Black Bartlemys Treasure

The Devil, ever zealous for the undoing of poor Humanity, surely findeth no readier ally than the blind and merciless Spirit of Mortified Pride. Thus I, minding the Lady Joan's scornful look and the sting of her soft-spoke words, fell to black and raging fury, and vowed that since rogue and galley-slave she had named me, rogue she should find me in very truth henceforward if I might but escape my perilous situation.

And now it was that Chance or Fate or the Devil sent me a means whereby I might put this desperate and most unworthy resolution into practice; for scarce had I uttered this vow when a key turned softly in the lock, the door opened and closed stealthily, and though I could not see (it being pitch-dark) I knew that someone stood within a yard of me, and all with scarce a sound and never a word. And when this silence had endured a while, I spoke sudden and harsh: "What now? Is it the noose so soon, or a knife sooner?"

I heard a quick-drawn breath, a soft footfall, and a small hand, groping in the dark, touched my cheek and crept thence to my helpless, manacled fist. "Who is it?" I demanded, blenching from the touch, "Who is it? Speak!"

"Hush!" whispered a voice in my ear, "It be only me, master. Jimmy--little Jim as you was good to. Red Andy don't beat me no more, he be afeared o' you. Good to me you was, master, an' so's she--took me to be her page, she 'ave--"

"Whom d'you mean, boy?"

"I mean Her! Her wi' the beautiful, kind eyes an' little feet! Her as sings! Her they calls 'my lady.' Her! Good t' me she is--an' so's you, so I be come to ye, master."

"Ha--did she send you?"

"No, I just come to save you from being hung to-morrow like they says you must."

"And how shall you do this, boy?"

"First wi' this key, master--"

"Stay! Did she give you this key?"

"No, master--I took it!" So, albeit 'twas very dark, the boy very soon had freed me of my shackles; which done (and all a-quiver with haste) he seizes my hand and tugs at it: "Come, master!" he whispered, "This way--this way!" So with his little, rough hand in mine I suffered him to bring me whither he would in the dimness, for not a lanthorn burned anywhere, until at last he halted me at a ladder propped against a bulkhead and mounting before, bade me follow. Up I climbed forthwith, and so to a narrow trap or scuttle through which I clambered with no little to-do, and found myself in a strange place, the roof so low I could barely sit upright and so strait that I might barely lie out-stretched.