RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
"COME down, you young scamp!"
Warder Cleave, walking up the steep road towards the quarries, recognised the governor's voice, which came from the wood on the other side of the wall.
Glancing up, Cleave saw little Tony Peyton, Colonel Peyton's seven-year-old son, gleefully balancing along the top of the tall, dry-stone wall.
"Come down, Tony. That's not safe," came the quick tones again.
At that very moment the boy stepped on a loose stone, which turned under his light weight. Cleave made a rush and was just in time to catch the youngster as he, stone and all, went over.
As the heavy stone fell with a clatter into the road, missing the warder's foot by only a few inches. Colonel Peyton's head appeared over the top of the wall. The usually stern face had an expression of fright which Cleave had never seen before.
"You, Cleave! Thank you very much indeed. It was a mercy you were there. The boy might have had his leg broken. Tony, you ought to be smacked!"
Tony was not at all alarmed.
"Nasty stone fell down, father," he observed coolly.
Cleave couldn't help laughing. Tony so plainly considered that it was entirely the fault of the stone and that no blame could possibly attach to him.
"He's a bonny little chap, sir," ventured Cleave, as he handed the boy bodily back to his father across the wall.
"Yes," said the colonel; "and as mischievous a young imp as ever breathed. But Heaven knows what I should do if anything were to happen to him," he added quickly; and then, as if ashamed of showing even this glimpse of his inner self, stopped abruptly.
Cleave, good chap, turned away. He, like most others of the staff of the great prison, knew the tragedy of the colonel's life. How, three years before, the fine old man's young wife had died suddenly of pneumonia, begging him with her last breath to take care of the boy, their only child. Knew, too, how well the colonel had discharged his trust, so that, of all the population of Moorlands, both free and bond, little Tony was the only one who had only love for, and not fear of, the grim, grey-haired old governor.
"Are you going up to see the big blast, Cleave?" continued the colonel in quite a different tone.
"Yes, sir. It should be worth seeing."
The colonel glanced at his watch.
"You'll have to hurry. It's due at three."
The words were hardly out of his mouth before there came a deep, booming crash, so heavy that the ground quivered beneath their feet.
"A minute early," quoth the colonel, in surprise. "I hope—"
Crack! Crack! Crack! Three rifle shots in quick succession. Then shouts coming dully through the thick fir plantation.
Warder and governor exchanged a sharp glance. Both knew what had happened.
"Take the boy," said the colonel quickly, as he handed Tony back over the wall.
"Has some one run away?" questioned Tony, in high excitement.
"Yes, dear lad," said the colonel, as he scrambled rapidly over the wall. "And you must run home. Straight back, mind. Father's got to go to the quarry."
Tony turned obediently down the road. It was only a few hundred yards back to the governor's house.
"Must have been an accident," said the colonel to Cleave. "Run on as hard as you can. Tell them I shall be there in a minute."
At the curve, a hundred yards above, Cleave heard the heavy tramp of feet, and out of the gate from the quarry enclosure came four convicts carrying on their shoulders a litter on which was stretched an ominous something covered with sacking. A warder, with a loaded carbine marched close behind. It was Warren, a man whom Cleave knew well.
"Went off too soon," he explained curtly. One killed, another hurt. In the confusion two chaps cleared."
"Who?"
Holditch and Corder. Both got in among the trees. Tarbet's there. He'll tell you."
Cleave's lips pursed into a soundless whistle, Corder, the chap his mates called Tiger Turk—a lifer, in for slowly torturing his wife to death—one of those brutes whom foolish British law does not hang, simply because they have killed by long-drawn brutality, instead of with one quick stroke.
He hurried through the gates. Here came the whole quarry gang marching back under heavy escort to the prison.
Principal Warder Tarbet stood on the watch tower above the quarry.
"No, they're off," he said, in answer to Cleave's quick questions. "But they're both in the wood, and I've telephoned to send warders up from the last gang, beyond. Thank goodness, there's still two hours light. We'll have 'em before dark, safe enough. Get in there to the left, Cleave. That's the way they went."
* * * * *
LEFT to himself, Tony Peyton trotted some little distance down the hill; then stopped, and, turning, watched his father disappear in the distance.
In the wall to the right was a gate opening into the wood, the same one he and his father had entered by a little while ago.
It struck Tony that if he climbed up on the gate, and sat there, he might perhaps see something of the chase.
"Just wish I could catch them," he remarked valiantly, as he reached the top bar. "Wouldn't father be pleased?"
From far away up through the tree trunks came a distant shout.
"That's them," cried Tony, in high excitement. And quite forgetting all about his father's order to go straight home, he dropped on the far side of the gate and began running through the wood.
When the Government granted two thousand acres to the Prison Commission to make a farm for Moorlands, it was stipulated that each year so many trees should be planted. The wood above the prison is the oldest of these plantations. It is all fir and larch, and as the trees have never been properly thinned they are so thick that you can hardly see twenty yards in any direction. The shade has killed out all the grass, and the steep hillside is slippery with wet green moss, broken by fallen trunks and great masses of lichen-clad granite.
Naturally enough, Master Tony had gone but a little way before he was completely lost.
But this didn't worry him much. He was a plucky little chap, and his one idea at present was to find the runaways.
The further he went the thicker grew the wood, and the steeper the hillside. He had often to scramble on hands and knees up over rough ledges of granite, much to the detriment of his knickerbockers.
He had a notion he would catch it from his nurse when he got home, but for the present he was too excited to care.
Twice more he heard the shouts, but further away. Then they stopped altogether, and it became uncomfortably silent in the heart of the gloomy plantation. It seemed to have clouded up, too, for it was very dark.
Tony came to a great "clitter" of rocks, where centuries ago a huge mass of granite had broken away, and slipped down the hillside. The boulders, some as big as a room, lay piled at all sorts of queer angles, and the trees had been planted among them. There were nasty deep, dark holes, among the rocks, which Tony didn't like at all. He thought there might be horrid things lurking down there in the wet gloom at the bottom, so he decided he would not climb over, but would try to go round them.
Ah, what was that? Something moved in among the dark rocks. It sounded like a great claw scratching on a stone.
There was something hiding there. With a gasp of terror, Tony turned to run.
Too late! The thing was jumping out. He heard it rattle on the stones; then thuds on the peaty, moss-clad earth. He was opening his mouth in a despairing yell for help when the beast clutched him by the shoulder.
"My word what luck!" came a growl of triumph. "The governor's kid!"
* * * * *
CLEAVE was a moor man born and bred.
As soon as Tarbet had shown him the exact spot where the runaways had entered the wood he set himself to follow the footsteps.
The two pairs ran close together for a few yards, then separated. Holditch's went directly up the hill, Corder's kept almost straight on.
Cleave caught on to the idea in a moment.
"Jove, but the Turk's cunning!" he muttered. "He's making right back to the prison. He means to lie up somewhere close in, till night. Just where no one would be likely to look for him."
Without a moment's hesitation he followed the heavier footmarks.
He came to the clitter of rocks. Here he found where the steps had run down the slope a little way.
A puzzled expression crossed his face.
"What's the chap playing at?" he muttered.
The steps turned uphill again—long, swift, decided strides.
"Must be making for the Devil Stone!" exclaimed Cleave, in amazement; then, as he broke into a run: "We've got him now!"
Another minute and he had broken cover, and stood below the shadow of that ugly, forbidding mass of weather-worn granite, well named the Devil Stone.
The first thing that caught his eye was a tall figure in grey tweed directly in front of him.
It was Colonel Peyton himself who stood there staring upwards, silent and still as a bronze statue.
Following the fixed gaze, Cleave's eyes travelled upwards over fifty feet of sheer cliff, seamed and scarred by the storms and frosts of a hundred centuries. Then a gasp of dismay burst from his lips, and his fists tightened.
A little below the topmost pinnacle of the rock, his great feet straddled wide on a twelve-inch ledge, stood Tiger Turk, and in his huge hands he grasped little Tony Peyton, holding him far out over the splintered rubble of sharp rocks which lay at the base of the cliff.
The colonel spoke, and his voice, though hoarse, was steady.
"Bring him down safe, and I'll do my best for you."
"Your best, you slave-driver! Cells, bread-and-water, irons!" He caught sight of Cleave. "Back, you!" he roared. "Keep your warders off, colonel, or down he goes!" He swung the child in empty air.
Horror-stricken, Cleave shrank back into the edge of the wood. What to do he had not the faintest idea. He had his rifle. But what was the use. A shot would mean the boy's death as well as the convict's.
"You've got to call your chaps off, give me your clothes, your money, and a chance to show my heels," went on Corder fiercely.
"You know I can do nothing of the sort," replied the governor.
Cleave caught the undertone of agony in the sternly-spoken words.
"Then down goes the kid!" cried the black-browed brute, with an oath.
"Come down quietly, Corder, and I give you my word I'll do my best to save you from your well-deserved punishment," said the colonel steadily.
"Stop talking foolishness. Time's short. Are you going to do what I say or not?"
Cleave saw the colonel stagger slightly. The warder himself could hardly breathe. Well he knew that Corder was perfectly capable of carrying out his brutal threat.
What would the colonel do? Cleave himself could not imagine. Yield, and end in disgrace a long and honourable career spent in the service of his country; or refuse, and see his boy—the apple of his eye—hurled to death on that ugly pile of splintered granite.
For a few seconds there was dead silence. Cleave watched the convict with a horrible fascination as the man stood braced on his ledge holding the little boy out over the great drop below.
Little Tony was not crying, but his small face was very white, and his big grey eyes fixed in mute anguish on his father.
What was that? A head! Cleave could hardly trust his eyes. A head close-cropped and capless had appeared over the crest of the Devil Stone not twenty feet behind where Corder stood.
The shoulders showed. The man was creeping, silently as a great cat, towards Corder.
The breath hissed between Cleave's parted lips. It was the other runaway, Holditch. And if his face was any index of his intentions, he meant to prevent Corder's abominable crime.
Could Holditch do it? If Corder heard him he would certainly kill the child at once.
The colonel too, must have seen the man. Would he in his agony betray his knowledge? Would he have the sense to temporise?
Nearer and nearer crept Holditch, worming silently forward on hands and knees.
Ha, the colonel was speaking!
"Corder, if I do what you ask will you come down at once?"
"Not by a jugful! You take your clothes off, bring 'em up here to me, then I'll tell ye what to do!"
Very quietly the colonel began taking off his coat.
"Quicker!" roared Corder, with a foul oath. "Quicker, or—" Again he swung up the child at arm's length above his head.
Cleave saw Holditch spring. The man reached a table of rock immediately behind and some four feet above the point where Corder stood. Before Tiger Turk had the faintest idea that anyone was near him Holditch had snatched the boy clean out of his hands, and, holding him under one arm was scrambling wildly back over the rugged dome.
With a mad howl of rage Corder swung round, then, stooping, swiftly snatched up a great jagged lump of granite.
Before he could hurl it Cleave's rifle spoke.
As the sharp report clanged back from the cliff face Tiger Turk flung up his huge arms, his great body tottered an instant against the sky, then he reeled backwards and fell with a dull crash into the depths below.
Another minute and Tony was in his father's arms.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.