Chapter 5

A heavy door was opened to a dark, windowless room. Waking from a light sleep, David heard the lock turn. He had been left alone since the first night here. No one saw him accept a house servant who gave him a meal twice a day and took away his slop bucket. There had been no light in his room until the first meal of the day and no light after the plate was taken away from the second.

The door opened on squeaky old iron hinges. A man he had not seen before brought in a lantern. Two others followed him, dragging something across the floor. The lantern was put on its peg, freeing its bearer to help the others with their burden. As David's eyes adjusted to the light, he made out the shape to be a man tied hand and foot. The new prisoner was thrown to a corner on his stomach and left as one of his captors nailed a heavy iron ring to the wall, threaded a chain with manacles through it fastened the manacles to the man's wrists. The ropes were removed when he was fully secured.

The men stood back, looking down at the new occupant, mopping their brows at the exertion of tending him.

"Heavy bugger," the bald one said, as he mopped himself from the eyes to the back of his neck with a dirty rag. They turned to David for a moment, then back at the other, who seemed to be unconscious. "Like two peas in a pod they are," the bald man stated.

"Hey, Drummond," the lamp bearer called to him. "You have a brother you an't talking about?" The men left laughing.

David gave the newcomer a look over in the light of the forgotten lantern. The other prisoner was dressed in black with a hooded cape hanging off his shoulders askew. It was dirty from his capture and the dragging. The chains holding them both were not so short, the prisoners could not move about, sit, and lay down to sleep, but they were too short for David to reach the other's side to touch him. David gave his new cellmate a light kick to the foot he could reach.

"You. Wake up." David said. "Come out of it."

The other moved his foot away after the second kick and slowly worked his hands under him. With much protest, the chained man pulled himself up off the floor, using the wall as a brace. There were scratches on his hands.

David could not see his face, as the man was facing a different wall, but by the look of his slow movements, this one must have taken a good going over during his capture. David wondered at the statement the other had made again. This fellow was about his height and build, had red hair peeking out from under the cape hood. The outfit he was wearing was a copy of the clothes he used to have when he traveled through Ireland.

Has this fool been impersonating me? As a thief… for thrills… a copycat?

David's mouth compressed to a hard line the men from his army days would have dreaded. With all my enemies just dying to get their hands on me, this idiot has been running the roads in my name… Righteous indignation and fury at such stupidity drove David to offer the fool another good kick, to the hip within reach, knocking him down after having worked his way to a half stand.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" David shouted.

His new cellmate swore tiredly and pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Trying to save your ungrateful hide," he said in a low, irritated, cultured English. "And if you kick me again, I will change my mind and leave you here." The other man raised his head and pushed back the cape, covering half his face. David's English cousin Phileas scowled back at him. He was bedraggled, beaten up, dirty and mad as hell, but even with red hair, David knew him. Phileas Fogg's voice was not to be mistaken.

David's shock was profound. He was angry and touched at the same time at what this cousin, whom he had only met a few short months ago, had tried to do for him. The original David Drummond sat heavily on the floor and just stared at the other man who had done such an excellent job of remaking himself into David's image. He had never noticed their family resemblance being this close.

Phileas leaned back on the wall slowly. "Nice accommodations."

"Complete with room service. Sparsely furnished. though." David said. "Hope you had a Plan B. My trial should be soon. I had been wondering about the holdup, but now I see what you have been up to. They were trying to get you off the roads before stringing me up?"

Opening his eyes again, Phileas took in the room, his chains and his cousin's condition, in one turn of the head. "My running the roads has been keeping your head out of a noose, yes," he said. "Others will come for us tomorrow at the soonest."

"Others?" David inquired. "I saw our Verne the day I arrived. Who else is here?"

"Rebecca. Passepartout is waiting for us on the coast with the Aurora. Your lawyer friend Harris has been pressed into the effort as well."

"I'll assume Rebecca is field trained or you would not have brought her," David said. He knew she was an agent but had been told nothing about what Rebecca did. In all the years he had been in the service under Cousin Boniface and Chatsworth, David had never known of her except as Phileas's presumed lady friend. Had David known he had such a pretty distant cousin in the service, he would have introduced himself, secrecy or not.

"Harris will do, as long as you don't ask him to do anything to reveal himself. He is a good man, but a coward at heart. He sends me letters about what Kingston is up to, nothing more. Who else is helping you? Which agents?"

"That is everyone," Phileas said tiredly. "unless the innkeeper at the Boar and Lion is an undercover agent. I did not ask him to take part in the rescue. He is just housing us."

David's brows were creeping up into his hair.

My cousin is very brave or very stupid. He really planned a rescue with only one other agent, a French student, and a conscientious lawyer afraid of his shadow? …oh, and one valet in a dirigible six hours away.

"So, what happened to you?" David said, covering his disappointment.

"I was jumped–behind the stable as I was coming back to the inn," Phileas said. "They came off the roof, knocked me off your horse."

"Rebecca?"

"She wasn't with me. She will know what happened by now and make some changes in our plan."

The pain in Phileas's head had subsided, but the bruises he had taken were stiffening. Phileas was exhausted and knew he must rest. He had to get some strength back before Rebecca showed up. There was no telling how she would alter their plan to accommodate losing him.

"If you don't mind, cousin, I am going to rest now," Phileas said. "When room service gets here, a heavily brandied tea would be perfect." Phileas gave a deep sigh, a grunt as he caught his sideways slump and passed out against the wall.

David stared at the sleeping form against the wall.

"So, cousin, you got caught. They were waiting for you. And they may or may not know about Rebecca."

Having been jumped a few times unawares, David could sympathize, but this gave him few hopes of a happy ending.

There cannot be two Drummonds on the gibbet. I will be hanged as planned, and you, my cousin, will be consigned to a shallow grave in the hills or a burial at sea. Rebecca and Mr. Verne, David hoped, would have the good sense to go after more help. Of course, Rebecca would not know where to look.

David closed his eyes and sent up a prayer to St. Jude.