THOUGHTS OF ONE IN DURANCE
Once more the cell was only tenanted by the victim. Sir William had
gone, the great door had clanked and clicked, and Guy Rathbone still lay
upon his couch of torture.
The electric light still shone, as Gouldesbrough had forgotten to turn
it off, or perhaps did not know that this was the invariable custom of
his assistant when Rathbone was clanked and bolted down to his bed of
vulcanite. It was the first visit that Sir William had paid to the
living tomb to which he had consigned his rival.
Rathbone had laughed indeed, and his laugh was still echoing in the
frenzied brain of the scientist as he mounted upwards to the light of
day. But the laugh, though it had indeed been blithe and confident, had
been a supreme effort of will, of faith and trust, was merely the echo
and symbol of a momentary state which the tortured body and despairing
mind could not sustain.
Rathbone could not move his head, fixed tight as it was in its collar.
But two great tears rolled from the weakened and trembling eyelids down
the gaunt, grey cheeks. The supreme ecstasy of belief and trust in the
girl he loved, the hope of meeting her again in another world where time
was not and where the period of waiting would be unfelt, passed away
like a thing that falls through water. Once more a frightful emptiness
and fear came down over him like a cloud falls.
From where his couch was placed, though he could not turn his head, he
could see nearly the whole interior of his cell. There were the concrete
walls, each cranny and depression of which he knew so well. There was
the other, and scarcely less painful, bed upon which he slept, or tried
to sleep at such times when exhausted nature mercifully banished the
pain of his soul. It was not day when he slept, it was not night, for
day and night are things of the world, the world with which he was never
to have any more to do, and which he should never see again with
material eyes.
There was the little table upon which was the last book they had let him
have, a book brought to him in bitter mockery by Wilson Guest a child's
picture book called "Reading without Tears." And he could see the
network of ropes and india-rubber attachments which went up to the
pulley in the roof, and which rendered him absolutely helpless by means
of the mechanism outside the cell which was set in motion before his
jailor entered.
There was hardly any need for these ingenious instruments any longer.
The athlete was gaunt and wasted, his skin hung upon him in grey folds.
The gold had faded out of his hair and it was nearly white. The firm and
manly curve of the lips was broken and twisted. The whole mouth was
puckered with pain and torture. It was almost a senile mouth now. Very
little physical strength remained in the body--no, there was hardly any
need for the pulley and ropes now, and soon there would be no need for
them at all, until, perhaps, some other unhappy captive languished in
the grip of these monsters.
His tired eyes gazed round the cell, and his thoughts were for a moment
numbed into nothingness. There was just a piece of lead at the back of
his brain, that was all. He was conscious of it being there, drowsily
conscious, but no more than that.
Quite suddenly something seemed to start his mental lethargy, his brain
resumed its functions instantaneously. There was a roaring in his ears
like the sound of a wind, and he awoke to full consciousness and
realization of what Sir William had told him, of the unutterable terror
and frightfulness of his coming doom. All over his face, hands, and
body, beads of perspiration started out in little jets. Then he felt as
if a piece of ice were being slid smoothly down his spine--from the
neck downwards. His hands opened and shut convulsively, gripping at
nothing, and the soles of his feet, in their list slippers, became
suddenly and strangely hot. The collar round his neck seemed to be
throttling him, and his mouth opened, gasping for air.
Then that deep and hidden chamber was filled with a wail so mournful,
melancholy and hopeless, so dismal and inhuman that the very concrete
walls themselves might also have melted and dissolved away before the
fire of such agony and the sound of such despair.
He knew the dark and more sinister reason of his captivity, he knew what
they had made him and for what dreadful purpose.
Ah! It was a supreme revenge. They had stolen him from his love and they
had stolen his very inmost soul from him. All the agonized prayers which
had gone up to God like thin flames had been caught upon their way like
tangible and material things, caught by the devilish power of one man,
and thrown upon the wall for him to see and laugh over. All his
passionate longing for Marjorie, all the messages he tried to frame and
send her through the darkness and the walls of stone, all these had been
but an amusement and a derision for the fiend whose slave he had become.
And all his hatred, his deep cursings of his captor, all his futile
half-formed plans for an escape were all known to the two men. And still
worse, his very memories, his most sacred memories, had been taken from
him and used as a theatre by William Gouldesbrough and Wilson Guest. He
understood now the remarks that the assistant had sometimes made, the
cruel and extraordinary knowledge he seemed to display of things that
had happened in Rathbone's past. It was all quite plain, all terribly
distinct.
And worst of all, the sacred moments when he had avowed his love for
Marjorie, and she, that peerless maiden, had come to him in answer,
these dear memories, which alone had kept his cooling mind from madness,
were known and exulted over by these men. They had seen him kiss
Marjorie; all the endearments of the lovers had passed before them like
tableaux in a pantomime. Yes; this indeed was more than any brain could
bear.
Rathbone knew now that he was going mad.
Of course, God never heard his prayers, they could not get up to God.
Those beasts had caught them in a net and God never heard them. There
had always been that one thought, even in the darkest hour--that thought
that God knew and would come to his aid.
The face, the rigid face, worked and wrinkled horribly. Ripples of agony
passed up and down it like the ripples upon the wind-blown surface of a
pool. It was not human now any longer, and the curious and lovers of
what is terrible may see such faces in the museum of the mad painter of
pictures at Brussels.
Then, as a stone falls, consciousness flashed away, though the face
still moved and wrinkled automatically.
Presently the door of the cell was unlocked, and Wilson Guest came in.
He was rather drunk and rather angry also.
Sir William had come back from telling Rathbone the truth about what had
been done to him and what they proposed to do. Guest had been waiting in
the study with great expectation. He congratulated himself on having
worked up his patron sufficiently to make him visit Rathbone himself and
inform him of his fate. He had not thought that Gouldesbrough could have
been brought to do any such thing, and he had awaited his chief's
arrival with intense and cynical expectation.
When at last Sir William did enter the room, his face was very pale, but
the passion of hideous anger had quite gone from it, and it was calm and
quiet. The eyes no longer blazed, the lips were set in their usual
curve.
"Have you told him, William?" Guest asked in his malicious voice. "Have
you told him everything? Come along, then, let's go into the laboratory
at once and see what he thinks about it."
There was no response. Sir William seemed as a man in a dream. When at
length he did answer his voice appeared to come from a long distance,
and it was sad and almost kindly.
"Yes," he said, in that gentle mournful voice; "yes, my friend, I have
told him. Poor, poor fellow! How terrible his thoughts must be now. I
wish I could do something for him. The spectacle of such agony is indeed
terrible. Poor, poor fellow!"
He sank into a chair, his head fell upon his breast, his fingers
interlocked, and he seemed to be sleeping.
Guest looked at him for a moment stupidly. The assistant was fuddled
with drink, and could not understand these strange symptoms and
phenomena of a great brain which was swiftly being undermined.
All he noticed was that Sir William certainly seemed sunk in upon
himself like an old man.
With a gesture of impatience he left the room and traversed the corridor
until he came to the largest laboratory, where the Thought Spectroscope
instruments were. He turned up the electric light, found the switch
which controlled part of the machinery, moved the switch and turned down
the electric light once more, looking expectantly at the opposite wall.
There was no great circle of light such as he waited for.
With an oath he stumbled out of the laboratory, not forgetting to lock
it carefully. And then, unlocking another door, a door which formed the
back of a great cupboard in No. C room, a door which nobody ever saw, he
went down a flight of stone steps to those old disused cellars, in one
of which Rathbone was kept. He opened the door and found the captive
still lying upon the vulcanite couch, his face still working like the
face of a mechanical toy, and in a deep swoon.
Guest hastily unbuckled the straps and released the neck from the
collar. He carried Rathbone to the bed, locked the thin steel chains,
which hung from the roof, upon the anklets and the handcuffs, and then
dashed water repeatedly in his face.
In his pocket, Mr. Guest invariably carried a supply of liquor. It
sometimes happened that in going from a room where he had exhausted all
the liquor, into another room where he knew he would find more, the two
rooms would be separated by a corridor of some little length, and it
sometimes happened that Mr. Guest needed a drink when he arrived in the
middle of the corridor. So he always carried a large, silver-mounted
flask in the pocket of his coat. He unscrewed this now and poured some
whisky down the captive's throat. In a minute or two a faint tinge of
colour appeared upon the cheekbones, and with a shudder and sob the
tortured soul came back to the tortured body, which even yet it was not
to be suffered to leave.
"That's better," Mr. Guest remarked. "I thought you had gone off, I
really did. Not yet, my dear boy, not yet. Would not do at all. Would
not suit our purpose. I'm sure you won't be so disobliging as to treat
us in such a shabby way after all we have done for you. I understand
William has told you of the delicate attentions by which we propose to
make your exit as interesting and as valuable to science as possible."
Rathbone looked at him steadily. He spoke to him in a weak, thin voice.
"Yes," he said, "I know now, I know everything. But have you no single
spark of pity or compassion within you, that you can come here to mock
and gloat over a man who is surely suffering more than any one else has
ever suffered in the history of the world? Is it impossible to touch you
or move you in any way?"
Mr. Guest rubbed his hands with huge enjoyment.
"Ah!" he said chuckling, while the pink, hairless face was one mask of
pleasure. "Ah, that is how I have been wanting to hear you talk for a
long, long time. I thought we should break you down at last, though. For
my part I should have told you long before, only William thought that
you would not give yourself away about Miss Marjorie Poole if you knew
that we saw it all. However, we know now, so it don't matter. Dear
little girl she is, Mr. Rathbone. Sir William sees her every day. She
thinks you have gone off with a barmaid and are living quite happily,
helping her to manage a pub. in the East. Sir William sees her every
day, and she sits on his knee, and they kiss each other and laugh about
being in love. Charming, isn't it? Fancy you talking to me like that.
Pity? Pity? Aren't I your best friend? Don't I bring you your food every
day? And didn't I give you a drink just now? That's more than William
did. And besides to-morrow aren't I going to begin the injections that
in a month's time or so will make you appear a confirmed dipsomaniac,
just before I come down here and hold your head in a bucket of water
until you are drowned? Then, dress your body in nice, dirty clothes and
have you dropped in the Thames just above Wapping. Oh, Mr. Rathbone, how
could you say such cruel things to your good friend, Mr. Wilson Guest?
Well, I must be going. I don't think you will want anything more
to-night, will you? Good night. Sleep pleasantly. I am going to go to
bed myself, and I shall lie awake thinking of the fun there will be at
the inquest when the Doctor reports after the post-mortem that you were
a confirmed drunkard, and all the world, including Miss Marjorie Poole,
will know the real truth about Guy Rathbone's disappearance."