A White Face And A Black Mask. By The Author Of "The Buccaneers,"  "The King’s Highway," &c. Reynolds’s  Miscellany. Volume 37, Number 941. Saturday, June 23, 1866.
Chapter I.
In Which The Hero Manages Rather Cleverly.
The days of the Merry Monarch - the days when England, still shuddering and groaning from those terrible civil wars, preferred rather to bear with royal vice and royal folly, than wake again such demons of wrath and destruction - the days of feasting, the days of plague, pestilence, and fire, too, - in those days our story opens.
And though we must beg our readers to accompany us to Newgate, to make the acquaintance of our hero, we do so without apology; for, in those days, the prison was often more honourably occupied than the palace, and many a hero could be met with there that even Charles himself would not have disdained to shake hands with.
We advance this as a general proposition, and not in particular applicable to our hero, into whose antecedents, perhaps, it would be best not to inquire too suddenly. And now to introduce him.
The light of a small iron lamp falls on the face of a tall dark-haired man, whose regular features would be almost too faultless to be manly, were they not of such a dark complexion, and were not the blue-grey eyes peering from under the deep brows, so intensely keen.
One glance at that face is sufficient to make one give credit to all the wild tales which report had fastened to the name of Claude Night - ay, and the crimes, too. For their is a certain expression about those blue-grey eyes which, to say the best for it , is not merciful.
Still, as he sits there under the light, with a small wooden table before him, slowly and with difficulty, covering a sheet of paper with writing, he certainly does not look like a man whose life is to end on the gallows within a few short hours.
There is nothing of the ruffian about him - plenty of the adventurer, the careless wooer of Fame and Fortune - but nothing of the brutal robber from whom law and justice wrenches life as a duty.
Yet, next day, Claude Night is condemned to perish on the scaffold.
Suddenly, the quick step of some one advancing along the stone corridor without, makes him glance up, and then the grating of locks and bolts echoes through the night stillness of the prison, the door opens, and the gaoler enters.
"Forefend, Jakes! either Old Time marches quicker than usual to-night, or I’m a worse scholar than even I thought, if thou’rt come to tell me I must put by. I’ve written but the half of what I meant," said Night, looking up, not, however, with any great dread of his visitor.
"Time is up, captain," replied the man, closing the door after him, and then approaching the table. "But it isn’t for that I’ve come. I don’t know what’s got me, captain, but somehow I can’t rest."
"Not rest, man! and wherefore not ? Dost fear a rope about thy neck too ?"
"I don’t know and I shouldn’t sleep better were it about my own, captain; but it is yours that troubles me. Directly I shut my eyes, I seem to see all that takes place to-morrow; and then directly after, I feel that rascal’s knuckles pressing round my windpipe, as they did that night when, but for a blow from your fist, my own brother would have murdered me for my few crowns. I can’t sleep a wink, Captain Night."
"Tut, my man ! these are not the times to be chicken-hearted, or to care whose neck gets wrung, so long as it isn’t your own. Thou’rt not worthy to be a gaoler, Jakes !"
"By the Virgin - I mean, by gad, sir - I believe your right, particularly when it is to guard the man who is the only one who ever did me a good turn in all my life. It’s a post I don’t take to, and that’s the blessed truth."
And as he said this, Jakes- a good, kind-looking middle aged man- set down his lamp upon the prisoner’s table, and then seated himself on the bed with an air so excessively tragic, that, despite himself, Claude Night threw down his pen, and burst into a roar of laughter that made the cell ring again.
That a man could laugh like that within twelve hours of his execution, spoke well for his nerves at any rate.
"S’death, Jakes, I don’t know whether thou’lt do best for Jesuit or Roundhead ! Why my man, what in the name of all the saints, including our martyr’d Lord, is the use of coming to mourn with me over my imprisonment? Sympathy’s all well and good, but it won’t loosen the hemp, or free my windpipe."
The words were spoken with a careless, devil-may-care indifference, but as the handsome highwayman- for in truth, Claude Night’s late profession had been of this description - turned, and began slowly pacing up and down his cell, a careful observer might have noticed that those glances he threw from time to time at his companion, scarcely partook of that nature.
They seemed to be examining the gaoler with keen intentness.
"Thou art an excellent fellow, Jakes, a right trusty comrade, but thou cans’t do more than- unless - Ha! an idea strikes me !"
Claude brought his walk to a complete halt, and stood suddenly before Jakes with an almost majestic air- an air that, somehow, threw over him not a bad resemblance to Charles himself.
"Jakes, wilt serve me, or is this gratitude only show ?"
"I give all but my life, captain, for you. By our Lady, I speak truth !"
"Then listen! I do not ask thee to let me go; for as sure as there is law in England, your own neck would answer for mine; but give me a few hours freedom, and as sure as my name’s Claude Night, I’ll return in time to meet my fate to-morrow."
The proposition was a little startling, even for those stirring and adventurous times; and good Jakes looked up aghast.
"Let you out, captain- let you out !"
"Tut, man, the words are English aren’t they ? Yes, let me out; and as sure as I’m alive, I’ll come back to prison, and be hanged peaceably to-morrow."
"But, captain-"
"Silence, fellow ! I know all the risks, and I’m not coward enough to let your neck get wrung for mine. S’death ! no man ever called Claude Night coward yet !"
The gaoler gazed up in the tall, handsome man’s face in veritable perplexity.
It was very evident that his feelings prompted him to grant his captain’s request; but at the same time he was not magnanimous enough to discard all his distrust.
"It was a very different thing," argued Jakes, wisely, "to save a fellow human-beings life, when you knew a blow of your fist would do it easily, to coming back, when once safely out of prison, to certain death."
Jakes himself thought hanging the most awful of fates- worse even than the rack- and he could not understand anyone returning voluntarily to meet it, even though honour were concerned.
Still the honest fellow really loved Claude Night- he really was grateful to him- and to refuse this request seemed only just better than being hanged.
"It wouldn’t do no good, captain."
"I tell thee it’s the greatest boon I could have granted. a few hours freedom is what I would ask of the King himself if he refused my life."
But still the gaoler hesitated.
"I’d undertake to get anything done for your honour- anything but let you out of prison-"
"No one could do what I require done. It must be myself or no one. But enough of this; if thour’t too much of a coward, Jakes, to believe in other men’s truth and courage, get thee back to thy keep, and leave me in peace, I’ll to my writing again."
And so saying, though not once relaxing his keen steady glance on the perplexed official, he sate him down again on the high-backed wooden chair, and drew the strange paper toward him.
The sight was apparently too much for poor Jakes.
"Captain," he said, coming nearer, and speaking in a low tone, "would you swear by the blessed saints - by the crucifix- to come back again in time for the execution?"
"I’d swear oaths enough to frighten every saint in Paradise, if they’re more satisfactory to thy soul, good Jakes, than my simple word."
"Then, by our Lady, I’ll run the risk! Hark ye, captain ! get all ready, and for your life be quiet; and meanwhile I’ll go on and see that all’s safe and clear;" and still half-trembling, half-eager, out went the gaoler.
"For gad," laughed the highwayman, pitching his writing into a corner, and all his dark face blazing up into wild, gleaming beauty, "the world’s not so bad after all. Old Jakes shan’t lose by this night’s work."
Then, with a rapidity that showed the soldier of Fortune, he drew from between his mattresses a large mantle, and wrapping it round his tall person, stood prepared and motionless, awaiting the gaoler’s return.
A man less accustomed to daring adventure might have been excited at the unexpected success of such a wild scheme; but not so Claude Night.
He was naturally cool and collected, and would probably have descended from the scaffold itself, had he suddenly been respited, with a smile and perfect sang froid.
Alarm him, hurry him, was impossible,
"Well?" he said, in a low, easy tone, as Jakes reappeared.
"All is safe; but for the love of the blessed Virgin, don’t make a noise, captain; and now , quick, march !"
No second bidding was necessary, and the next instant they were threading the passages of Newgate, and to Claude’s delight bolts were falling back, and doors opening, which not half an hour ago, he despaired of ever passing again, except on his way to death.
"As I live," he bent and whispered in the kind-hearted gaoler’s ear, as they reached his house,- "as I live, I’ll return. Have no fears !" And then, the prison door was opened, and he felt the cold night air rush to his face.
He was absolutely free again.
His first act was to stand there in the darkness, and lift his face to meet that free, cold wind, to draw in a deep, long breath; then wrapping his mantle closely round him, he turned, and hastening along under the prison wall, plunged down a dark, narrow street in the direction of the river.
We must beg our readers to remember that the City of London, in the days of Charles the Second, was very different to what it is in our own days, and to picture, if they can, nobleman’s houses in those courts and streets where now are warehouses and miserable shops.
It was into one of these streets, which, if not occupied by the very highest class, contained plenty of respectable and substantial burghers, that Claude Night disappeared, till the light of one of the rare lamps suspended across the street again showed him speeding away with a sureness and rapidity that abundantly witnessed to his familiarity with the way he was going.
From this more respectable route, however, he soon disappeared, and then could it have been possible to trace him through the thick darkness of the narrow unlighted alley which he entered, he would have been seen to direct himself more by the stars than any earthly object, and then suddenly halt and dive down a flight of narrow steps.
How he arrived in safety at the bottom was a marvel, but probably fate, who had so kindly managed his curious escape, befriended him in this instance.
At any rate, through the stillness of the night, sounded a tremendous whistle, and then the next instant it was followed by the grating of a rusty key in a rusty lock, and a female voice- none of the sweetest, either- asked the world generally what it meant by waking up honest folks at that cut-throat time?
"Come on, Janet, look alive and open the door," responded our hero impatiently.
The sound of the deep, clear voice seemed enough and in another instant there was a gleam of light, and Captain Night sprang in among the honest folk who with tankards, and dice, and dirty cards, seemed to find the low-ceilinged, reeking underground chamber a very pleasant abode, to judge by the laughter and singing going on.
"A merry night to you my masters," said the newcomer, quickly passing through the room, however, followed by Janet, to an inner chamber, and then closing the door with a bang, he flung himself on a chair, pitched his hat to the farthest corner of the closet, and muttered something like an oath.
"Well, captain, and have you burned the gaol down, that your out again amongst us all, looking the image of yourself, and both your blessed parents ?" said the old woman, holding up the flaring candle to let the light fall upon his face; but regarding him with a glance of keen sarcasm, not exactly such as you would have expected to find on such a face, or coupled with such a voice.
Mistress Janet Perling was - to say the best for her- viperish looking; her eyes were snaky, her lips snaky; the muscles in her great bare arms coiled round the bones snaily, and her very hair seemed to bristle up like fangs.
She was certainly not a winning-looking person, and yet she stood there before our handsome hero, looking down on him as if she had been the fairest of the fair, and he her worshipper.
"Janet," replied Claude," bridle thy sweet tongue for the love of gold, if not of me, and undo thy stores. Five minutes, old witch, to turn me into a dashing cavalier- a spruce gallant. Out with thy plumes, and velvets and doublets of satin; out with thy daggers and jeweled scabbards ! Turn me into a courtier ! I may swing to-morrow, but I will dance to-night !"
"Art mad ?"
"Ay, mad as my father, and as my mother! But out with thy stores and hold thy peace!"
"And the gold ?"
"Shall be forthcoming when ‘tis due- not a jot of time before."
For an instant, the mistress of the strange mansion regarded him with another of those sarcastic glances, then turning away, she opened a large wardrobe, and soon produced the articles demanded.
Then placing a small mirror before him, she left him to make his toilet.
It was not a very long affair, though he had to act barber, and trim his beard into the approved peak then fashionable, and in less than a quqrter of an hour, when Mistress Perling returned, he had become as handsome and elegant a gentleman as ever graced the royal apartments , or lounged at the feet of that star of stars, the Duchess of Portsmouth.
Even the viperish woman looked at him approvingly.
"You’ll win your way yet, Claude Night, if you’ll be but prudent. And now shall I tell your fortune?"
"Ay, old witch, if you can."
"If I can? Well then, hark ye, my bonnie gallant! You’re after a bird that ye won’t snare; but nevertheless ye may spread the net, and good luck to ye. Hubert Lester be dancing away as merry as a grig; but, ye may sharpen you’re sword or your dagger, if so it pleases ye."
As she uttered this strange rigmarole, she looked up in Claude’s face with an expression of deep meaning in her snaky eyes, and then as suddenly turned away.
The highwayman’s blue-grey orbs flashed, and it was evident that he understood that "fortune" well enough.
Without making any remark, however, he merely buckled on the long sword, whose edge he had already tried, and then once again throwing the long mantle across his shoulders, he passed out again through the reeking chamber into the narrow alley, and quickly made his way back to more respectable regions.

End Of Chapter I.