For the moment that chance meeting thrilled all the spectators with the
sense of monumental drama. The convicts stared; Howard, the second
guard, forgot his vigilance and stared with open mouth. He started
absurdly, rather guiltily, when the old man whirled toward him.
"What are you doing with Ben Darby in a convict gang?" the old wanderer
demanded.
"What am I doin'?" Howard's astonishment gave way to righteous
indignation. "I'm guardin' convicts, that's what I'm a-doin'." He
composed himself then and shifted his gun from his left to his right
shoulder. "He's here in this gang because he's a convict. Ask my friend,
here, if you want to know the details. And who might you be?"
There was no immediate answer to that question. The old man had turned
his eyes again to the tall, trembling figure of Ben, trying to find
further proof of his identity. To Ezra Melville there could no longer be
any shadow of doubt as to the truth: even that he had found the young
man working in a gang of convicts could not impugn the fact that the
dark-gray vivid eyes, set in the vivid face under dark, beetling brows,
were unquestionably those of the boy he had seen grow to manhood's
years, Ben Darby.
It was true that he had changed. His face was more deeply lined, his
eyes more bright and nervous; there was a long, dark scar just under the
short hair at his temple that Melville had never seen before. And the
finality of despair seemed to settle over the droll features as he
walked nearer and took Darby's hand.
"Ben, Ben!" he said, evidently struggling with deep emotion. "What are
you doing here?"
The younger man gave him his hand, but continued to stare at him in
growing bewilderment. "Five years--for burglary," he answered simply.
"Guilty, too--I don't know anything more. And I can't remember--who you
are."
"You don't know me?" Some of Ben's own bewilderment seemed to pass to
him. "You know Ezra Melville--"
Sprigley, whose beliefs in regard to Ben had been strengthened by the
little episode, stepped quickly to Melville's side. "He's suffering loss
of memory," he explained swiftly. "At least, he's either lost his memory
or he's doing a powerful lot of faking. This is the first time he ever
recalled his own name."
"I'm not faking," Ben told them quietly. "I honestly don't remember
you--I feel that I ought to, but I don't. I honestly didn't remember my
name was Darby until a minute ago--then just as soon as you spoke it, I
knew the truth. Nothing can surprise me, any more. I suppose you're kin
of mine--?"
Melville gazed at him in incredulous astonishment, then turned to
Sprigley. "May I talk to you about this case?" he asked quietly. "If not
to you, who can I talk to? There are a few points that might help to
clear up--"
Ordering his men to their work, Melville and Sprigley stood apart, and
for nearly an hour engaged in the most earnest conversation. The
afternoon was shadow-flaked and paling when they had finished, and
before Sprigley led his men back within the gray walls he had arranged
for Melville to come to the prison after the dinner hour and confer with
Mitchell, the warden.
Many and important were the developments arising from this latter
conference. One of the least of them was that Melville's northward
journey was postponed for some days, and that within a week this same
white-haired, lean old man, dressed in the garb of the cinder trail, was
pleading his case to no less a personage than the governor of the State
of Washington in whom authority for dealing with Ben's case was
absolutely vested. It came about, from the same cause, that a noted
alienist, Forest, of Seattle, visited Ben Darby in his cell; and finally
that the prisoner himself, under the strict guard of Sprigley, was taken
to the capital at Olympia.
The brief inquisition that followed, changing the entire current of Ben
Darby's life, occurred in the private office of McNamara, the Governor.
McNamara himself stood up to greet them when they entered, the guard and
the convict. Ezra Melville and Forest, the alienist from Seattle, were
already in session. The latter conducted the examination.
He tried his subject first on some of the most simple tests for sanity.
It became evident at once, however, that except for his amnesia Ben's
mind was perfectly sound: he passed all general intelligence tests with
a high score, he conversed easily, he talked frankly of his symptoms. He
had perfect understanding of the general sweep of events in the past
twenty years: his amnesia seemed confined to his own activities and the
activities of those intimately connected with him. Where he had been,
what he had done, all the events of his life up to the night of his
arrest remained, for all his effort to remember them, absolutely in
darkness.
"You don't remember this man?" Forest asked him quietly, indicating
Ezra Melville.
Again Ben's eyes studied the droll, gray face. "With the vaguest kind of
memory. I know I've seen him before--often. I can't tell anything else."
"He's a good friend of your family. He knew your folks. I should say he
was a _very_ good friend, to take the trouble and time he has, in your
behalf."
Ben nodded. He did not have to be told that fact. The explanation,
however, was beyond him.