He affected not to hear.
“There’s money in plenty,” I said.
He winked ponderously and began again. “Oh, you’ll swing all right. A
man with nothing against him has a chance; with the rhino he has it,
even if he’s guilty. But you’ll _swing_. Charlie, who brought you back
just now, had a chat with the ’Torney-General’s devil’s clerk’s clerk,
while old Nog o’ Bow Street was trying to read their Spanish. He says
it’s a Gov’nment matter. They wants to hang you bad, they do, so’s to
go to the Jacky Spaniards and say, ‘He were a nob, a nobby nob.’ (So
you are, aren’t you? One uncle an earl and t’other a dean, if so be what
they say’s true.) ‘He were a nobby nob and we swung ’im. Go you’n do
likewise.’ They want a striking example t’ keep the West India trade
quiet...” He wiped his forehead and moved my water jug of red earth on
the dirty deal table under the window, for all the world like a host in
front of a guest. “They means you to swing,” he said. “They’ve silenced
the Thames Court reporters. Not a noospaper will publish a correct
report t’morrer. And you haven’t see nobody, nor you won’t, not if I can
help it.”
He broke off and looked at me with an expression of candour.
“Mind you,” he said, “I’m not uffish. To ’n ornery gentleman--of the
road or what you will--I’m not, if so be he’s the necessary. I’d take a
letter like another. But for you, no--fear. Not that I’ve my knife into
you. What I can do to make you comfor’ble I will do, _both_ now an’
hereafter. But when I gets the wink, I looks after my skin. So’d any
man. You don’t see nobody, nor you won’t; nor your nobby relations
won’t have the word. Till the Hadmir’lty trile. Charlie says it’s
unconstitutional, you ought to see your ’torney, if you’ve one, or your
father’s got one. But Lor’, I says, ‘Charlie, if they wants it they gets
it. This ain’t no _habeas carpis_, give-the-man-a-chance case. It’s the
Hadmir’lty. And not a man tried for piracy this thirty year. See what
a show it gives them, what bloody Radicle knows or keeres what the
perceedin’s should be? Who’s a-goin’ t’ make a question out of it? Go
away,’ says I to Charlie. And that’s it straight.”
He went towards the door, then turned.
“You should be in the Marshalsea common yard; even I knows that. But
they’ve the wink there. ‘Too full,’ says they. Too full be d------d.
I’ve know’d the time--after the Vansdell smash it were--when they found
room for three hundred more improvident debtors over and above what
they’re charted for. Too full! Their common yard! They don’t want you to
speak to a soul, an’ you won’t till this day week, when the Hadmir’lty
Session is in full swing.” He went out and locked the door, snorting,
“Too full at the Marshalsea!... Go away!”
“Find out about the _Lion_,” I called, as the door closed.
It cleared the air for me, that speech. I understood that they wanted to
hang me, and I wanted not to be hung, desperately, from that moment.
I had not much cared before; I had--call it, moped. I had not really
believed, really sensed it out. It isn’t easy to conceive that one is
going to be hanged, I doubt if one does even with the rope round one’s
neck. I hadn’t much wanted to live, but now I wanted to fight--one good
fight before I went under for good and all, condemned or acquitted.
There wasn’t anything left for me to live for, Seraphina could not be
alive. The _Lion_ must have been lost.
But I was going to make a fight for it; curse it, I was going to give
them trouble. My “them” was not so much the Government that meant to
hang me as the unseen powers that suffered such a state of things, that
allowed a number of little meannesses, accidents, fatalities, to hang
me. I began to worry the turnkey. He gave me no help, only shreds of
information that let me see more plainly than ever how set “they” were
on sacrificing me to their exigencies.
The whole West Indian trade in London was in an uproar over the Pirate
Question and over the Slave Question. Jamaica was still squealing for
Separation before the premonitory grumbles of Abolition. Horton Pen,
over there, came back with astonishing clearness before me. I seemed to
hear old, wall-eyed, sandy-headed Macdonald, agitating his immense bulk
of ill-fitting white clothes in front of his newspaper, and bellowing in
his ox-voice:
“Abolition, they give us Abolition... or ram it down our throats. _They_
who haven’t even the spunk to rid us o’ the d------d pirates, not the
spunk to catch and hang one.... Jock, me lahd, we’s abolush them before
they sail touch our neegurs.... Let them clear oor seas, let them hang
_one_ pirate, and then talk.”
I was the one they were going to hang, to consolidate the bond with the
old island. The cement wanted a little blood in the mixing. Damn them!
I was going to make a fight; they had torn me from Seraphina, to fulfill
their own accursed ends. I felt myself grow harsh and strong, as a tree
feels itself grow gnarled by winter storms. I said to the turnkey again
and again:
“Man, I will promise you a thousand pounds or a pension for life, if you
will get a letter through to my mother or Squire Rooksby of Horton.”
He said he daren’t do it; enough was known of him to hang him if he
gave offence. His flabby fingers trembled, and his eyes grew large with
successive shocks of cupidity. He became afraid of coming near me; of
the strain of the temptation. On the next day he did not speak a word,
nor the next, nor the next. I began to grow horribly afraid of being
hung. The day before the trial arrived. Towards noon he flung the door
open.
“Here’s paper, here’s pens,” he said. “You can prepare your defence. You
may write letters. Oh, hell! why did not they let it come sooner, I’d
have had your thousand pounds. I’ll run a letter down to your people
fast as the devil could take it. I know a man, a gentleman of the road.
For twenty pun promised, split between us, he’ll travel faster’n Turpin
did to York.” He was waving a large sheet of newspaper agitatedly.
“What does it mean?” I asked. My head was whirling.
“Radical papers got a-holt of it,” he said. “Trust them for nosing out.
And the Government’s answering them. They say you’re going to suffer
for your crimes. Hark to this... um, um... ‘The wretched felon now in
Newgate will incur the just penalty...’ Then they slaps the West Indies
in the face. ‘When the planters threaten to recur to some other power
for protection, they, of course, believe that the loss of the colonies
would be severely felt. But...’”
“The _Lion’s_ home,” I said.
It burst upon me that she was--that she must be. Williams--or
Sebright--he was the man, had been speaking up for me. Or Seraphina had
been to the Spanish ambassador.
She was back; I should see her. I started up.
“The _Lion’s_ home,” I repeated.
The turnkey snarled, “She was posted as overdue three days ago.”