff," he said. "I could have killed you if I had chosen, but I did not wish to. You have not been unkind to me, and I owe you no grudge; but tell your rascally employer that I will be even with him, someday, for the evil he has done me."

"You might as well have killed me," the man said, "for he will do so when he finds I let you escape."

"Then my advice to you is, be beforehand with him. You are as strong a man as he is, and if I were in your place, and a man who meant to kill me came into a lonely hut like this, I would take precious good care that he had no chance of carrying out his intentions."

Charlie then took two loaves of black bread and a portion of goat's flesh from the cupboard; found a bottle about a quarter full of coarse spirits, filled it up with water and put it in his pocket, and then, after taking possession of the long knife his captive wore in his belt, went out of the hut and closed the door behind him.

He had purposely moved slowly about the hut, as he made these preparations, in order that the Jew should believe that he was still weak; but, indeed, the effort of dragging the man into the hut had severely taxed his strength, and he found that he was much weaker than he had supposed.

The hut stood in a very small clearing, and Charlie had no difficulty in seeing the track by which the cart had come, for the marks of the wheels were still visible in the soft soil. He followed this until, after about two miles' walking, he came to the edge of the wood. Then he retraced his steps for a quarter of a mile, turned off, and with some difficulty made his way into a patch of thick undergrowth, where, after first cutting a formidable cudgel, he lay down, completely exhausted.

Late in the afternoon he was aroused from a doze by the sound of footsteps, and, looking through the screen of leaves, he saw his late jailers hurrying along the path. The charcoal burner carried a heavy axe, while the Jew, whose head was bound up with a cloth, had a long knife in his girdle. They went as far as the end of the forest, and then retraced their steps slowly. They were talking loudly, and Charlie could gather, from the few words he understood, and by their gestures, something of the purport of their conversation.

"I told you it was of no use your coming on as far as this," the Jew said. "Why, he was hardly strong enough to walk."

"He managed to knock you down, and afterwards to drag you into the house," the other said.

"It does not require much strength to knock a man down with a heavy club, when he is not expecting it, Conrad. He certainly did drag me in, but he was obliged to sit down afterwards, and I watched him out of one eye as he was making his preparations, and he could only just totter about. I would wager you anything he cannot have gone two hundred yards from the house. That is where we must search for him. I warrant we shall find him hidden in a thicket thereabouts."

"We shall have to take a lantern then, for it will be dark before we get back."

"Our best plan will be to leave it alone till morning. If we sit outside the hut, and take it in turns to watch, we shall hear him when he moves, which he is sure to do when it gets dark. It will be a still night, and we should hear a stick break half a mile away. We shall catch him, safe enough, before he has gone far."

"Well, I hope we shall have him back before Ben Soloman comes," the charcoal burner said, "or it will be worse for both of us. You know as well as I do he has got my neck in a noose, and he has got his thumb on you."

"If we can't find this Swede, I would not wait here for any money. I would fly at once."

"You would need to fly, in truth, to get beyond Ben Soloman's clutches," the charcoal burner said gruffly. "He has got agents all over the country."

"Then what would you do?"

"There is only one thing to do. It is our lives or his. When he rides up tomorrow, we will meet him at the door as if nothing had happened, and, with my axe, I will cleave his head asunder as he comes in. If he sees me in time to retreat, you shall stab him in the back. Then we will dig a big hole in the wood, and throw him in, and we will kill his horse and bury it with him.

"Who would ever be the wiser? I was going to propose it last time, only I was not sure of you then; but, now that you are in it as deep as I am–deeper, indeed, for he put you here specially to look after this youngster–your interest in the matter is as great as mine."

The Jew was silent for some time, then he said:

"He has got papers at home which would bring me to the gallows."

"Pooh!" the other said. "You do not suppose that, when it is found that he does not return, and his heirs open his coffers, they will take any trouble about what there may be in the papers there, except such as relate to his money. I will warrant there are papers there which concern scores of men besides you, for I know that Ben Soloman likes to work with agents he has got under his thumb. But, even if all the papers should be put into the hands of the authorities, what would come of it? They have got their hands full of other matters, for the present, and with the Swedes on their frontier, and the whole country divided into factions, who do you think is going to trouble to hunt up men for affairs that occurred years ago? Even if they did, they would not catch you. They have not got the means of running you down that Ben Soloman has.

"I tell you, man, it must be done. There is no other way out of it."

"Well, Conrad, if we cannot find this fellow before Ben Soloman comes, I am with you in the business. I have been working for him on starvation pay for the last three years, and hate him as much as you can."

When they reached the hut they cooked a meal, and then prepared to keep alternate watch.

Charlie slept quietly all night, and, in the morning, remained in his hiding place until he heard, in the distance, the sound of a horse's tread. Then he went out and sat down, leaning against a tree by the side of the path, in an attitude of exhaustion.

Presently he saw Ben Soloman approaching. He got up feebly, and staggered a few paces to another tree, farther from the path. He heard an angry shout, and then Ben Soloman rode up, and, with a torrent of execrations at the carelessness of the watchers, leapt from his horse and sprang to seize the fugitive, whom he regarded as incapable of offering the slightest resistance.

Charlie straightened himself up, as if with an effort, and raised his cudgel.

"I will not be taken alive," he said.

Ben Soloman drew his long knife from his girdle. "Drop that stick," he said, "or it will be worse for you."

"It cannot be worse than being tortured to death, as you said."

The Jew, with an angry snarl, sprang forward so suddenly and unexpectedly that he was within the swing of Charlie's cudgel before the latter could strike. He dropped the weapon at once, and caught the wrist of the uplifted hand that held the knife.

The Jew gave a cry of astonishment and rage, as they clasped each other, and he found that, instead of an unresisting victim, he was in a powerful grasp. For a moment there was a desperate struggle.

The Jew would, at ordinary times, have been no match for Charlie, but the latter was far from having regained his normal strength. His fury at the treatment he had received at the man's hands, however, enabled him, for the moment, to exert himself to the utmost, and, after swaying backwards and forwards in desperate strife for a minute, they went to the ground with a crash, Ben Soloman being undermost.

The Jew's grasp instantly relaxed, and Charlie, springing to his feet and seizing his cudgel, stood over his fallen antagonist. The latter, however, did not move. His eyes were open in a fixed stare. Charlie looked at him in surprise for a moment, thinking he was stunned, then he saw that his right arm was twisted under him in the fall, and at once understanding what had happened, turned him half over. He had fallen on the knife, which had penetrated to the haft, killing him instantly.

"I didn't mean to kill you," Charlie said aloud, "much as you deserve it, and surely as you would have killed me, if I had refused to act as a traitor. I would have broken your head for you, but that was all. However, it is as well as it is. It adds to my chance of getting away, and I have no doubt there will be many who will rejoice when you are found to be missing.

"Now," he went on, "as your agents emptied my pockets, it is no robbery to empty yours. Money will be useful, and so will your horse."

He stooped over the dead man, and took the purse from his girdle, when suddenly there was a rush of feet, and in a moment he was seized. The thought flashed through his mind that he had fallen into the power of his late guardians, but a glance showed that the men standing round were strangers.

"Well, comrade, and who are you?" the man who was evidently the leader asked. "You have saved us some trouble. We were sleeping a hundred yards or two away, when we heard the horseman, and saw, as he passed, he was the Jew of Warsaw, to whom two or three of us owe our ruin, and it did not need more than a word for us to agree to wait for him till he came back. We were surprised when we saw you, still more so when the Jew jumped from his horse and attacked you. We did not interfere, because, if he had got the best of you, he might have jumped on his horse and ridden off, but directly he fell we ran out, but you were so busy in taking the spoil that you did not hear us.

"I see the Jew is dead; fell on his own knife. It is just as well for him, for we should have tied him to a tree, and made a bonfire of him, if we had caught him."

Charlie understood but little of this, but said when the other finished:

"I understand but little Polish."

"What are you then–a Russian? You do not look like one."

"I am an Englishman, and am working in the house of Allan Ramsay, a Scotch trader in Warsaw."

"Well, you are a bold fellow anyhow, and after the smart way in which you disposed of this Jew, and possessed yourself of his purse, you will do honour to our trade."

"I hope you will let me go," Charlie said. "My friends in Warsaw will pay a ransom for me, if you will let me return there."

"No, no, young fellow. You would of course put down this Jew's death to our doing, and we have weight enough on our backs already. He is a man of great influence, and all his tribe would be pressing on the government to hunt us down. You shall go with us, and the purse you took from Ben Soloman will pay your footing."

Charlie saw that it would be useless to try and alter the man's decision, especially as he knew so little of the language. He therefore shrugged his shoulders, and said that he was ready to go with them, if it must be so.

The Jew's body was now thoroughly searched. Various papers were found upon him, but, as these proved useless to the brigands, they were torn up.

"Shall we take the horse with us?" one of the men asked the leader.

"No, it would be worse than useless in the forest. Leave it standing here. It will find its way back in time. Then there will be a search, and there will be rejoicing in many a mansion throughout the country, when it is known that Ben Soloman is dead. They say he has mortgages on a score of estates, and, though I suppose these will pass to others of his tribe, they can hardly be as hard and mercenary as this man was.

"I wonder what he was doing in this forest alone? Let us follow the path, and see where he is going.

"Honred, you have a smattering of several languages, try then if you can make our new comrade understand."

The man tried in Russian without success, then he spoke in Swedish, in which language Charlie at once replied.

"Where does this pathway lead to?"

"To a hut where a charcoal burner lives. I have been imprisoned there for the last fortnight. It was all the Jew's doing. It was through him that I got this knock here;" and he pointed to the unhealed wound at the back of his head.

"Well, we may as well pay them a visit," the chief said, when this was translated to him. "We are short of flour, and they may have some there, and maybe something else that will be useful."

Chapter 11: With Brigands

The man who had spoken to Charlie drew the long knife from the back of the Jew, wiped it on the grass, and handed it to him.

"That ought to be your property," he said. "It has done you good service."

Not sorry to have a weapon in addition to his cudgel, Charlie placed it in his belt, and then started with the bandits. He would not have cared to face the charcoal burner alone; but now that the band regarded him as enrolled among their number, he felt no uneasiness respecting him.

When they issued from the trees, the Jew was seen standing at the door of the hut. He at once ran in on seeing them, and came out again, accompanied by the charcoal burner, who carried his axe on his shoulder. The Jew started, on catching sight of Charlie among the ranks of the brigands, and said a word or two to his companion.

"Well, Master Charcoal Burner," the leader of the party said, "how is it that honest woodmen consort with rogues of the town?"

"I don't know that they do so, willingly," the man said gruffly. "But some of us, to our cost, have put our heads into nooses, and the rogues of the town have got hold of the other end of the ropes, and we must just walk as we are told to."

"Well, that is true enough," the brigand said.

"And you, Jew, what are you doing here?"

"I am like Conrad," he replied, sulkily. "It is not only countrymen who have their necks in a noose, and I have to do what I am ordered."

"By a bigger rogue than yourself?"

"That is so; bigger and cleverer."

"You are expecting him here now, our new comrade tells us. Well, you need expect him no longer. He will not come. If you will go along the path, you will come upon his body, and may bury him if you like to take the trouble."

An exclamation of satisfaction broke from the two men.

"You have done us a service, indeed," the charcoal burner said. "We had thought to do it for ourselves, this morning, for after the escape of him you call your new comrade, he would have shown us no mercy."

"You may thank our new comrade, and not us," the brigand said. "We only arrived on the spot when it was all over."

The Jew looked at Charlie in astonishment.

"What! Did he kill Ben Soloman?"

"That did he; or rather, the Jew killed himself. There was a grapple hand to hand, and a wrestle. The Jew fell undermost, and was pierced with his own knife."

"But the lad is but just out of a sickbed, and has no strength for a struggle, and Ben Soloman, though past middle life, was strong and active."

"Neither strong enough nor active enough," the man laughed. "You have been nicely taken in. Who would have thought that two Jews and a Pole would have been cheated by an English lad? His face shows that he has been ill, and doubtless he has not yet recovered his full strength, but he was strong enough, anyhow, to overthrow Ben Soloman.

"Now, what have you in the hut? We are in need of provisions."

The hut was ransacked; the flour, two bottles of spirits, and a skin of wine seized, and the meat cut up and roasted over the fire. After the meal was eaten, the captain called upon Charlie to tell his story more fully, and this he did, with the aid of the man who spoke Swedish; starting, however, only at the point when he was attacked in the street, as he felt it better to remain silent as to his connection with the Swedish army.

"But what was the cause of Ben Soloman's hostility to you?"

"There are some in Warsaw who are of opinion that Augustus of Saxony has done much harm to Poland, in engaging without cause in the war against Charles of Sweden, and who think that it would be well that he should be dethroned, and some other prince made king in his place. To this party many of the traders belong, and the Jew had reason to think that I was acquainted with the design, and could give the names of those concerned in it. There was really no plot against Augustus, but it was only intended that a popular demonstration against his rule should be made. But Soloman wanted me to give evidence that there was a conspiracy against the king's life, so that he might gain great credit by exposing it, and might at the same time rid himself of many of his rivals in the trade."

"He was an artful fox," the leader of the brigands said, when this had been translated to him. "But where is the Jew he put over you?"

Three or four of the men sprang to their feet and ran out, but the Jew was nowhere to be seen. The captain was furious, and abused his men right and left, while his anger was in no way mitigated when one of them told him that, if he had wanted the Jew kept, he should have given one of them orders to look after him. This was so evident that the chief was silenced for a moment.

"How long is it since any of you saw him last?"

"He went round with the wineskin, and filled our cups just as we sat down to breakfast," one of the men said. "I have not noticed him since."

Nor had any of the others.

"Then it will be no use to pursue. He has had more than half an hour's start, and long before this he will have mounted Ben Soloman's horse, and have ridden off.

"Well, comrade," he said, turning to Charlie, "this settles your movements. I was but half in earnest before as to your joining us; but it is clear now that there's nothing else for you to do, for the present. This fellow will, directly he gets to Warsaw, denounce you as the murderer of his master. That he is sure to do to avert suspicion from himself, and, if you were to return there, it would go hard with you. So, for a time, you must throw in your lot with us."

When this was translated to Charlie, he saw at once the force of the argument. He could not have denied that the Jew had fallen in a hand-to-hand struggle with himself, and, were he to appear in Warsaw, he might be killed by the co-religionists of Ben Soloman; or, if he escaped this, might lie in a dungeon for months awaiting his trial, and perhaps be finally executed. There was nothing for him now but to rejoin the Swedes, and it would be some time, yet, before he would be sufficiently recovered to undertake such a journey.

"I should not mind, if I could send a letter to Allan Ramsay, to tell him what has befallen me. He will be thinking I am dead, and will, at any rate, be in great anxiety about me."

"I have taken a liking to you, young fellow," the leader said, "and will send in one of my men to Warsaw with a letter; that is, if you can write one."

"Yes, I can write. Fortunately there are paper, pen, and an ink horn on that shelf. Ben Soloman brought them the last time he came, to write down the lies he wanted me to testify to. I am greatly obliged to you, and will do it at once."

As he had, only the day before he was attacked, sent off a messenger to Count Piper, telling him all he had done the previous week, there was no occasion to repeat this, and he had only to give an account of his capture, and the events that had since occurred.

"You see," he said, "I cannot return to Warsaw. The Jew who was here unfortunately heard that it was in a struggle with me Ben Soloman was killed, and he will, of course, denounce me as his murderer, though the deed was done in fair fight. I should have all his tribe against me, and might be imprisoned for months awaiting trial. I am still very weak, and could not attempt the journey to the frontier. I am, however, gaining strength, and, as soon as I am quite recovered, I shall take the first opportunity of leaving the men I am with, and making for the Swedish camp. Please forward this news by a sure hand to Count Piper, and express my sorrow that my mission has not been completed, although, indeed, I do not think that my further stay at Warsaw would have been any great service, for it is clear that the great majority of the traders will not move in the matter until the Swedes advance, and, from their point of view, it is not to their interest to do so.

"I know but little of the men I am with at present, beyond the fact that they are bandits, nor can I say whether they are disbanded soldiers, or criminals who have escaped from justice; but at any rate they show me no ill will. I have no doubt I shall be able to get on fairly with them, until I am able to make my escape. I wish I had poor Stanislas with me. Only one of the men here speaks Swedish, and he does not know very much of the language. I cannot say, at present, whether the twenty men here are the whole of the band, or whether they are only a portion of it. Nor do I know whether the men subsist by plundering the peasants, or venture on more serious crimes. Thanking you for your great kindness during my stay at Warsaw, I remain, yours gratefully–

"Charlie Carstairs."

While he was occupied in writing this letter, an animated conversation was going on between the bandits. Charlie gathered that this related to their future operations, but more than this he could not learn. In a postscript to the letter, he requested Allan Ramsay to hand over to the bearer some of the clothes left in his lodgings, and to pay him for his trouble.

"As to the money I left in your hands, I do not think it worth while for you to send it. However much these men may consider me a comrade, I have not sufficient faith in their honesty to believe that money would reach me safely; but, if you send me a suit of clothes, two or three gold pieces might be wrapped up in a piece of cloth and shoved into the toe of a shoe. The parcel must be a small one, or there would be little chance of the man carrying it far. I will ask him, however, to bring me a sword, if you will buy one for me, and my pistols."

He folded up the letter and gave it to the captain. There was no means of fastening it, but this mattered little, because, being written in English, there was no chance of its being read. The captain handed it to one of the men, with instructions for its delivery. The messenger started at once. The others, after remaining a short time in the hut, set out through the forest.

After an hour's walking, Charlie was unable to go further. The captain, seeing this, ordered four of the men to stop with him, and to follow the next morning. As soon as he had gone on with the rest of the band, the men set about collecting sticks and making a fire. Charlie, who was utterly exhausted, threw himself on the ground, and was not long before he fell sound asleep.

When he awoke, the shades of evening were already falling, and the men were sitting over the fire, roasting a portion of a goat, one of a flock they had fallen in with in the wood, where large numbers roamed about in a semi-wild state.

The man who could speak Swedish was one of those who had remained with him, and, from him, he learnt that the present headquarters of the band were some six miles farther away. This distance was performed next morning, frequent halts being made to enable him to sit down and rest; and it was not till five hours after the start that they arrived.

Overgrown as it now was, with trees and undergrowth, he could see that a village once stood there. It must, however, have been abandoned a very long time, as trees of considerable size grew among the low walls and piles of stones that marked where cottages had stood. The place occupied by the brigands had, in former times, been a castellated building of some strength, standing on a knoll in the middle of the village, which had probably been inhabited by the retainers of its owner. Part of the wall had fallen, but a large arched room, that had doubtless been the banqueting hall of the castle, remained almost intact, and here the brigands had established themselves. Several fires burned on the flagged floors, the smoke finding its way out through holes and crevices in the roof. Some fifty men were gathered round these, and were occupied in cooking their midday meal.