Night after night, as Roger lay turning restlessly on the hard boards listening to the maddening rhythm of the drums, he tried to plan some means of escape. But the problem proved beyond him.
By now he no longer needed his crutches; so had he been alone, or his parry consisted only of men, an escape might have been effected by night through one of the skylights and over the roof. Although, even had it been successful, it was very doubtful if the many miles of hostile country that separated them from British troops could have been traversed without recapture. But such an attempt hampered by four women was out of the question. A breakout was equally unthinkable, as, although they might possibly have overpowered their slack and somnolent guards, they could not have done so without the alarm being raised, and their chances of fighting their way through the horde of negroes' who lived in the house were about as good as trying to swim the Atlantic. In fact, ill-disposed to them as Charlemange was, he and his men were their only shield. They had already proved their loyalty to their General by standing their ground in the face of several hostile demonstrations against the prisoners; so to have deliberately rendered them hors de combat while the murderous mob below had still to be encountered would have been sheer madness.
The thought of indefinite captivity in their present surroundings appalled them all, and in vain they endeavoured to reconcile themselves to the fact that even months away there was no deadline beyond which they could be certain of release. Clarissa, perhaps because she was the youngest, was the most seriously affected by this demoralizing uncertainty. In every crisis of action she had so far kept her head and shown as much courage as the older women; but now, with ultra pessimism, she declared that they would be there for years, that if ever she did get free again it would only be with a haggard face and scrawny body, and that the cruel Fates clearly intended to rob her of her youth in this way. Each night she sobbed herself to sleep and, in fact, her looks did begin to deteriorate with alarming rapidity. Her high-bridged nose became a bony beak, her cheeks lost their bloom and her golden hair its lustre. Yet there was nothing they could say to cheer her or do to check the draining away of her vitality.
Christmas Day came and passed like any other, as to attempt any form of rejoicing would have been too bitter a mockery. But on the afternoon of Boxing Day they were aroused from their torpor by an order which brought them scrambling to their feet breathless with excitement. From the passage-way Charlemange had shouted:
"Get your things together. We are leaving here."
Instantly their hearts bounded with the hope that General Toussaint had succeeded in arranging an exchange for them; but the one-armed Lieutenant would neither confirm nor deny that. After spitting on the floor he just shrugged and muttered surlily:
"I have received an order to take you to another place. That is all you need to know. Hurry now!"
They needed no urging. Their quarters and treatment at the place to which they were to be taken could hardly be worse than the conditions under which they had lived for the past ten days. Within a few minutes they had packed their meagre belongings and were again being protected by their guards, as they made their way downstairs, from the menaces of scores of yelling blacks of both sexes.
The coach stood before the house. They noticed at once that its window curtains had disappeared and that the fine leather harness had been replaced with pieces of old rope. Then they saw that its well-sprung seats and back cushions had all been ripped out, leaving its interior a bare wooden box. Nevertheless, those of them who had come- there in it were glad enough to take places on its floor in the hope that it would carry them to better times.
Actually, owing to the removal of the seats, the continued infliction of needless hard usage by their guards, and their journey being somewhat longer than the previous one, they suffered even more severely. Yet hope, now strengthened by the knowledge that they were being taken towards the coast, enabled them to bear it with a greater degree of fortitude.
On the fourth evening the coach was halted at a cross-roads and its occupants told to get out With the others they were marched some distance along a track and then, just as the sun set, into a wood. After another half-hour's walk they came to a ruin, which they judged to be the remains of a monastery erected in the days of the Spanish occupation.
Some negro soldiers emerged from among the piles of great stones, and their officer held a brief consultation with Charlemange, at the conclusion of which the one-armed Lieutenant marched his men away without so much as a glance at his late prisoners. They knew that they probably owed their lives to his conscientious obedience to the orders he had been given, yet none of them could feel sorry to see him go.
The other officer gruffly told them to follow him, but refused to answer any questions; so surrounded by a new and larger escort they proceeded deeper into the forest until they reached a wide clearing. On its eastern edge they waited for over an hour, so pent up with excitement that they could hardly contain themselves. At length a single shot rang out somewhere to the west of them. The officer gave an order and two of his men fired their muskets into the air; so it was evident that the first shot had been a pre-arranged signal.
A few minutes later, in the faint starlight, several groups of men could be seen emerging from the trees on the far side of the clearing. Led by their officer a number of the negro soldiers went forward to meet them. There was an exchange of passwords, then Roger heard a voice speaking in such bad French that it could only have belonged to an Englishman. Several of his companions had realized that too, and with unutterable relief they kissed, embraced and with tears of joy running down their cheeks, wrung each other's hands.
After that everything seemed to happen very swiftly. Laughing and chattering the negro troops disappeared with the prisoners that the British had handed over to them, while Roger and his party found themselves surrounded by grinning red-coats and shaking hands with a plump young man who introduced himself as Captain Mansfield of the 41st
As in a dream they walked another mile to a road where carriages were waiting. During a long drive they hardly spoke, but soon after dawn they entered Mole St Nicholas.
It had well been termed the Gibraltar of the Indies, as it possessed a fine natural harbour and the great fortress out on the promontory dominated the strait between Saint-Domingue and Cuba. But Captain Mansfield did not take them up to it He explained that it was already overcrowded with refugees; so accommodation had been taken for them at the Hotel de France, which was situated in the central square of the little town that lay in the shelter of the Mole.
At the hotel they were welcomed by its proprietor, Monsieur Ducas. The plump Captain said that he would wait upon them later in the day, and they managed to murmur their thanks to him. Then they were led to their rooms and, pulling off their filthy clothes, flopped into bed.
When they awoke they could hardly credit that they were free again, but were soon reassured that they were not dreaming by the tangible comfort of their beds and solid appointments of the well-furnished rooms. The dinner hour had long since passed but Mansfield had foreseen that they would sleep through most of the day, so had called only to leave the Garrison Commander's compliments with a purse of twenty-five guineas for their immediate necessities, and orders that trays were to be sent up to them as soon as they roused from their slumbers. Having eaten and, although still almost speechless from relief, paid brief visits to one another in their rooms, they slept once more.