Jonathan was tackled from behind and shoved down to the floor. He hit hard and found himself lying right next to the fallen Bishop, who was unconscious and bleeding from the temple. Jonathan's arms were then pinned behind his back and he was roughly maneuvered to a standing position. His satchel and staff were ripped from him and he was shoved out of the room with his hands still pinned behind, as three angry priests guided him down the hall and a long flight of stairs. At a large, wooden door with two heavy bars they halted. One man opened it and Jonathan was tossed in, as hard as a person could be, against the cold, stone floor of a dark room.
It took him several minutes to sit up and recover from the shock and a few more for his eyes to adjust to the near blackness of the cell. Even before he could see he heard low voices very close to him and then felt somebody touch his arm and help raise him from the floor.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"In jail" came the faceless reply.
"And about to be burned in the square as soon as your turn comes" added a different voice, right next to him.
Very slowly his eyes adjusted to the room. He first perceived the dim shapes of about ten people standing around him, mostly men he guessed. Then he noticed that the room stretched in one direction quite a ways. There were narrow slits along one wall which let in a little light. They seemed to be placed about every ten feet and he counted seven of these at least, receding away.
He asked the man who helped him up how many people were here.
"About two hundred I think," said a bearded man.
"And why are you here?" asked Jonathan. "What have you done?"
"We don't know for sure" replied the man. "Most of us were picked out when we disembarked at the harbor."
Then another one chimed in "they come to this cell each day and pick out twenty of us to be illuminated at the evening service. They came today just before you arrived."
"You mean burned at the stake," said Jonathan, slowly recovering his wits. "But are you conscious of any wrongdoing?"
"None" said an old, white-bearded man who stepped forward. "None for these people. I was thrown in because I disagreed with our Bishop about the killings. Why are you here?"
Jonathan could tell he was talking to a priest and replied: "because I've just now had the same disagreement and happened to smash in the skull of this same Bishop."
Most of the people surrounding Jonathan seemed to gasp at this statement, which he thought strange from a group about to be burned. Then he realized that they were innocent of any crime and except for their predicament, still thought like any other Church-fearing citizens. But now a larger crowd gathered around him as whispers ran through the room.
"Why do you leave it so dark in this dungeon?" Jonathan asked naively. "Why don't you light a fire?"
"We have no matches" one of them said.
"When do the guards bring you food?" he continued.
"They don't often" said the former priest. "They sometimes bring us stale bread but they’ve not done this for two days now. Many here are ill and close to death."
Jonathan pondered these words in silence a moment. "What, no food, how can you survive? How long have you been here?"
"I have been here for almost a moon," replied the old man mournfully. "There’s a broken pipe at the far end of the room, so we have water and we have air and light from the openings."
Indeed, the air and the light were as scant as the food. The room had a dreadful stench. Now Jonathan began to explore the length of the cell while a small crowd followed him. He could see people along each wall, leaning or lying in the most abject of postures. There were women and even small children and babies here. The thought of this dungeon sickened him.
"Every morning we take the weakest" continued the old man "and place them next to the door. They are the first taken away. We know that they are...illuminated, because those that were brought here more recently can attest to having seen some of our people in their final agony, with their own eyes."
Jonathan was closely listening to this man, but at the same time he was ripping off the lower portions of his robes into strips and thinking ahead.
He was now in the center of the room.
"Is there any wood in this place?" he asked the crowd.
"There is straw" said one.
"There are some old crates we can break up" said another.
"Good, then go fetch them," said Jonathan.
He had already drawn his knife out and was removing from its sheath a piece of flint that he always kept there. With a few strokes he had the straw burning and built a small fire. Then he took one of the slats of wood and wrapped the strips of cloth tightly around it, to make a torch. He told two young men to feed the fire while he continued down the room.
His torch now illuminated a scene of gaunt, ghastly, cowering faces and bodies weakly propped against the stone walls or sprawled on the floor as if dead. He proceeded to the very end of the room with his crowd still following and found the broken pipe running at eye level across the end wall. He could see the crack in the middle section where the water dribbled out. It was an old, rusty pipe and the water had a smell. A small line of women and children were standing nearby, waiting their turn to catch some of the liquid in their hands and drink.
As Jonathan was examining this wall with the torch close between his face and the pipe, someone in the crowd came forward and clasped his arm tightly, saying "my son, my son."
Jonathan turned with his torch to see a stout, middle-aged man with a short, curly beard and a round face.
"I know who you are" said the man excitedly. "You took my son with you to the miraculous spring. Remember me? I'm his father, the carpenter."
"Yes" replied Jonathan staring back "you must be Paul's father."
The man appeared confused at this.
"I mean 'Sprint' or rather 'Nosy'" said Jonathan, catching his error.
"Yes, yes, that's him" said the man. "Is he safe?"
"Yes, he's doing very well. He's married now to the young girl who was my first assistant" Jonathan assured him. "But why are you here?"
"I and the rest of my family were picked out as we came off of the ship that brought us here, fifteen days ago" he began. "We did nothing wrong. We had our baggage with us and were moving in the long line down the ramp, like everyone else. At the bottom there were officials watching us as we passed. They stopped my youngest son, he's over there against the wall with my wife and two daughters. They stopped him and tore from his neck the little figure that his brother had given him last summer. You might remember him carving it. He said you told him the story. It was of the boy riding a dolphin. Anyways they became angry at this and brought us straight here, where we must perish."
He spoke these last words sadly, squeezing Jonathan's arm as he did so. Jonathan told him not to worry.
"We'll at least put up a struggle" Jonathan said. "There’s still hope." Then he added, "show me your family."
They walked a little ways back towards the fire and Jonathan was directed to a group of four people huddled closely together. The mother sat against the wall with a daughter on each side and the youngest child, a boy of five or six curled up on her lap, apparently sleeping.
Jonathan knelt before the frightened woman and told her also not to worry, he would do all in his power to free her. He had no plan in mind but the injustice of this spectacle set him to working on one. He still had his gun and bullets strapped under his shirt and a mind to use them profusely.
There were about thirty men standing around him now, who had collected like moths to his torchlight. He turned to them and asked if anyone had made plans of breaking out.
"We have been chosen" one older man said pleadingly.
Nothing sickened Jonathan more than this attitude in people. He’d seen far too much of it his whole life and now he lost his temper.
"Chosen to die” he began loudly "rotting away, starving, suffocating in your own stench and about to be torched. Well you’re addressing a priest of ambassador rank and I can illuminate you personally this very minute if you wish. Would you like that?" he said, drawing the gun and pointing it at the man's forehead.
The circle around Jonathan immediately widened. They were staring at him in mute amazement. He realized his emotions were starting to get the better of his reason. He stuffed the gun back in its belt and began berating his audience on their shiftlessness.
"Don't you want to escape?" he pleaded. "How can you accept this treatment? You're to be burned for no other reason than to be made examples, to make others obey insane laws. You have the right to live in your own homes, it’s your birthright. I for one am breaking out of here. How many are going with me?"
Confusion and fear flickered with the torchlight in the looks of those surrounding Jonathan. But one young man now pushed forward and asked, "How can we escape this prison? And even if we did, where would we go?"
More and more people were getting up and crowding around to here this interesting debate. Jonathan handed his torch to Paul's father, who’d been standing at his side all along.
"All we have to do is break down the door tonight and leave. The halls are unguarded. The gates are stationed with blind men. Once we reach the streets we can head for the hills. I doubt that they can follow us there or will even try. Then you can return to your homes. Everything you need is there and I’ll show you how to protect yourselves. The Church is abandoning this whole region. They won't have the time to recapture you. You'll be free, left alone to live out your lives in peace and freedom."
There was no immediate reply. A few people began mumbling to their neighbors.
"Look" said Jonathan in an exasperated tone "at the choice you have. It’s either escape with me or be burned alive. Have you lost your will to live?" Then he turned to Paul's father: "you'll come with me at least, won't you? I'll take you and your family to the shrine to live with your son and grandson. No one will ever find us there."
"Yes, yes, thank you" he replied eagerly.
Now there were louder murmurs from the crowd. The youth who had just spoken broke out, "I'll go." Then others chimed in, in a torrent of voices, as if not to speak up now was to be left behind.
"But some of us can hardly walk" one older man stated.
"Then the strong shall carry the weak" Jonathan replied.
"How can we break through the door?" asked one young man.
"With a bomb which we’ll make right now" Jonathan told him. "First let's get organized" he said to the crowd. "I want a few of you to collect all the wood and materials we have here. Take them near the fire. We'll need several more torches made."
Some of the young men quickly dispersed on this business.
"I'll need a few strong arms to help me with the pipe" Jonathan continued. Most of the crowd followed him back to the end wall, curious to know his plan. When he got there he began pulling at the pipe against the wall and several men beside him took the hint and began helping. In a moment there was twice as much water leaking from the break. Jonathan was surprised that they’d not even thought to do this for themselves, when they were all thirsty. Then he began speaking his thoughts out loud as he worked the pipe further from the wall.
"You see" he began "our oppressors are not competent people. They throw us in a room like this and think it’s a prison, that we'll stay here like so many sheep till they slaughter us. But they have no system. They can't even remember to bring you food and water regularly. I didn't see a single guard in the corridors when I was brought here and not one armed person anywhere in the temple. And the priests who brought me here didn't even frisk me. That's their worst mistake, as they'll soon find out. I'll teach you how to knock such foolish imposters in the head before I'm through."
The people wondered at this strange speech. By now he had the pipe completely broken off and also crimped a foot back from the break. In another minute he had this short segment in his hands and all he needed to create a pipe bomb. He took this length to the fire and laid out a small board on the ground and knelt before it. The crowd watched him.
Now he took off his shirt and his full ammunition belt. His tools were his knife and the handle of his gun. He beat one end of the pipe shut and the other nearly shut. Then he dried up the moisture inside by heating it and began taking apart bullets, one by one, and filling the pipe with gunpowder. This took some time and while he was at work he instructed one set of men to prepare as many torches as they could and another group to break up all the remaining pipe into two-foot lengths, to serve as weapons. Finally he made a fuse of damp cloth rolled in gunpowder and carefully inserted it in his bomb. He still had some twenty bullets left and loaded his gun.
It was already dark outside, but they still had a few hours to wait before carrying out their plan. He took this time to instruct and organize his group, asking each person to consider their strength and select some child or invalid to carry. He paced up and down the room making out pairs and he found only thirty people so far gone, or already dead, that he’d have to leave them behind. He had everyone stand up and try to walk, and by this test he gave them a place in his column. Finally he picked out the ten strongest of the group and distributed among them the torches and the bars. Five would lead and guide the column across the square and straight up the widest avenue to the north. The other five would wait with him, once they got outside, and defend the rear.
The bearded man who’d first helped Jonathan up was a native of this city and he was chosen to lead the group through the streets. While they discussed their plan, he suggested they would need food and supplies as soon as they reached the hills, as they were already famished. He also said that he knew of two storehouses they could loot along the way. Jonathan readily agreed to this and formed another group to break into the stores and carry off what they could, while the others kept going. Almost as an afterthought he instructed this squad to carry torches and to set fire to the buildings as they left them. "This will cause confusion in the city" he said, "light up our way and insure our escape."
