"Ah, is it you, Dempster? You've come for Miss Stanley? She's just
gone, Sir."
"I know. I saw her. Are you alone, Mr. Vondy?"
"Alone enough, Sir. It's shocking! The night before an execution
too! That Willie Shimmin, the drunken gommeral, went off at four and
isn't back yet. I wouldn't trust but I'll be here by myself until
the High Bailiff and the Inspector and long Duggie Taggart come at
six in the morning."
"How is your prisoner to-night, Mr. Vondy?"
"Wonderful quiet, Sir."
"Still expecting her pardon?"
"'Deed she is, poor bogh, and listening for Mr. Gell's feet to fetch
it. Now she thinks he'll come in the morning. 'Something tells me
he'll come at daybreak,' she said, and that's the for she's gone to
sleep."
They had reached the guard-room, where a fire was burning, and an old
oak armchair (once the seat of the Kings of Man) was drawn up in
front of the hearth.
"Gone to sleep, has she? I must see her though. I have something to
tell her."
"Is it the pardon itself, Sir? Has it come then?"
"Not yet, but a telegram may come from London at any moment."
"You don't say?"
"Give me your key, and sit here and make your supper" (a kettle was
singing on the hob), "and if you hear the bell you will go off to the
gate immediately."
"I will that, Sir."
At the end of a long corridor Stowell stopped at a cell that had a
label on the door-post ("Elizabeth Corteen, Murder. Death") and
looked in through the grill. In the dim light he saw the prisoner
lying on her plank bed under her brown prison blanket. With a tremor
of the heart he opened the door quietly and closed it behind him.
"Bessie!"
It had been hardly more than a whisper, but through the mists of
sleep Bessie heard it. There was a cry, a bound, and then a
rapturous voice saying in the half darkness,
"Ah, you are here already! I knew you would come."
But at the next moment, seeing who her visitor was, she stared at him
with wide-open eyes, and then fell on him with reproaches.
"So it's you, is it? What have you come for? Is it only to tell me
that I'm to die in the morning?"
Stowell stood with head down, feeling like a prisoner before his
Judge. Then he said,
"You are not to die, Bessie."
She caught her breath and put up her hands to her breast.
"Do you mean that I am...."
"You are pardoned and have to leave this place immediately."
For a perceptible time Bessie stood silent, save for her breathing,
which was loud and rapid.
"Is it true? Really true?"
"Quite true."
There is something childlike in sudden joy; Paradise itself must be a
place of children. Bessie dropped back on her bed, clasped her hands
together like a child, and said,
"I see it all now, and it has been just as I thought at first. You
wrote a letter to the King and he has pardoned me. The law is hard
but the King is so tender-hearted. 'Poor girl,' he thought, 'she
didn't mean to kill her baby--not after it came, anyway.'"
Her eyes, which had been glistening, suddenly became grave, and
lifting them to the ceiling, with her hands clasped before her face,
she began to pray.
"Oh God, I've not been a good girl and I don't know how to pray
right, but...." and then came a flood of words too sacred to be set
down.
When she had finished her prayer she said,
"But you have been good too, and I have been insulting you! That's
the way with a girl when she has been in trouble. You'll forgive me,
won't you?"
Her face lit up and she went on talking, more to herself than to
Stowell.
"Did you say I was to leave this place immediately? That means first
thing to-morrow, doesn't it? I'll go to mother. She's staying with
some Methodist people in Quay Lane. Poor mother, she won't be able
to believe it. We'll go home by the first train."
Thinking of home she found a kind of proud revenge in triumphing over
her enemies.
"Dan Baldromma will have to hold his tongue now. And those
Skillicornes will never be allowed to show their ugly old faces
again. And Cain the constable will have to find another beat, too,
and those impudent girls who stared at me at Douglas station--they'll
never have the face to sit in the singing-seat again."
But the smiling background of her thoughts was love.
"Alick will hear of it, won't he? I wrote to him but he didn't
answer. Perhaps his sisters prevented him--they've always been
casting me up to him. Poor Alick! He'll forgive me--I know he will.
It was for Alick I did it. And just think! Next Sunday, perhaps,
when people are walking about, we'll go downs Parliament Street
together! And me on Alick's arm, and nobody to say a word against
it, now that the King has forgiven me!"
Stowell hardly dared to look at the girl. For a long time he could
not speak. But at length he compelled himself to tell her that she
was not to go home. It was a condition of her pardon that she should
leave the island.
"Leave the island?"
"Yes, there's a steamer in the harbour, and you are to sail by it
to-night."
"To-night?"
"Yes, to Ireland, land from there, by another steamer, to New York."
"To New York?"
"Yes, but Alick is to go with you. I've just left him. We have
arranged everything."
She looked searchingly into his agitated face and the radiance died
off her own.
"But are you telling me the truth?" she said. "Am I really pardoned?
You are not helping me to escape, are you?"
He pretended to laugh--It was hollow laughter.
"What an idea! A Deemster helping a prisoner to escape! Who would
believe such a thing?"
"No! People wouldn't believe such a thing, would they?" she said,
and her eyes again began to shine.
"At eleven o'clock the big bell will ring," said Stowell. "That will
be Alick coming for you. You must give me your hand and I'll take
you down to him."
"Oh, how happy we shall be!" she said. "We shall go far away, I
suppose--where nobody will know what has happened here?"
"Yes, but you must make no noise on going out, and not call to
anybody."
"But Mr. Vondy--he has been so good--I may stop and thank him?"
"He won't be there. I'll give him your message."
"But mother--if I'm going so far away I must say good-bye to her."
"No, I'm sorry, the steamer will sail immediately."
She looked again into his agitated face and then, raising her voice,
she said,
"Mr. Stowell, you are deceiving me. I have not been pardoned. You
_are_ helping me to escape."
"Hush!"
But (again in a loud voice) she cried,
"Don't lie to me any longer. Tell me the truth."
He hesitated for a moment, and then he told her. Yes, he was helping
her to escape. He had tried to procure her pardon and failed, so he
had determined to set her free.
While she listened to his tremulous voice she became a prey to a
strange confusion. For days she had felt as if she hated this man,
and now a mysterious feeling of warmth from the past came over her.
"But what about you?" she asked.
"I can take care of myself," he answered.
"But if anything becomes known after Alick and I have gone...."
"Nothing _will_ become known."
"But if anything does, and you get into trouble...."
"Bessie," said Stowell (he was breathing hard), "I did you a great
wrong a year ago...."
"No, that was as much my fault as yours. I have been praying and
praying for pardon, but rather than run away now and leave you to
.... No, I won't go!"
There was a moment of uneasy silence and then Stowell said,
"Alick is waiting outside for you, Bessie. He is ready to give up
everything in the world for your sake. Are you going to break his
heart at the last moment?"
"But I can't! I can't! I .... I won't! And you shan't either. Mr.
Vondy! Mr. Von--...."
"Be quiet! Be quiet!"
She had tried to reach the door, but he had thrown his arms about her
and was covering her mouth to smother her cries. Ceasing to shout
she began to moan, and then he tried to coax her.
"Come, girl! Trust me! I know what I'm doing. Pull yourself
together. Stand up! It's nearly eleven o'clock. You'll have to
walk to the gate presently. Come now, be brave."
But her eyes had closed, and by the dim light from the grill he saw
that she was insensible.
"Bessie! Bessie!" he whispered, but she was lying helpless in his
arms.
For a moment he was bewildered. Of all the chances that might
prevent success this was the only one he had not counted with. But
at the next instant his mind, which was working with lightning-like
rapidity, saw a new opportunity.
"Better so," he thought, and laying the unconscious woman on her bed
he hurried back to the jailer.