We left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, with a noisy and delighted mob at his heels. There was but one person in it who offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; he was hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. The Prince continued to struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he was suffering, until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him, and raised his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince’s head. The single pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man’s arm, and the blow descended upon his own wrist. Canty roared out—
“Thou’lt meddle, wilt thou? Then have thy reward.”
His cudgel crashed down upon the meddler’s head: there was a groan, a dim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the next moment it lay there in the dark alone. The mob pressed on, their enjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.
Presently the Prince found himself in John Canty’s abode, with the door closed against the outsiders. By the vague light of a tallow candle which was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of the loathsome den, and also the occupants of it. Two frowsy girls and a middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with the aspect of animals habituated to harsh usage, and expecting and dreading it now. From another corner stole a withered hag with streaming grey hair and malignant eyes. John Canty said to this one—
“Tarry! There’s fine mummeries here. Mar them not till thou’st enjoyed them: then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. Stand forth, lad. Now say thy foolery again, an thou’st not forgot it. Name thy name. Who art thou?”
The insulted blood mounted to the little prince’s cheek once more, and he lifted a steady and indignant gaze to the man’s face and said—
“‘Tis but ill-breeding in such as thou to command me to speak. I tell thee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and none other.”
The stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag’s feet to the floor where she stood, and almost took her breath. She stared at the Prince in stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son, that he burst into a roar of laughter. But the effect upon Tom Canty’s mother and sisters was different. Their dread of bodily injury gave way at once to distress of a different sort. They ran forward with woe and dismay in their faces, exclaiming—
“Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!”
The mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands upon his shoulders, and gazed yearningly into his face through her rising tears. Then she said—
“Oh, my poor boy! Thy foolish reading hath wrought its woeful work at last, and ta’en thy wit away. Ah! why did’st thou cleave to it when I so warned thee ‘gainst it? Thou’st broke thy mother’s heart.”
The Prince looked into her face, and said gently—
“Thy son is well, and hath not lost his wits, good dame. Comfort thee: let me to the palace where he is, and straightway will the King my father restore him to thee.”
“The King thy father! Oh, my child! unsay these words that be freighted with death for thee, and ruin for all that be near to thee. Shake of this gruesome dream. Call back thy poor wandering memory. Look upon me. Am not I thy mother that bore thee, and loveth thee?”
The Prince shook his head and reluctantly said—
“God knoweth I am loth to grieve thy heart; but truly have I never looked upon thy face before.”
The woman sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering her eyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobs and wailings.
“Let the show go on!” shouted Canty. "What, Nan!—what, Bet! mannerless wenches! will ye stand in the Prince’s presence? Upon your knees, ye pauper scum, and do him reverence!”
He followed this with another horse-laugh. The girls began to plead timidly for their brother; and Nan said—
“An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will heal his madness: prithee, do.”
“Do, father,” said Bet; “he is more worn than is his wont. To-morrow will he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, and come not empty home again.”
This remark sobered the father’s joviality, and brought his mind to business. He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said—
“The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole; two pennies, mark ye—all this money for a half-year’s rent, else out of this we go. Show what thou’st gathered with thy lazy begging.”

The Prince said—
“Offend me not with thy sordid matters. I tell thee again I am the King’s son.”
A sounding blow upon the Prince’s shoulder from Canty’s broad palm sent him staggering into goodwife Canty’s arms, who clasped him to her breast, and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs and slaps by interposing her own person. The frightened girls retreated to their corner; but the grandmother stepped eagerly forward to assist her son. The Prince sprang away from Mrs. Canty, exclaiming—

“Thou shalt not suffer for me, madam. Let these swine do their will upon me alone.”
This speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they set about their work without waste of time. Between them they belaboured the boy right soundly, and then gave the girls and their mother a beating for showing sympathy for the victim.

“Now,” said Canty, “to bed, all of ye. The entertainment has tired me.”
The light was put out, and the family retired. As soon as the snorings of the head of the house and his mother showed that they were asleep, the young girls crept to where the Prince lay, and covered him tenderly from the cold with straw and rags; and their mother crept to him also, and stroked his hair, and cried over him, whispering broken words of comfort and comion in his ear the while. She had saved a morsel for him to eat, also; but the boy’s pains had swept away all appetite—at least for black and tasteless crusts.

He was touched by her brave and costly defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in very noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try to forget her sorrows. And he added that the King his father would not let her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. This return to his ‘madness’ broke her heart anew, and she strained him to her breast again and again, and then went back, drowned in tears, to her bed.
As she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creep into her mind that there was an undefinable something about this boy that was lacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. She could not describe it, she could not tell just what it was, and yet her sharp mother-instinct seemed to detect it and perceive it. What if the boy were really not her son, after all? Oh, absurd! She almost smiled at the idea, spite of her griefs and troubles. No matter, she found that it was an idea that would not ‘down,’ but persisted in haunting her. It pursued her, it harassed her, it clung to her, and refused to be put away or ignored. At last she perceived that there was not going to be any peace for her until she should devise a test that should prove, clearly and without question, whether this lad was her son or not, and so banish these wearing and worrying doubts. Ah, yes, this was plainly the right way out of the difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work at once to contrive that test. But it was an easier thing to propose than to accomplish. She turned over in her mind one promising test after another, but was obliged to relinquish them all—none of them were absolutely sure, absolutely perfect; and an imperfect one could not satisfy her. Evidently she was racking her head in vain—it seemed manifest that she must give the matter up. While this depressing thought was ing through her mind, her ear caught the regular breathing of the boy, and she knew he had fallen asleep. And while she listened, the measured breathing was broken by a soft, startled cry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. This chance occurrence furnished her instantly with a plan worth all her laboured tests combined. She at once set herself feverishly, but noiselessly, to work to relight her candle, muttering to herself, “Had I but seen him then, I should have known! Since that day, when he was little, that the powder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out of his dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand before his eyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do it, with the palm inward, but always with the palm turned outward—I have seen it a hundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed. Yes, I shall soon know, now!”

By this time she had crept to the slumbering boy’s side, with the candle, shaded, in her hand. She bent heedfully and warily over him, scarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed the light in his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles. The sleeper’s eyes sprang wide open, and he cast a startled stare about him—but he made no special movement with his hands.
The poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief; but she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep again; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon the disastrous result of her experiment. She tried to believe that her Tom’s madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could not do it.

"No,” she said, “his hands are not mad; they could not unlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!”
Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could not bring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thing again—the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled the boy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals—with the same result which had marked the first test; then she dragged herself to bed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, “But I cannot give him up—oh no, I cannot, I cannot—he must be my boy!”
The poor mother’s interruptions having ceased, and the Prince’s pains having gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter weariness at last sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep. Hour after hour slipped away, and still he slept like the dead. Thus four or five hours ed. Then his stupor began to lighten. Presently, while half asleep and half awake, he murmured—
“Sir William!”
After a moment—
“Ho, Sir William Herbert! Hie thee hither, and list to the strangest dream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? Man, I did think me changed to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! Guards! Sir William! What! is there no groom of the chamber in waiting? Alack! it shall go hard with—”
“What aileth thee"Who art thou calling?”
“Sir William Herbert. Who art thou?”
“I? Who should I be, but thy sister Nan? Oh, Tom, I had forgot! Thou’rt mad yet—poor lad, thou’rt mad yet: would I had never woke to know it again! But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beaten till we die!”
The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from his stiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among his foul straw with a moan and the ejaculation—
“Alas! it was no dream, then!”
In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.
In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noises and shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. The next moment there were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty ceased from snoring and said—
“Who knocketh? What wilt thou?”
A voice answered—
“Know’st thou who it was thou laid thy cudgel on?”
“No. Neither know I, nor care.”
“Belike thou’lt change thy note eftsoons. An thou would save thy neck, nothing but flight may stead thee. The man is this moment delivering up the ghost. ’Tis the priest, Father Andrew!”
“God-a-mercy!” exclaimed Canty. He roused his family, and hoarsely commanded, “Up with ye all and fly—or bide where ye are and perish!”
Scarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street and flying for their lives. John Canty held the Prince by the wrist, and hurried him along the dark way, giving him this caution in a low voice—
“Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. I will choose me a new name, speedily, to throw the law’s dogs off the scent. Mind thy tongue, I tell thee!”
He growled these words to the rest of the family—
“If it so chance that we be separated, let each make for London Bridge; whoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper’s shop on the bridge, let him tarry there till the others be come, then will we flee into Southwark together.”
At this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness into light; and not only into light, but into the midst of a multitude of singing, dancing, and shouting people, massed together on the river frontage. There was a line of bonfires stretching as far as one could see, up and down the Thames; London Bridge was illuminated; Southwark Bridge likewise; the entire river was aglow with the flash and sheen of coloured lights; and constant explosions of fireworks filled the skies with an intricate commingling of shooting splendours and a thick rain of dazzling sparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere were crowds of revellers; all London seemed to be at large.
John Canty delivered himself of a furious curse and commanded a retreat; but it was too late. He and his tribe were swallowed up in that swarming hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated from each other in an instant. We are not considering that the Prince was one of his tribe; Canty still kept his grip upon him. The Prince’s heart was beating high with hopes of escape, now. A burly waterman, considerably exalted with liquor, found himself rudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to plough through the crowd; he laid his great hand on Canty’s shoulder and said—
“Nay, whither so fast, friend? Dost canker thy soul with sordid business when all that be leal men and true make holiday?”
“Mine affairs are mine own, they concern thee not,” answered Canty, roughly; “take away thy hand and let me .”
“Sith that is thy humour, thou’lt not , till thou’st drunk to the Prince of Wales, I tell thee that,” said the waterman, barring the way resolutely.
“Give me the cup, then, and make speed, make speed!”
Other revellers were interested by this time. They cried out—
“The loving-cup, the loving-cup! make the sour knave drink the loving-cup, else will we feed him to the fishes.”

So a huge loving-cup was brought; the waterman, grasping it by one of its handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of an imaginary napkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty, who had to grasp the opposite handle with one of his hands and take off the lid with the other, according to ancient custom. This left the Prince hand-free for a second, of course. He wasted no time, but dived among the forest of legs about him and disappeared. In another moment he could not have been harder to find, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows had been the Atlantic’s and he a lost sixpence.

Las penas del prncipe

Dejamos a John Canty arrastrando al verdadero prncipe hacia Offal Court, con una ruidosa y regocijada turba pisndole los talones. En ella slo hubo una persona que brind una palabra rogando por el cautivo, y no le hicieron caso: tan grande era el tumulto que apenas incluso se oy. Continu el prncipe luchando por su libertad y protestando contra el tratamiento que sufra, hasta que John Canty perdi la poca paciencia que le quedaba y con repentino furor levant su garrote de roble sobre la cabeza del prncipe. El nico defensor del chico salt para detener el brazo del hombre, y el golpe dio en su propia mueca. Canty rugi:
–Quieres entrometerte? Pues ten tu recompensa!
Su garrote se estrell en la cabeza del mediador. Se oy un gemido, una forma opaca se hundi en tierra entre los pies de la muchedumbre, y un momento despus yaca sola en la oscuridad. La turba continu, sin que su diversin fuera perturbada por este episodio.
A poco el prncipe se encontr en la morada de John Canty, con la puerta cerrada a los entremetidos. A la vaga luz de una vela de sebo, encajada en una botella, descubri los rasgos principales del repugnante tugurio, y tambin los de sus ocupantes: Dos desgreadas muchachas y una mujer de edad madura en cuclillas contra la pared en un rincn, con el aspecto de animales habituados a los malos tratos y en ese momento esperndolos y temindolos. De otro rincn sali una bruja seca, con el pelo canoso revuelto y perversos ojos. John Canty le dijo a sta:
–Espera, tenemos buena mojiganga. No la estropees hasta que la hayas disfrutado; despus, que sea tu mano tan pesada como quieras. Acrcate, rapaz; ahora repite tus tonteras, si no se te han olvidado. Di tu nombre. Quin eres?
La ofendida sangre subi una vez ms a las mejillas del pequeo prncipe, y ste lanz una mirada firme e indignada al rostro del hombre y dijo:
–Mala crianza es en uno como t mandarme hablar. Te digo ahora, como te he dicho antes, soy Eduardo, Prncipe de Gales, y ningn otro.
La sorpresa apabullante de esta contestacin clav los pies de la vieja al suelo y la dej casi sin aliento. Mir al prncipe con estpido asombro, lo que divirti tanto al bandido de su hijo que lo hizo reventar en un rugido de risa. Mas el efecto fue distinto en la madre y en las hermanos de Tom Canty. Su temor a los daos corporales dio paso a una preocupacin de distinta especie. Se adelantaron con los rostros afligidos y desalentados, exclamando:
–Oh, pobre Tom, pobre nio! La madre cay de rodillas ante el prncipe, puso sus manos sobre los hombros del nio y entre las lgrimas que asomaban a sus ojos mir ansiosamente su rostro. Luego dijo:
–Oh, mi pobre nio! Finalmente tus necias lecturas han tenido su efecto y te han trastornado el juicio! Ay! Por qu te aferrabas a ellas cuando tanto te prevena yo en contra? Has desgarrado el corazn de tu madre!
El prncipe la mir y dijo dulcemente:
–Tu hijo est bien y no ha perdido el juicio, buena mujer. Consulate. Llvame al palacio donde se halla, y el rey, mi padre, te lo devolver inmediatamente.
–El rey tu padre? Oh, hijo mo! No digas esas palabras, que pueden traerte la muerte, y la ruina para todos los que estn cerca de ti. Sacude ese horrible sueo. Recobra tu pobre memoria errante. Mrame. No soy yo tu madre, la que te ha dado el ser y tanto te ha amado?
El prncipe movi la cabeza y dijo pesaroso:
–Dios sabe que me duele afligir tu corazn,, pera verdaderamente nunca he visto tu cara antes.
La mujer cay sentada al suelo, y, cubrindose los ojos con las manos, abri paso a desgarradores sollozos y lamentos:
–Que siga el espectculo! –grit Canty–. Eh, Nan! Eh, Bet! Mozuelas sin modales! Estis en pie en presencia del prncipe? De rodillas, hez de mendigas, y hacedle reverencia!
Continu esto con una grosera carcajada. Las muchachas empezaron a suplicar tmidamente por su hermano, y Nan dijo:
–Djalo que se acueste, padre; que descanse, y el sueo curar su locura. Hazlo, te lo ruego.
–Hazlo, padre! –dijo Bet–; est ms cansado que de ordinario. Maana volver a ser l mismo, y mendigar con diligencia, y no volver a casa con las manos vacas.
Esta observacin apag la jovialidad del padre, y le record el negocio. Se volvin enojado al prncipe, y dijo:
–Maana tenemos que pagar dos peniques al dueo de este agujero, dos peniques, advirtelo, todo este dinero por medio ao de renta, de lo contrario saldremos fuera de aqu. Muestra lo que has reunidos mendigando.
El prncipe contest:
–No me ofendas con tus srdidos asuntos. Te vuelvo a decir que soy el hijo del rey.
Un recio golpe, de la ancha palma de Canty en el hombro del nio lo mand tambalendose a los brazos de la buena mujer de Canty, quien lo estrech contra su seno, y lo defendi de una violenta lluvia de puetazos y bofetadas, interponiendo su propia persona. Las asustadas muchachas se retiraron a su rincn, pero la abuela avanz muy solcita para asistir a su hijo. El prncipe se separ de la seora Canty exclamando:
–No has de padecer t por mi causa, seora. Deja que esos cerdos hagan lo que quieran conmigo solo.
Estas palabras encolerizaron a los cerdos a tal grado que pusieron manos a la obra sin prdida de tiempo. Entre ambos apalearon vigorosamente al nio, y luego dieron una golpiza a las nias y a su madre por haber mostrado compasin de la vctima.
Ahora –dijo Canty–, a la cama todos! La diversin me ha fatigado.
Se apag la vela y se acost la familia. En cuanto los ronquidos del jefe de la casa y de su madre mostraron que estaban dormidos, las muchachas se deslizaron adonde yaca el prncipe y lo resguardaron tiernamente del fro con paja y andrajos; y su madre tambin se desliz hacia l, y le alis el pelo, y llor sobre l, mientras susurraba en sus odos entrecortadas palabras de consuelo y compasin. Haba guardado adems un bocado para que lo comiera, mas los dolores del nio le haban quitado todo apetito, por lo menos de mendrugos negros e inspidos. Estaba conmovido por la brava y costosa defensa que haba hecha de l, y por su conmiseracin, y le dio las gracias con palabras muy nobles y principescas y le rog que se fuera a dormir y tratase de olvidar sus penas. Y aadi que el rey, su padre, no dejara sin recompensa su leal benevolencia y devocin. Este retorno a su "locura" desgarr de nuevo el corazn de ella, que lo volvi a estrechar una y otra vez contra su pecho, y luego se volvi a su cama, ahogada en lgrimas.
Mientras yaca pensando y lamentndose empez a deslizarse en su mente la idea de que en aquel nio haba algo indefinible de que careca Tom Canty, loco o cuerdo. No podia describirlo, no poda decir exactamente qu era, y, sin embargo, su agudo instinto maternal pareca detectarlo y percibirlo. Y si el nio no fuera, despus de todo, realmente su hijo? Oh, absurdo! Casi sonri ante esta idea, a pesar de sus pesares y de sus problemas. Sin embargo, era una idea que no ceda, sino que persista en dominarla. La persegua, la hostigaba, se aferraba a ella, y se negaba a ser desechada o ignorada. Por fin, percibi que no habra sosiego para ella hasta que idease una prueba que demostrara claramente y sin duda si aquel muchacho era su hijo o no, y as desvanecer estas fatigosas y atormentadoras dudas. Ah, s!, ste era sencillamente el mejor camino para salir del problema, as que puso su mente a trabajar de inmediato para urdir la prueba. Pero era mucho ms fcil proponrselo que conseguirlo.
Dio vueltas en su cabeza una tras otra a prometedoras pruebas pero se vio obligada a desecharlas todas: ninguna de ellas era completamente segura, absolutamente perfecta; y una imperfecta no poda satisfacerla. Evidentemente, se rompa la cabeza en vano; era casi seguro que tendra que dejar el asunto. Mientras pasaba por su mente este deprimente pensamiento, su odo capt la respiracin regular del nio, y supo que se haba dormido. Y mientras escuchaba la respiracin acompasada, fue interrumpida por un leve grito de sobresalto, como el que se emite en un sueo perturbado.
Este suceso casual la arm instantneamente de un plan que vala ms que todas sus maquinaciones combinadas. Al punto se puso febrilmente, pero silenciosamente, a trabajar, a encender de nuevo su vela, dicindose: "Si entonces lo hubiera visto lo habra sabido. Desde aquel da, cuando era pequeo, en que la plvora estall en su cara, no ha sido sobresaltado de pronto, ni de sus sueos ni de sus pensamientos, sin llevarse las manos a los ojos, como lo hizo aquel da, y no como lo haran otros, con las palmas hacia dentro, sino siempre con las palmas hacia fuera. Lo he visto cien veces, y no ha variado nunca ni fallado nunca. S, pronto lo sabr, ahora!"
Para esto se haba escurrido haca el nio dormido con la vela tapada con la mano. Cuidadosamente, con cautela, se inclin sobre l, casi sin respirar, en su reprimida excitacin, y de pronto le acerc la luz a la cara y golpe el suelo con los nudillos junto al odo del nio. Los ojos de ste se abrieron asombrados, y dirigi una mirada perpleja en torno, pero no hizo ningn movimiento especial con sus manos.
La pobre, mujer fue herida sin compasin por la sorpresa y el dolor, pero consigui ocultar sus emociones y calmar al nio hasta dormirlo de nuevo. Luego se desliz aparte y habl consigo misma, lastimosamente, sobre el desastroso resultado de su experimento.
Trataba de creer que la locura de su Tom haba desaparecido su habitual ademn, pero no poda conseguirlo.
–No –se dijo–; sus manos no estn locas, no podran haber olvidado en tan poco tiempo un hbito tan viejo. Oh, es un triste da para m!
No obstante, la esperanza era ahora tan pertinaz como antes lo haba sido la duda; no poda aceptar el veredicto de la prueba. Tena que intentarlo de nuevo –el fracasa debe haber sido slo un accidente–. As despert al nio una segunda y una tercera vez, a intervalos, con el mismo resultado que arroj la primera prueba; luego se arrastr hasta, su cama y se durmi angustiada, diciendo:
–Pero no puedo renunciar a l, oh, no, no puedo, no puedo; debe ser mi hijo!
Habiendo cesado las interrupciones de la pobre madre, y habiendo perdido gradualmente los dolores del prncipe su poder de perturbarlo, por fin la extrema fatiga cerr sus ojos en un sueo profundo y reparador. Transcurri hora tras hora, y sigui durmiendo como un bendito. As pasaron cuatro o cinco horas. Entonces su sopor empez a aligerarse. De pronto, entre despierto y dormido, balbuce:
–Sir William!
Y al cabo de un momento:
–Hola, sir William Herbert! Ven ac y escucha el sueo ms raro que... Sir William! Escuchas? Vaya! He soado que me converta en mendigo, y... Hola! Guardias! Sir William! Cmo! No hay aqu ningn ayuda de cmara? Ah!... A fe ma que...
–Qu te aqueja? –pregunt un susurro junto l–. A quin llamas?
–A sir William Herbert. Quin eres t?
–Yo? Quin habra de ser sino tu hermana Nan? Ah, Tom! Se me haba olvidado. Ests todava loco. Podr nio! Ests todava loco. Que no hubiera despertado de nuevo para verlo! Pero te ruego que controles tu lengua, si no, nos matarn a todos a golpes.
El asustado prncipe se incorpor parcialmente de un salto, pero un filoso recuerdo de sus doloridos lo hizo volver en s y se hundi de nuevo en la sucia paja con un gemido y la exclamacin:
–Ay de m! Entonces no era un sueo!
En un momento toda la grave pena y la miseria que el sueo haba desterrado cayeron de nueva sobre l, y comprendi que ya no era un prncipe mimado en un palacio, con los adoradores ojos de una nacin en l, sino un mendigo, un paria, vestido de harapos, prisionero en un antro digno solo de animales y viviendo con mendigos y ladrones.
En medio de su dolor cobr conciencia de alegres ruido y voces, en apariencia slo, a una o dos manzanas de distancia. Al momento se sintieron varios golpes a la puerta; John Canty ces de roncar y dijo:
–Quin llama? Qu quieras? Una voz contest:
–Sabes, sobre quin has dejado caer tu garrote?
–No. Ni lo s ni me importa.
–Puede que pronto cambies de opinin, y si quieres salvar tu cuello, slo huyendo, puedes salvarte. En este momento el hombre est entregando el espritu. Es el cura, el padre Andrs!
–Dios santo! –exclam Canty. Despert a su familia y ordeno speramente–: Arriba todos y huyamos, o quedaos aqu a morir!
Apenas cinco minutos ms tarde la familia Canty estaba en la calle, y huyendo para salvar la vida. John Canty asa al prncipe por la mueca y lo haca correr por el oscuro camino hacindole en voz baja esta advertencia:
–Cuidado con tu lengua, loco insensato, y no digas nuestro nombre! Yo tomar un nombre nuevo, de inmediato, para engaar el olfato de los perros de la ley. Cuidado con tu lengua, te lo ordeno!
Gru estas palabras al resto de la familia:
–Si por casualidad nos separamos, que cada cual vaya al Puente de Londres; el que llegue hasta la ltima tienda de ropa del Puente, que espere all a los dems, luego todos juntos huiremos a Southwark.
En ese momento la partida sali de repente de la oscuridad a la luz, y no slo a la luz, sino al centro de una multitud de gentes que cantaban, bailaban y vociferaban apiadas en el frente del ro. Haba una hilera de fogatas que se extenda por ambos lados del Tmesis hasta donde alcanzaba la vista. El Puente de Londres estaba iluminado, lo mismo que el Puente de Southwark. Todo el ro brillaba con los fulgores y el lustre de las luces de colores; y constantes estallidos de fuegos artificiales llenaban los cielos con una intrincada mezcla de esplendores y de una espesa lluvia de chispas deslumbrantes que casi convertan la noche en da; por doquiera, haba grupos de juerguistas; todo Londres pareca estar all.
John Canty lanz un furioso juramento y orden la retirada, pero era demasiado tarde. l y su tribu fueron devorados por aquella abigarrada colmena humana e irremediablemente separados unos de otros en un instante. No estamos considerando al prncipe parte de la tribu; Canty segua retenindolo con el puo. El corazn del prncipe lati acelerado por la esperanza de escaparse. Un fornido barquero, bastante excitado por el licor, fue empujado rudamente por Canty en su esfuerzo por abrirse paso a travs de la multitud; puso su enorme mano en el hombro de Canty y dijo:
–Dnde tan de prisa, amigo? Corrompes tu alma con asuntos srdidos cuando todos los hombres leales y fieles estn de fiesta?
–Mis asuntos son mos; no te conciernen –respondi Canty speramente–. Quita la mano y djame pasar.
–Pues sa es tu ndole, no pasars hasta que hayas bebido a la salud del Prncipe de Gales; yo te lo mando –dijo el barquero cerrndole resueltamente el paso.
–Dame la copa, pues, y apresrate, apresrate!
Para entonces se haba despertado el inters de otros juerguistas, que exclamaron:
–La copa, la copa! Haced que el bribn malgeniudo beba en la copa, si no, lo echaremos de pasto a los peces.
Trajeron una enorme copa; el barquero, asindola por una de sus asas y con su otra mano sosteniendo el extremo de una servilleta imaginaria; se lo present a Canty de manera cumplida y tradicional Este tuvo que asir el asa contraria con una de sus manos y quitar la tapa con la otra, conforme a la antigua costumbre, lo cual dej un segundo las manos libres al prncipe, desde luego. No perdi el tiempo, sino que se sumergi entre el bosque de piernas que lo rodeaba y desapareci. Un momento despus no habra sido mas difcil de hallar, bajo aquel agitado mar de vida, si sus oleadas hubieran sido las del Atlntico y el nio una moneda perdida.
Pronto se dio cuenta de esto, y al instante se ocup de sus propios asuntos, sin acordarse ms de John Canty. Se dio cuenta tambin de otra cosa, a saber, que un fingido Prncipe de Gales estaba siendo festejado por la ciudad, en su lugar. Fcilmente coligi que el nio mendigo, Tom Canty, se haba aprovechado deliberadamente de aquella estupenda oportunidad y se haba convertido en usurpador.
Por consiguiente, no poda seguir ms que un rumbo: encontrar el camino hacia el Ayuntamiento, darse a conocer y denunciar al impostor. Tambin resolvi que a Tom se le debera conceder un tiempo razonable para la preparacin de su nima, y despus ser colgado, arrastrado y descuartizado, conforme a la ley y el uso de la poca, en casos de alta traicin.