"Alick!"
"Go away!"
"I have something to say to you."
"Go away, I tell you."
"But I have something to tell you."
"There's only one thing you can tell me. Is it true--is she to die?"
"It .... it is so appointed."
"Then take that," cried Gell, and flinging himself upon Stowell with
the fury of madness he struck him in the face and laid open his
cheek-bone.
There was an awful silence. Gell had staggered to a bookcase behind
him, expecting Stowell to strike back. But Stowell remained
standing, and then said, with a break in his voice,
"I have well deserved it."
That was too much for Gell. He began to stammer incoherently and
when he saw a streak of blood begin to flow down Stowell's cheek he
broke down altogether. Out of the depths of a thousand memories of
their friendship, all the way up since they were boys, a great tide
of tenderness came surging over him, and he dropped into a chair and
cried,
"Then it's true--I'm mad."
But after another moment he was up and hurrying into the next room
for a sponge and a basin of water.
"It's nothing! Nothing at all," said Stowell. "See, it has stopped
already. And now sit down and listen."
A few minutes later they were sitting side by side on the sofa--Gell
sniffling, Stowell talking quietly.
"Alick!"
"Yes?"
"Bessie is waiting for you. She thinks you are trying to obtain her
pardon."
"I know. She has written. But what can _I_ do? Nothing!"
"If _I_ can help her to escape from Castle Rushen will you take her
away from the island?"
Gell's eyes glistened. "Only give me the chance," he said.
"She could never come back. Therefore you could never come back
either."
"What do I care?"
"You would have to give up everything--your inheritance, your family,
your....!"
"I .... I can't help that."
"You are sure you would never regret the sacrifice?"
"Never! Only show me the way...."
"I will," said Stowell.
And then he explained his scheme and the motives which had inspired
it. He had been compelled to condemn the girl, according to law, but
he had come to see that the old Statute was a crime, and that it was
his duty to break it.
"Do you say that, Victor--you?"
"Listen."
An Irish tramp steamer would be lying in Castletown Harbour on Sunday
night. She would berth in front of the Castle, not more than fifteen
yards from the gates. At eleven o'clock Stowell would open the
Deemster's private door and bring Bessie out. Gell must be there to
take her aboard. The tide being up, the vessel would sail
immediately. She would sail north, past the Point of Ayre, to give
the appearance of going to Scotland; but in the morning, when out of
sight from the land, she would steer south and land her passengers at
Queenstown. Atlantic liners called there twice a week and Gell and
Bessie must take passages to New York. On reaching New York they
must travel west--far west....
"But can it be done? Can you get Bessie out of the Castle?"
"I've counted every chance," said Stowell. "Whatever happens, I must
not fail."
"What a good fellow...." began Gell, but Stowell dropped his head and
hurried on with his story.
"I've given the Irish Captain a hundred pounds, and you are to give
him another hundred when he puts you ashore at Queenstown. I'll find
you the money."
"No, no! I've enough of my own--see," said Gell, and he showed the
bundle of banknotes given to him by his father.
"Your father gave you that?"
"Yes, to pay my way to America."
Stowell's face glowed with a kind of superstitious rapture. More
than ever now he was certain he was doing right, that the Divine
powers were directing him. But all the same he kept up the cunning
of the criminal.
"I must see you again to-morrow night in some secret place. Where
shall it be?"
"Why not the Miss Browns' at Derby Haven? They'll hold their
tongues. They owe me something."
"Very well, eight o'clock, Sunday night," said Stowell, and he rose
to go.
"What a good fellow...." began Gell again, but Stowell looked at him
and he stopped.
The Deemster's Court had to wait for the Deemster. When he arrived
with a patch of plaster on his cheek-bone, he told Joshua Scarff that
he had accidentally knocked his face against a gas-bracket and had
had to go to a chemist to get the wound dressed.
It was an intricate case he tried that day, but the advocates engaged
in it said he had never before been so cool, so clear, so collected.
"After all, the Governor knew what he was doing," they told
themselves.
That night, Saturday night, after a furtive visit to the tavern on
the quay, Gell slipped through the back streets to the railway
station and leapt into the last train for the north as the carriages
were leaving the platform.
He was going home to say good-bye to his mother--not with his tongue,
for he had no hope of speaking to her, but with his eyes and his
heart. If he could only see her for a moment before leaving the
island!
It was late when he reached the lane to his father's house, and the
night was dark, for it was the time between the going and the coming
of two moons.
At length the blacker darkness of the house stood out against the
gloomy sky. There was no light in any of the windows--the family had
gone to bed. But Alick had been born there, and he thought he could
find his way blindfold.
For some time he walked stealthily about, trying to discover the
dining-room window, for he remembered what his father had said about
his mother sitting with her feet in the fender. He found it at last,
but, peering behind the edge of the blind, he saw nothing except the
dull slack of the fire dropping to ashes in the grate.
Groping about in the darkness on the gravel his footsteps had made a
noise and presently a dog inside began to bark. It was his own dog,
Mona, and he remembered that when he was a boy he had bought her as a
pup for five shillings from a farmer and brought her home in his
arms, licking his hand.
The dog's clamour awakened the household, and presently, through the
long staircase window, he saw his sisters on the landing, in their
nightdresses and curl-papers, carrying candles and looking frightened.
Then the sash of a window went up with a bang and his father's voice
came in a husky roar through the night,
"Who's that?"
With a chill down his back, Alick turned about and hurried away,
feeling that he was being driven from the home of his boyhood as if
he were a thief.