I believe that it is one thing to confront with calmness a death that
is known to be inevitable, and quite another and a far more difficult
thing to assume the same brow where hope and a chance remain. I am not
greatly ashamed, therefore, that in a crisis which amply justified all
the horror and repugnance which mortals feel at the prospect of sudden
and violent dissolution, I fell below the heroic standard, and said
and did things, _miles impar Achilli_.
Nevertheless, it is with no good-will I dwell on the matter; in
writing, as in life, there are decencies and indecencies; things to be
told and others to be implied. Let few words then suffice, alike for
the moment when Charnock, holding back the others, wrung from me,
half-swooning as I was, the admission that I had been to Kensington,
and that the sentry was not mistaken: and for those minutes of
frenzied terror which followed, when screaming and struggling in their
grasp, now trying to fling myself down, and now shrieking prayers for
mercy, I was dragged to a spot below the hook, and held there by
relentless fingers while a rope was being fetched from the next room.
I had no vision, as I have read some have, of the things done in my
life: but the set, dark faces that hemmed me in under the light, the
grim looks of one, and the scared pallor of another, even Ferguson's
hideous visage as he hovered in the background, biting his nails
between terror and exultation--all these, even enlarged and
multiplied, I saw with a dreadful clearness, and a keenness of vision
that of itself was torture.
"Oh, God!" I cried at last. "Help! Help!" For from man I could see no
help.
"Ay, man, pray," said Charnock, inexorably. "Pray, for you must die.
We will give you one minute. Here comes the rope. Who will fasten it?"
"A fool," cried a hard gibing voice, from somewhere beyond the circle.
"No other."
I started convulsively: I had forgotten the girl's presence. So
doubtless had the conspirators, for at the sound they turned quickly
towards her; and, the ring of men opening out in the movement, she
became visible to me. She stood confronting all, daring all. Her lips
red, her face white as paper, her eyes glittering with a strange, wild
fierceness. Long afterwards she told me that the sound of my shrieks
and cries ringing in her ears had been almost more than she could
bear: that as scream rose on scream she had driven the nails into her
palms until her hands bled, and so only had been able to restrain
herself, knowing well that if she would intervene to the purpose her
time was not yet.
Now that it had come, nothing could exceed the mockery and scorn that
rang in her tone. "A fool," she cried, stridently, "has fetched it,
and a fool will fasten it! And, let who hang, they will hang. And two
of you. Ay, you at the back there, will hang them. Why, you are fools,
you are all fools, or you would take care that every man among you put
his hand to the job, and was as deep as another. Or, if you like
precedence, and it is a question of fastening--for the man who
fetched, he is as good as dead already--let the hand that wove the
noose, tie it! Let that man tie it!" And with pitiless finger she
pointed to the old plotter, who, sneaking, and cringing in the
background, had already his eye on the door and his mind on retreat.
"Let him tie it!" she repeated.
"You slut!" he roared, his eyes squinting, his face livid with fury.
"Your tongue shall be slit. To your garret, vixen."
But the others, as was not unnatural, saw the matter in a different
light. "By ----, the wench is right!" cried Cassel; and Keyes saying
the same, and another backing him, there was a general chorus of "Ay,
the girl is right! The girl is right!" At that the man who had brought
the rope, threw it down. "There's for me!" he said, gloomily, and with
an ugly gleam in his eyes. "Let the old devil take it up. It is his
job, not mine, and if I swing, he shall swing too."
"Fair!" cried all. "That is fair!" And, "That is fair, Mr. Ferguson,"
said Charnock. "Do you put the rope round his neck."
"I?" Ferguson spluttered; glaring from under his wig.
"Yes, you!" the man who had brought the rope retorted with violence.
"You! And why not, I'd like to know, my gentleman?"
"I am no hangman!" cried the plotter, with a miserable assumption of
dignity.
But the words and the evasion only inflamed the general rage. "And
are we?" Cassel roared, with a volley of oaths. "You covenanting,
psalm-singing, tub-thumping old quill-driver!" he continued. "Do you
think that we are here to do your dirty work, and squeeze throats at
your bidding? _Peste!_ For a gill of Hollands I would split your
tongue for you. That and your pen have done too much harm already!"
"Peace!" Charnock said. "Go softly, man. And do you, Mr. Ferguson,
take up the rope and do your part. Otherwise we shall have strange
thoughts of you. There have been things said before, and it were well
you gave no colour to them."
I cannot believe that even I, writhing as a few minutes before I had
writhed in their hands, and screaming and begging for life, could have
presented a more pitiable spectacle than Ferguson exhibited, thus
brought to book. All the base and craven instincts of a low and
cowardly nature, brought to the surface by the challenge thus flung in
his face, he quailed and cowered before the men; and shifting his feet
and breathing hard glanced askance, first at one and then at another,
as if to see who would support him, or who could most easily be
persuaded. But he found scant encouragement anywhere; the men, savage
and ill-disposed, to begin, and driven to the wall, to boot, had now
conceived suspicions, and in proportion as delay and his conduct
diverted their rage from me, turned it on him with growing ferocity.
"Here is the cock of the pit!" cried Keyes, who seemed to be a trooper
and a man of no education, lacking even the occasional French word or
accent that betrayed the others' sojourn with King Louis. "D---- him!
He would have us hang the man, but won't lay a finger on him himself!
He is no Ketch, isn't he? Well, I hang no man either, unless I put a
hand on _him_." And he pointed full at the plotter.
A murmur of assent, stern and full of meaning, echoed his words.
"Mr. Ferguson," said Charnock, with grave politeness, "you hear what
this gentleman says? And mind you, if you ask me, he has reason. A few
minutes ago you were forward with us to hang this person. And among
gentlemen to urge another to do what you will not do yourself, lays
you open to comment. It may even be pretended, that if your rogue
informed, you were not so ignorant of the fact as you would have us
believe you."
It was wonderful to see how the men, sore and desperate, caught at
that notion, and with what greedy ferocity they turned on the knave
who, only a few moments before, had swayed their passions to his will.
It was to no purpose that Ferguson, head and hands shaking as with a
palsy, strove frantically to hurl back the accusation. His wonted
profanity seemed to fail him on this occasion, while the violence
which had daunted men of saner temperaments proved no match for
Cassel's brutality, who, breaking in on him before he had stammered a
score of words, called him liar and sneak, and, denouncing him with
outstretched finger, was in the act to hound his comrades on him, when
something caught the ear of one of them, and with a cry of alarm this
man, who stood near the door, raised his hand for silence.
Rage died down in the others' faces, and involuntarily they clustered
together. But the panic was of short duration; hardly had the alarm
been given and taken, or the lamp which hung against the wall been
snatched down and shaded, before the sound of a key in the door
reassured the conspirators. For me, who throughout the scene, last
described, had leaned half-swooning against the wall, listening, with
what feelings the reader may easily judge, to the contest for my
life--for me, who now stood reprieved, and for the moment safe, any
change might be expected to be fraught with terror. But whether I had
passed the bitterness of death, or sheer terror had exhausted my
capacity for suffering, it is certain that I awaited the event with
lack-lustre eyes; and hearing a cry of, "It's Mat Smith!" felt neither
fear nor surprise, nor even moved, when Smith entered, followed by a
woman, and with a quick glance took in the room and its occupants.
"Good," said Cassel with an oath. "I thought that the soldiers were on
us. But if they had been, curse me, but I would have sent this old
Judas to his place before me!"
Smith looked with a grim smile from the speaker to Ferguson; and
raising his eyebrows, "Judas," said he, with ironical politeness, as
he laid his cloak and cane upon the table, "is it possible that you
refer to my friend Mr. Ferguson?"
"Strangle your friend!" Cassel answered coarsely. "Do you know that
his man there has blown on the thing and sold us?"
Smith's eye had already found me, where I leaned against the wall, my
hands tied. "I see," he said coolly. "I knew before that the game was
up; and I have been somewhere, and warned someone," he added, with a
glance at Charnock, who nodded. "But I did not know how they had the
office."
"He gave it! That is how they had it!" Cassel retorted. "And it is my
belief that like man like master! And that that poor piece there would
no more have dared to inform without his patron's leave than----"
He left the end of his sentence to be understood; but Charnock, taking
up the tale and disregarding Ferguson's mutterings, described in a few
words what had happened. When he came to the girl's intervention in my
behalf, the woman who had entered with Smith, and who, though she
seemed to be known to the conspirators--for her appearance caused no
remark--had hitherto remained fidgetting in the background, moved
forward into the room; and approaching the girl, who was sitting
moodily at a table by the fire, touched her cheek with her fingers,
and slipping her hand under her chin, turned up her face. To this the
girl made no resistance, and the two women remained looking into one
another's eyes for a long minute. Then the elder, who was the same
woman I had seen with Smith at the great lady's house in the
outskirts, let the girl's face drop again, with a little flirt of her
fingers.
"Doris and Strephon, I see?" she said with a sneer.