Ambrose Fecit, or, The peer and the printer :: :: University of Virginia Library

My return to consciousness showed
me that I was lying in bed. There
was a dull light around me, which
came apparently from a round hole at
a short distance. I felt for the edges
of the bed. One was clear, the other
was bordered by a cold wall. I arose,
and stepped on the floor As soon as
I could determine the point, I found
that I was in a narrow room, and that
the hole was in the door, immovable,
and apparently fastened from the outside.
I shouted aloud, but received
no answer. At length, I heard a number
of cries, confused and smothered,

with a dull echo, as though they came
from a number of apartments opening
on a common corridor.

I thought it must be all a dream;
but a second thought showed that it
was real, for in a dream we never
doubt whether we are dreaming or not.
Where, then, could I be?

By the dim light I saw the apartment
was narrow, high, and arched.
The narrow bed on which I had lain
was a hard mattress, resting upon a
frame, or lattice-work of strips of iron,
and let into the wall at the head and
foot. There was no other furniture in
the place, not even a chair. Back of
the bed was a door which would not
open. I tugged at it, when it slid,
and showed a private closet about two
feet square. Though there was no
trace of fire-place, furnace, nor flue,
the temperature of the apartment was
mild.

Could it be the cell of a prison? I
thought not. There was a grated window
high up and beyond my reach,
over my bed; but the grating was not
made prison-fashion, being merely a
piece of ornamental iron-work.

I tried again to call the attention of
some one, but received no response. I
put my hand to my head in thought,
and to my surprise and dismay, discovered
that my head had been shaved
close. In an instant the truth flashed
over me.

I was in a lunatic asylum.

I shuddered, and felt a sickening
sensation crawl over me. All the stories
I had read concerning unhappy
victims who had been buried in these
horrible bastiles, recurred to my memory.
I staggered to the bed, yielding
to a nervous prostration, and cried like
a child—no, not like a child; but with
the noiseless, burning, bleeding, agonizing
tears of a man.

Those tears relieved me. My mind
grew clearer, and I sat myself down
to deliberately shape some plan of action.
I could see no way visible, nor
even conjecture any. I drew the counterpane
over me, and lay there. Singularly
enough, it was not long before
I fell fast asleep.

It must have been near day when I
awoke. It was several minutes before
I could realize that I was shut up in a
cell, a helpless prisoner. The glimmering
light still came through a hole
in the door, showing that there must
be a light burning all night in the corridor,
and I looked at it as a sort of
comfort.

Close by the head of my bed there
was a rat gnawing in the wall. It
seemed a singular taste of his, too. I
could hear his teeth working away at
the mortar between the bricks. If I
could only pick so! But I had nothing—not
even a rusty nail. Ha! my
pocket knife!

I felt around. Clothing was on the
bed, but not mine. It felt as though
made of some coarse cloth. They had
stripped me while I was insensible,
and left me these instead. I laughed
convulsively at my own folly. Why,
of course they would leave their prisoner
no tool, no weapon—they were
too wise for that. Still the gnawing
went on. How I envied the rat his
sharp teeth!

Day came at length, the light in the
corridor was extinguished, and the sunlight,
crawling in through the grating
in the upper part of the cell, met and
wrestled with the colder rays that
crept in at the little hole in the door.
I could see the cell very clearly then.

It was about six feet by eight; the
walls were naked, plastered rough-cast
in mortar, and washed with lime. I
examined the closet to see if I could
communicate with my fellow-prisoners
by that way, but the iron drain-pipe
ran outwards and downwards, and was
set firmly in cement.

The rat stopped his gnawing with
the approach of light.

About an hour after day-break, the
light before the round hole was darkened,
a key turned in a lock, a square
portion of the door below the hole was
let down, forming a kind of shelf, and
a tin can, with a square ingot of bread
was placed upon it. A face appeared
at the aperture, the features stolid,
coarse, and by no means well-favored.

“Breakfuss!” growled the new-comer.

“Pray,” said I, “why am I here, and
what place is this?”

“You're a new man, an' doesn't
know the rules,” was the reply. “No
talkin' of payshins to attendins, nor
wisy warsy, which I doesn't mean to
explain to you no more. I'm a goin'
of my rouns. If the tin's here empty
when I comes back, I takes it away.
If the wittals is here, why I takes
them away. Them's the rules.”

The face disappeared.

I reflected a moment. Now, I had
not much appetite under the circumstances,
yet it would be rank folly to
starve myself; I might want all my
strength. I tried the bread—it was
not unpalatable. The tea was liberally
qualified with sugar and milk—it
was of a fair quality. I ate the one,
and drank the other—a meagre breakfast,
quality considered, but sufficient
in quantity. I laid the tin cup on the
shelf, and looked through the aperture.
The hall was about six feet wide. As
far as I could see, there appeared to
be no rooms on the opposite side, and
there were certainly no doors there.
I put my head through the aperture—
the man was returning, and I withdrew
it.

He came up to take the can.

“See here,” said he, “keep your
head inside, or I'll punch it. It's agin
rules.”

“To punch my head?” I inquired.

The man grinned, and closed the
aperture. As he locked it, I heard him
mutter to himself:

“Rum young chap that; werry.”

I put on the clothes which lay on
the bed—a loose, grey jacket, with
strings instead of buttons, and loose,
wide trousers—and then sat down. I
reflected carefully on the whole affair,
and at length came to the conclusion
that the best thing to do was to remain
quiet, and let events take their course.
In fact nothing else could well be done;
but men under such circumstances are
not always rational in act. I took the
common sense view of the case, and
acted accordingly. Had I screamed,
yelled or raved, it wouldn't have been
an unusual thing to have done; but I
mastered all impulses of that kind.
My first attempt would be to gain a
gradual intimacy with my grim jailor.
I did not hope much to soften him. He
would scarcely have been placed there
if made of penetrable stuff; but I
hoped to throw him off his guard, and
by that means pick up something as
to the place of my detention, and the
object of my imprisonment.

I was not without conviction as to
who was the author of my confinement.
That was easy enough. Mr.
Osborne was, of course, the Earl's

agent, and as he had been concerned
in putting away Espinel, who might,
indeed, be there under the same roof
with me, the cause of our imprisonment
was similar.

Espinel was evidently the master of
some secret highly dangerous to the
Earl of Landys, and his lordship
thought me to be privy to it. I assumed
that his mistake would be discovered,
and that my release would
come at some time, and all I could do
meanwhile was to wait.

At noon the same face made its appearance;
a pan of soup was put on
the shelf, and a horn spoon and large
slice of bread placed alongside of it.
It was not part of the system to starve
me, at all events, for the soup was
good, and there was enough of it.

I kept up my plan of amusing my
keeper, and as he was taking away
the pan and spoon I said to him, in a
mock dramatic style, “remove the banquet.”
He grinned again, but said
nothing.

Supper was similar to breakfast;
but a tin full of water was added, which
I retained, understanding it to be for
drink during the night, and the remainder
for ablution in the morning.

I lay down to sleep that night with
a terrible sense of loneliness and weariness.
About midnight I awakened,
and felt no more disposition to sleep.
The rat had resumed his work at my
bed-head. I lay and listened to him,
or got up and paced the narrow limits
of my cell, and thus the dreary night
passed away.

The solitude and want of occupation
threatened to make me really mad. So
on the third day I asked the attendant,
as he brought my dinner, if I could
have a book.

“Talkin' to attendins is agin the
rules,” he answered.

“Oh, very well,” said I. “All right;
but if anybody calls, send up their
cards.”

He grinned as usual, and left.

So then I was to be buried alive
there; no companionship, no books,
no relief. I sat on the bed-side and
thought of my early days; of honest
old John Guttenberg and his wife, of
Mary, of my schoolmates, of the heaths
and fields on the outskirts of Puttenham,
and of my meeting with Espinel
and Zara. Zara! at the thought of
her, and the pleasant life I had led for
a short while before, my tears flowed
again. Those tears seemed to save
me from frenzy.

There were two spiders, rivals in
trade, who had established fly-traps
far up in the cell, in opposite corners.
I watched them curiously, and speculated
as to what kept them awake at
that season, and alive at any time, for
the place was too gloomy for flies.
Then I got in the habit of dozing by
day, and lying awake at night, waiting
for the rat to begin. There was
companionship in him. About midnight
he would commence work, and
keep on indefatigably until day-break.
He was an industrious rodent. I tried
to make a calculation how long it
would be, admitting that he wore off
the thousandth part of an inch from
his teeth every night, before he would
get them even with his jaw, and so
perish miserably. Then I should lose
the companionship of his labor, and
have neither company nor amusement.
I grew very anxious to see that rat.

About six weeks had passed away
in the same monotonous round. Once
a week, however, my attendant thrust

a brush and narrow dust-pan through
the square aperture, just after breakfast,
with the words:

“Sweep your room!”

That was a great luxury. I used to
protract the operation as much as possible.
The day after the sweeping, the
coarse bed linen was changed. I made
my bed, as the door never opened.

About six weeks had passed, as I
said, when I thought I had secured a
sufficient amount of my jailor's good
will by my forced fun, to get him to
listen to me. So when he came that
day to remove my dinner dish, I whispered:

“The Duke of Sellingbourne would
give a hundred pounds to find where I
am.”

The man chuckled, and before he
closed the aperture, put his thumb to
his nose, and waved his fingers in a
derisive motion, classic through age,
but not picturesque. I thought the
bait might still be swallowed; but
when one, two, three, four weeks had
gone, and he did not in any way allude
to the offer, I began to despair.

At length, one night it struck me
that my rat had nearly gnawed his way
through, the sound of his teeth growing
plainer and plainer. I listened,
and heard small pieces of the plaster
falling to the floor. I leaned over the
bed and tried to peer underneath, but
the light from the corridor was too
dim. Suddenly the truth flashed upon
me. Some one from the next cell was
breaking into mine.

I was startled. This might be a real
maniac, desperate and dangerous.
Should I cry out? It might be a fellow-prisoner
trying to escape. And
yet what folly, merely to get from one
dungeon into the next. I determined
to wait and watch.

The loosened bricks were cautiously
removed. Some one was coming
through. I bent over and grasped the
intruder by the shoulder, saying:

“Who are you? What do you
want?”

The only reply was a despairing
groan. I spoke again.

“Tell me who you are. I am immured
in this cell. Are you a prisoner
too?”

A hoarse whisper answered me:

“Yes. Santa Maria! is there another
cell yet?”

“Come throught,” I whispered, for I
thought I recognized the voice.

The man crawled in, and we were
presently standing together on the
floor of the cell.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“Ambrose Fecit.”

“Cosa rara! Caspita! I am Espinel.”

We hurriedly consulted together.
He had been under the hope that the
one left was the last cell on the range,
and had worked through his own and
the others succeeding, which happened
to be vacant, by means of a strip of
iron which he had detached from his
bedstead. He had been at work for
over four months; but a part of the
time his labor had been interrupted by
the tenancy of an intermediate apartment.
He thought, if mine were the
last cell, we could get through in four
to six weeks more.

“But why,” I inquired, “did you not
try the outer wall, the back part of the
cell?”

“Because I know the plan of the
building. It is an oblong quadrangle,

the cells backing on a garden well-hole,
from which there would be no
escape There is a corirdor completely
around, and we can get into it at the
end without attracting observation.
Then we must fight, if necessary.”

I was too impatient to wait for this
slow burrowing, and struck on a bolder
plan.

“Do they ever open the cell doors?”
I asked.

“I think not,” he answered, “unless
you are sick. I was unwell the week
after I came here, and the doctor, the
keeper of the place, I think, came and
prescribed for me. That was the only
time my cell has been opened.”

“We might seize him, and force our
way.”

“No! he is always armed, and they
are continually on the watch.”

“Armed! so much the better. With
his arms we can fight our way out.”

“But how to take them.”

“I will be sick to-morrow. Watch,
and when the attendant goes to bring
the doctor, arrange your bed clothes
so that a passing glance would make
any one think you were lying there,
remove the bricks and come to me at
once.”

“And then?”

“And then I will show you on the
instant what to do. Now go, and replace
the bricks carefully.”

He left, and I quietly went to bed,
where I lay awake, quietly maturing
my plan, and leaving it to be modified
by circumstances. I fell asleep at
length, but woke at day-light.

I did not go to the grate when the
attendant came, but lay under the covers
with my clothes on, tossing and
moaning as though in great pain.

“Sick?” inquired he.

I muttered that I was dying—a doctor.

He removed the victuals, and I heard
him hurry off. In a couple of minutes
Espinel was in my cell. It was the
first time that I had seen him since our
imprisonment by day-light, and a very
bearded savage he was, to be sure.

The door of the cell was not in the
centre, but a little to the right. I
placed Espinel on the side next its
hinges, close against the wall, and
crouched down. Presently, some one
came to the door, and I resumed my
tossing and moaning. I heard the attendant
say:

“Shall I wait, sir?”

The face of the doctor placed itself
at the hole.

“No,” said a strange voice, “I shan't
want you, Bill. If I do I'll call. Go
on with your rounds.”

As he opened the door I rolled in a
fresh paroxysm of simulated agony, so
as to draw his gaze on me. He came
forward to the bed, and said, sharply:

“Now, then, Number Twenty-eight,
what appears to be the matter with
you?”

The answer was given in a startling
way. Espinel leaped upon him like a
tiger, and clasped his throat so tightly
that not only could he not cry out, but
was in imminent danger of strangulation.
His face began to blacken, his
tongue protruded, his eyes seemed
bursting from their sockets, and his
arms made convulsive efforts to free
himself from that fearful grasp. I
passed my hands over his person.
There were a pair of small pistols in
his skirt-pockets, and a short club,
like a constable's mace, in his bosom.
As I secured these, he fainted. We
saw that he was not dead. Espinel released

his throat. We gagged him
with a rude contrivance made of the
piece of broken iron brought by Espinel,
and his own cravat; and hastily
tying his hands and feet with strips
torn from the sheets, we threw him on
the bed, and covered him with the
counterpane. I then went to the door
and peered out. The attendant was
delivering food at the cell doors. I
imitated the doctor's peremptory tone
as near as I could, and called out:

“Bill.”

He came at the summons. As he
neared us I handed a pistol and the club
to Espinel, and with the other pistol
cocked stood waiting. As Bill came,
I sprang out, and my left hand was on
his collar, and my right had the remaining
pistol at his head in an instant.

He was too much petrified by terror,
which intensified at the sight of Espinel,
to make any attempt at escape.

“Silence!” I said sternly, “if you
value your life. You know what this
pistol holds; it is cocked, and my finger
on the trigger. A cry, a motion
more than I bid you to make, and I
spatter the floor with your brains. We
will not be retaken alive. You must
lead us out by the shortest and safest
way. Attempt to betray us, and I kill
you on the spot. Now, lead us out.”

“I hadn't the keys of the private
doors, sir; the doctor has 'em,” he replied,
trembling.

“Espinel, get them.”

The Spaniard re-entered the cell to
rifle the doctor's pockets, and soon re-entered
with the keys.

“Now,” said I, “quickly and silently.”

With one hand on the collar of his
coat, and the other grasping the pistol,
I followed him down stairs to a
private entrance, with a double door.
Espinel opened these, and by my direction,
closed and locked them after him.
It was well to take this precaution, for
no sooner had we done so than a thundering
upon them from the inside
showed we were pursued. We emerged
on a back street, and led our man to a
corner where we dismissed him. He
needed no advice to hurry off. We
were now in a crowded thoroughfare,
where our strange, wild figures, no
less than our dress, drew a mob around
us. Fortunately a policeman was
near, and came up. We surrendered
ourselves to his custody, and desired
to be transferred to Bow street. It
was not long before we were safe under
the guardianship of the magistrates.

Our story was soon told. Policemen
were at once sent to the asylum,
and messengers despatched to seek
the Duke, the Spanish minister, and
Paul Bagby. The former came back
to report that the doctor had escaped,
but that the attendants were in custody.
No direct charge was made
against them—they were mere hirelings—but
they were held to testify.
The messengers from our friends returned,
followed by Paul Bagby, and
an attache of the Spanish legation.
These identified us at once. Our parole
was taken to send sureties for our
appearance against the doctor, if he
were apprehended; a coach was procured;
and we were driven, amid the
parting cheers of the crowd, to the
Duke's house.