THERE was a great deal of the boy left in Captain Griffith, as Kit had long suspected; though he attended so thoroughly to his business that it did not often have a chance to show itself. But having made up his mind to enjoy a little holiday at the Castle d’If, he entered fully into the spirit of it. His ordering the longboat lowered was sufficient indication that he intended to sail out to the island, for it would have taken six or eight men to row it against the heavy sea, and it was the only one of the ship’s boats that was fitted with a mast and sail.
“We can hardly be back in time for dinner,” the Captain said, looking at his watch. “Put us up a good big basket of lunch, steward—enough for five or six men, for I must have some passengers along for ballast, in this breeze. Suppose you step up and ask the chief engineer whether he would like to go out to the castle, Silburn; and you can bring your friend Haines too, if he likes to come. I will take you along, Henry, to look after the lunch.”
The little trip to the castle was developing into a regular picnic, much to Kit’s delight. With the Captain and Tom Haines and Harry along, they were sure to have a lively time. Both the chief engineer and Tom Haines were glad to go, and in a few minutes they were all ready for the start.
“Now let me see,” said the Captain, before he went down the ladder to the little boat, in which the mast had been stepped. “We must have everything we are likely to need, for there’s no telling how we may find things out there. The island belongs to the government, and they used to keep a man there to show the castle to visitors, but I don’t know how it is now. Plenty of lunch in the basket, steward?”
“Enough for twice as many, sir,” the steward answered, “and dishes too. You’ll not go hungry, sir.”
“Then I don’t know of anything else we want.”
“Water, sir?” Kit suggested; “hadn’t we better take some water along?”
“There’s always a keg of water in the boat,” the Captain answered. “See that it’s full, Henry. Besides, there is a big well or tank in the castle, enough to supply a whole garrison. But we may need some candles, for some of those dungeons are so dark you can hardly see your hand before your face. Put a good package of candles in the basket, steward.”
The steward ran back to the cabin for the candles, and in another minute they were off, the five men making just about a proper ballast for the boat when the sail began to draw. The Captain took the helm and the main sheet, Harry and Tom Haines were sent up forward to keep her a little down by the head, and Kit and the chief engineer seated themselves amidships.
“This is Fort St. John on the right,” the Captain said, as they sped through the harbor entrance, “and on the left is Fort St. Nicholas. Now look at this big building on the high point to the left—the one that stands in the handsome park. They call that the Château de Pharo. It belonged to the Emperor Napoleon III., and he presented it to the city. In the great cholera epidemic of 1885 they used it for a hospital, and it has since been turned into a medical school with a hospital attached. That is the handsomest site in Marseilles; trust an emperor for picking out the choice spots. Now look out for a little tossing when we round the point.”
It was more than “a little tossing” that they got when they were once out in the big bay. Great waves chased their stern, and occasionally the boat tumbled down from the crest of a billow with a violent slap. But there was no fear in any of the party to mar the pleasure of the sail. They not only felt perfectly safe with the Captain at the helm, but knew, too, that he would not have taken them out if there had been any danger in so stanch a boat.
“Now you have a fine view of Marseilles,” he said, when they were well out. “Off to the left there the breakwater runs so far that you can barely see the end of it. And to the right of the point is what they call ‘the Corniche.’ That is a long, smooth, winding drive along the shore, and one of the handsomest places to be found anywhere. When you go out there two or three miles you come to the end of the Prado; and by turning into that you come to the heart of the city again.”
“See how old Notre-Dame stands out on the hilltop,” he went on. “You would hardly think that statue of the Virgin, on the summit, was thirty feet high, would you? But it is. They have to gild it every few years to keep it bright, and it costs twelve thousand dollars to cover it with gold-leaf. It is so windy up there that they have to build a little house around it for the painters to work in. That is the favorite church with the Marseilles sailors. Many of them go up there to say their prayers before setting out on a voyage. Then when they are in danger at sea they promise an offering to the Virgin if their lives are saved, and when they get back to port they present a little toy ship to the church, or a tablet to be put on the walls. It is full of such things.”
“Don’t you think, sir, it would be better for them to give their attention to navigating their ship, when they are in danger?” Haines asked.
“Well, that is their form of religion,” the Captain answered; “we must not ridicule them for living up to their faith. But what do you think of this boat for a sailer, boys? It is two miles from the port out to the castle, and we shall be there in five minutes more. Why, she deserves to be taken up to Nice and entered in the spring regattas.”
At this mention of the castle they all looked toward it and saw that it was a large and very old building of stone, with battlements on the top, and a high tower rising far above the rest, the whole standing upon a great rock that rose from the water’s edge to a height of thirty or forty feet.
“That must have been a very strong place before the days of heavy guns,” Kit suggested.
“It was one of the strongest forts in France,” the Captain replied. “For centuries the most important political prisoners were confined here. There was not the least chance for them to escape or for their friends to rescue them. Do you see that high battlement that runs up almost straight from the water? That is where Monte Cristo, according to the story, was thrown into the sea when he pretended to be dead and was sewn up in a sack. And if I’m not mistaken he was no wetter then than we are going to be before we get ashore, for there is a heavy sea running against this rock.
“There is the landing-place, just at the foot of that rocky path,” he continued, standing up in the stern to look about. “It is a wharf of natural rock, with three or four fathoms of water. But there’s no landing there to-day, with this sea breaking over it. We must get around to leeward and try to find a bit of beach.”
The island offers very little in the way of beach, but on the sheltered side they found a smooth slope that answered their purpose, and in a few minutes they were safely on shore and had dragged the boat well up out of harm.
“Now this way,” the Captain directed. “One of you youngsters help Henry carry the basket. We’ve got to get around to that path we saw, for the gate at the top of it is the only entrance.”
By scrambling over the rocks they soon reached the path, and followed it over rough and slippery rocks, up a steep incline, to the heavy gate, which was closed, but not locked. Once through the gate, the path showed more evidences of care, though it was still rough and difficult, rising in a sort of rude stairway, with a step followed by four or five feet of steep incline, then another step and another incline. On the right was a thick stone wall, with long narrow slanting slits for firing muskets through.
Up and up the path led, growing rougher the nearer it approached the castle, till it ran across a large open yard and ended at the moat, over which a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered.
“There’s a sample of old times for you,” the Captain said, when they reached the drawbridge and paused for breath. “Two or three days’ work would make a good path of that; but in two or three centuries not one commander of the place had ambition enough to repair it.”
Crossing the bridge over the dry and rocky and weedy moat, they reached the entrance to the castle proper, where the massive doors stood hospitably open, and they walked in without challenge or hindrance. It was soon evident that there was no other person on the island, for they hallooed and shouted, but received no reply.
“Strange that they leave such a historical place without any one to take care of it,” said the chief engineer. And it did look odd, but the fact was that the man in charge had gone ashore on some errand, and the heavy sea had prevented his return.
Having passed through the main portal, they were in a large stone-paved courtyard, nearly in the centre of which stood an old-fashioned well-curb. A heavy stone stairway on the opposite side led to a solid gallery of iron and stone running completely around the court, both stairs and gallery having a strong rail of wrought iron. Numerous doors opened from both the ground floor and the gallery, some closed and some standing open, and over several of the doors were small signs bearing the names of their former occupants.
“Put your lunch basket here in the corner,” the Captain directed Harry. “There doesn’t seem to be any one here to disturb it. But get out some candles, and we’ll have a look at these lower dungeons first. Nearly every one of these solid doors leads to a dungeon, I suppose you understood, and some of them to a series of dungeons. Silburn is anxious to see Monte Cristo’s late residence, I am sure. Do you see his name on the sign there under the stairway, Silburn?”
“Yes, sir, I saw that the first thing,” Kit answered. “But there is so much to see here a fellow hardly knows where to look. It is like going back two or three hundred years at a single step. Even in the old buildings of London I saw nothing like this. It is a regular feudal castle, such as we see sometimes in pictures.”
“It adds a little to the romance of the thing to have the place entirely to ourselves,” said the Captain. “We are as safe from intrusion as if we raised the drawbridge and bolted the big doors, for you may be sure none of the French boatmen will come out in this sea. Now, then, if you are all ready, we will visit Monte Cristo first. Give me a candle, and I will lead the way.”
With a lighted candle in his hand the Captain went through a broad but low arched doorway, followed by all the others, into a small dark cell, paved with stone, to which a few faint rays of light were admitted by a slit a foot long and about two inches wide in the upper part of one wall.
“And did Monte Cristo spend fourteen years in such a dark hole as this!” Kit exclaimed, with a shudder.
“No, indeed,” the Captain answered; “he was in a far worse place than this. Now look out for your footing on this slant and for your heads in the low doorway.”
He led the way to another and smaller doorway in the darkest corner, not high enough to stand erect under, and reached by going down a dark and dangerous incline of a few feet.
“This,” said he, “is Monte Cristo’s dungeon. You see it is lower than the other, and even darker. Here on the side is the hole that he cut through into the priest’s cell. Do you see where a large stone has been removed? We could crawl through there into the other cell, but it is not worth while, as they are much the same. Well, Mr. Supercargo, how do you like this sort of a residence?”
“Terrible!” Kit answered. “The only good thing I see about it is that it is entirely dry. There does not seem to be any of the dampness that we expect in a dungeon.”
“That is because these dungeons are all above ground, and founded on rock,” the Captain explained. “And this Monte Cristo cell is the worst of all. It is not more than ten or twelve feet square, you see, and the ceiling is low. In fact, it is no better than a dark cellar. But in the upper tier there are some fine cells. Occasionally they caught a king or prince and caged him here, you know, and they had better quarters.”
“Then let us go and see them!” the chief engineer exclaimed. “It’s enough to give a man the shivers to look at such holes as these.”
Cautiously they crawled out of the lower dungeons and went to the stairway. As they passed the well-curb, Harry stopped and raised the lid and looked down.
“Water!” he cried; “I should say so. Here’s a big square tank with water enough to float a ship.”
They went up the broad, heavy stairs to the gallery, and the Captain paused before a door that was marked “Louis-Philippe, 1792.”
“Hello!” Kit cried; “did they have Louis-Philippe in here? Why, he was one of the kings of France!”
“This was not the king, if I remember rightly,” the Captain replied, “but the Duke of Orleans, and father of the king of the same name. You will see a very different cell here from Monte Cristo’s, if the door is not locked.”
The huge door opened readily, and they stepped into a large and lofty room, moderately well lighted by a window that overlooked the court, but that was not quite wide enough to offer a chance of escape. The stone floor and heavy stone walls gave the apartment, to be sure, something of the air of a prison; but it was eighteen or twenty feet square, and on one side was a handsome fireplace, with a broad stone seat on each side, and a carved mantel of stone that evidently had once been a work of art, but that was badly chipped and broken by time, perhaps with the assistance of some of the royal prisoners. When they looked up the chimney, through which they had a glimpse of the scudding clouds, they saw that although the opening was nearly four feet across, it was not more than five or six inches wide, so that a prisoner could not escape through it.
“You see they had better quarters for their distinguished prisoners than they gave to poor sailors like Monte Cristo,” the Captain said. “Just imagine this room fitted up with rugs and hangings and handsome furniture, as no doubt it was when Louis-Philippe occupied it. A man could hardly want a better place. There are more such rooms on this tier, that you can look at later on. Some of them were occupied by Albert del Campo, Bernardot, a rich armorer of Marseilles who was mixed up with the Duc de Richelieu. The Man in the Iron Mask, the Count de Mirabeau, the Abbé Peretti, and a great many more famous men of their times. Now if you want a good view of the bay, come up to the top of the tower.”
The Captain led the way up the iron stairs of the tower, all the others following. But before Kit and Harry Leonard, who brought up the rear, reached the top, they heard an exclamation of surprise from the Captain, who hurriedly began to descend the steps.
“Make for the boat, boys, as fast as you can!” he cried. “The wind has shifted, and the sea is tumbling in on that side hard enough to break her to pieces. We must get her further up in a hurry, or we’ll lose a good boat.”
The party made a scramble down the stairs, across the court, and down the rough steps outside, then along the jagged rocks, till they reached the boat, which, by their united strength, was soon dragged out of reach of the waves. But the spot where they had landed in comparatively smooth water was now beaten by heavy seas that wet them with their spray.
“That was a narrow escape!” Kit exclaimed. “It wouldn’t have taken many minutes to break her up, where she lay. But she’s all right now.”
“Yes, the boat is all right now,” Captain Griffith answered; “but that’s about all we can say. There’s no such thing as launching her from these rocks while the wind holds in this quarter. We’re as safely imprisoned in Castle d’If as ever Monte Cristo was. We are in for a night of it here, at any rate; you can make up your minds to that.”
“Hurrah!” Harry Leonard cried, waving his arms. “Ain’t that a jolly lark! We have plenty of provisions and lights and a big tank of water, and I wish the Mistral would last a week.”
But the Captain gave him such a look that Harry suddenly made his face as serious as if the voice had come from the blackened rocks.
“It would make bad work for us if this wind should hold too long,” the Captain said. “But I think we can look for a change in the night; and for the present we have no great cause to complain. We may consider it settled, at any rate, that we must spend the night in the castle. Chief, you and Haines bring along the sail and hang it somewhere to dry; we may need it to-night to lie on. And we will all go back to the court till I organize you into a proper garrison and set the watches.
“Now I am going to establish a headquarters,” he went on, when they were in the court again. “Shall we be romantic and take Monte Cristo’s cell, or be comfortable and camp in Louis-Philippe’s big room?”
“Let us be kings while we can,” the chief engineer answered, as the Captain looked at him for a reply. “It looks a little rheumatic in Monte Cristo’s place, and the other is a fine large room.”
“Very well, then,” the Captain decided; “headquarters established in room No. 14, formerly the residence of the Duke of Orleans. Henry, you are appointed quartermaster; you and Silburn bring up the provisions.”
He led the way again to Louis-Philippe’s cell, and looked about to see what they most needed.
“Chief,” he soon said, “I am going to put you in charge of a foraging expedition. If you will take Haines and Henry with you down to the big yard across the moat, you will find the remains of an old shed or something that has collapsed there. I noticed it as we came in. Let them bring up a good stock of the old boards. It will be cold to-night, and we shall need a fire, and some of them can be made into seats.”
The departure of the other three left Kit and the Captain alone in the cell.
“This is more of an adventure than we bargained for, sir,” Kit said. “I didn’t think when I was reading that story, that I should be a prisoner myself in Castle d’If. None of us will forget it in a hurry, and I think I am rather glad it has happened.”
“So am I, to tell the truth,” said the Captain. “It won’t do us any harm if the weather lets us away in the morning. I don’t go in for this sort of thing very often; but now that we are in for it, we may as well enjoy it.”
Within the next hour the big cell bore a more homelike look than it had had for many a day. With two of the boards a rough table was made between the chimney-place and the inner wall. More boards were converted into two rough benches; still others were arranged slantingly against a wall to make a springy bed; and by resting one end of the remainder on the stone seats and jumping upon them they were soon converted into a formidable heap of firewood.
“How many candles, Mr. Quartermaster?” the Captain asked.
“Eleven, sir,” Harry answered, “besides one that was partly burned when we were in Monte Cristo’s cell.”
“Very good. The fire will give us light enough most of the time. And the provisions?”
“I’ll see, sir,” Harry replied; and taking the napkin from the top of the basket he spread it upon the improvised table and began to lay the food out upon it.
“Here’s more than half of a boiled ham, sir,” he began, “and a roast chicken, and three loaves of bread and some rolls, butter, pickles, some cold roast beef, a big pot of cold coffee, pepper and salt, and a lot of dishes and knives and forks. That’s all, sir.”
“All!” the Captain laughed. “The castle is provisioned for a siege. It’s a good thing the North Cape has such a liberal-minded steward. I was afraid we might only have enough for one meal; but if we take a good sandwich apiece now, we will have plenty for supper and breakfast. Make us five big ham sandwiches, Mr. Quartermaster.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Harry replied. He was so excited over being at once a shipwrecked mariner and a prisoner in a celebrated old castle, that it was well for him to have something to do.
With the sandwiches in their hands they strolled among the dismal cells, finding something on every hand to interest them. Afterward they went out to explore the island outside the castle walls, and found caves made by the angry water, and in several places steps cut in the rock, where small boats could land passengers. When the first signs of dusk appeared they returned to the castle; and Kit in wandering about found two things that excited his curiosity.
“There are some locked doors down on the ground tier,” he said to the Captain, “that may lead to places of interest. And I have found a very small narrow cell, hardly high enough for a man to stand up in, without any window at all. I wonder what that can have been for.”
“I don’t know about the locked doors,” the Captain answered, “but most likely they lead to the rooms occupied by the people who take care of the place. There must be somebody in charge of it, and they may have gone ashore and been kept there by the storm. It is very natural that they should lock the doors of their rooms on going away. The small dark cell that you have discovered, however, was the death chamber. When a prisoner was condemned to death he was taken there without any warning, generally in the night or early morning. A guillotine was set up there, and the man never came out alive. I suppose this castle could tell some terrible tales if it could talk. But we must be thinking of supper. Haines, you and Henry bring up a few more loads of boards first; that light wood burns up very rapidly, and it is growing chilly.”
The bare old cell soon looked quite cheerful, with a rousing blaze in the fireplace, and its five occupants seated on the benches, eating a good supper and drinking coffee that they had heated over the fire. The Captain announced during the meal that Silburn was to stand watch from six to ten, Haines from ten to two, and Harry Leonard from two till six.
“And the watchman must take care of the fire,” he added, “and keep an eye on the weather. If the wind shifts, I am to be called immediately.”
Kit’s watch carried them through one of the most enjoyable evenings he had ever spent. With the benches drawn up in front of the fire the Captain began to spin sea-yarns, and told them tales of adventure and hairbreadth escape in many seas in various parts of the world. The chief engineer, too, had a good stock of such stories; and Haines spun two or three yarns that kept them in roars of laughter.
“I can’t do my share at this business,” Kit lamented. “I’ve hardly seen a real gale yet, much less had any adventures.”
“That would be no drawback, if you were a real Jack Tar instead of a supercargo,” the Captain said, laughing. “When Jack is short of adventures he invents a few. Some of the imaginary yarns are better than the true ones, too. But you can spin a real yarn some time about the night you were imprisoned in the Castle d’If.”
By ten o’clock the stories were pretty much all told, the sail, now thoroughly dry, was spread over the bed of boards, and all but Haines, the next watch, prepared for sleep. There was no covering, to be sure; but the blazing fire promised to give them a warm and comfortable night. Before turning in, the Captain went to the top of the tower, and found the night intensely dark, but no change in the weather.
When two o’clock came, and Haines aroused Harry Leonard to relieve him on watch, the others were all fast asleep; but the slight noise woke the Captain, and he went out quietly to look at the sky, without finding any change in the wind.
Harry began his watch by putting on more wood, and making a blaze that illuminated the stone cell beautifully. But about four o’clock the watchful Captain stirred, turned over, raised his head, and asked:
“Any change yet in the weather, Henry?”
The cell was dark and chilly, the fire burned down, and no answer came from the watch.
Thoroughly awake in an instant, the Captain sprang up and found Harry sitting sound asleep on one of the stone seats in the chimney-place.
Surprised and angered at this disobedience of orders, he stepped to the door to look at the sky again before awaking the watchman in the emphatic way that he contemplated. He put his thumb on the heavy wrought-iron latch and pushed against the door, but it would not open.
He pushed harder and shook the door, but instead of its opening, the shaking only gave him a still greater surprise. He could tell by the feel and the rattling that the door was held fast by the heavy bolt on the outside. Somebody or something had shot the bolt!
He went to the window and looked out, but all was black as ink. Then, hardly able to believe his senses, he returned to the door and shook it again.
It was so plain that he had to believe it. The bolt was shot, and they were all securely imprisoned in the cell of Louis-Philippe, in the Castle d’If.