AN UNFINISHED TASK.
Immediately after the sentence was pronounced the prisoners were led
back to the Tower. They were chained together by twos, and Sir John
walked with Geoffrey. During the entire walk from St. Stephen's, along
the river embankment, neither of them spoke to the other. For Geoffrey,
at least, it was a subject of life-long regret that he had not done so.
It was part of the policy of Bagshaw's government thus to march them
through the streets, a spectacle, like a caravan of caged beasts, for
the populace. Geoffrey thought to himself, curiously, of the old
triumphs of the Roman emperors he had read about as a schoolboy. Then,
as now, the people needed bread and loved a show. But the people, even
then, had caught something of the dignity of power. Silently they
pressed upon the sidewalks and thronged the gardens by the river. Not a
voice was raised in mockery of these few men; there is something in the
last extremity of misfortune which commands respect, even from the
multitude. And, perhaps, even then the first-fruits of freedom might
have been marked in their manner, and magnanimity, the first virtue of
liberty, kept the London rabble hushed.
Geoffrey's eyes were turned within as he walked, as if he were thinking,
but of thoughts far distant, far back in the past. Dacre held his glance
still high and forward, fixed and straight upon the road before him.
Only once, when they passed the Temple gardens, did Geoffrey's eyes
stray outward; it was when he marked the windows of his old study in the
Inner Temple, where he had studied to be a barrister in days gone by;
then his look grew introspective as before.
When they came to the gate of the Tower the soldiers divided and drew
apart in two lines, between which the prisoners passed into the great
courtyard. A squad of the Tower garrison--no longer in the gay livery of
the King, but in the plain black coat and helmet of policemen--stood
before the door. The banner of the British Republic--the red and white
stripes, with the green union and the harp--floated over the loftiest
tower of all. The prisoners were then separated, and each was led to a
different cell. Then for the first time Geoffrey thought of Dacre; but
he was already under a special escort and being led away; it was too
late. The last that Geoffrey saw of him he was walking erect, with his
silent lips still closed, steady like the course of some strong stream
above the fall. As he watched him, Geoffrey heard the distant murmur of
the people beyond the gates.
Geoffrey well remembered the room that was his prison. He had been taken
there as a sightseer when a child. It was in the Beauchamp Tower;
and--strange coincidence--there was the bear and ragged staff of
Warwick, still visible, cut deep into the old stone walls.
So, thought he, it had all ended. History repeats itself, but in strange
new forms that seem as if they half mock, half follow, the old. Then,
the King was wrong; was now the people in the right? They brought him
some food; and after eating he threw himself on the ground and tried to
sleep. But his sleep was troubled with his dreams of waking: now he
heard Margaret Windsor's broken words again; now he was in the great
hall of St. Stephen's speaking; then he heard again the echo of the gun
that shot down the royal flag, and then the silence of the people,
forever estranged, more dread, more terrible than any words of enemies
or noise of battle. Again he thought of Dacre and his look when all was
lost: a look unchanged, unmoved; a look less of despair than the majesty
of certain fate--a fate not new nor sudden, but chosen of his own calm
will. A man of stone, thought Geoffrey; the incarnation of one thought;
hardly human in his conscious strength. And yet, as Geoffrey saw him in
the darkness of the night, his heart went out to him, and he felt that
he loved this man as he had never loved a friend before.
The dawn came, and its gray damp breath broke through the iron bars. It
seemed all unreal in the daylight. Old stones of escape passed through
his mind: how men, in childish stories of history or romance, with some
rude instrument of iron, had carved their will and way through walls as
thick as these. But how idle they seemed! How futile, how vain to make
with his two hands a way through stone, or burrow like a mole into the
earth! And yet those legends seemed no less a dream than this of his.
There was a strange silence as the morning grew on; he wondered if the
world outside were all asleep. He had foreseen it; and yet he had not
quite foreseen this; some glorious end, in a battle, perhaps, fighting
out in the free country, beneath the sun. Again his thoughts turned to
his friend, and he felt a strange assurance that Dacre had foreseen it
all along, but not held back his steps one whit for that. And there was
Maggie--in America--could she, and her life, be in the same world with
this? Yet it was natural enough, and such things had always been, only
he had never truly pictured them. The day seemed endless. If he could
only hear something of the others, and not be so terribly alone. If he
could but learn where they were--where Dacre was. He heard a dull sound
like the noise of distant firing, but more like thunder, coming heavily
through the ground. Geoffrey ran to the window, drew himself up, and
looked out through the bars. There was a sea of upturned faces, all pale
and with one fixed look, a myriad times repeated, pointed to the base of
the Tower below his window where he could not see. Then he fell back
upon the ground, burying his face in his hands.
Dacre himself had slept that night a dreamless sleep, as he had slept
any night before in the years since he had seen his path and chosen it.
At noon the people came to his cell and led him out. Numbers of men were
standing in the corridor and on the stairs; he looked on between the
lines and walked to the door. Then he begged that his handcuffs might be
removed. As he paused a moment, Richard Lincoln stepped forward and
ordered that it should be done. Then he fell back, bowing once to Dacre.
Richard Lincoln had come there from the death-bed of his daughter to do
this last service to the man that she loved. Then Dacre passed on, out
of the great door into the full light of the noon. There in front of him
was a great concourse of people, the multitude Geoffrey had seen from
his window. Dacre looked out from the prison gate with his fixed, clear
eyes, but the road was growing very short before him now, and still his
glance went on beyond--beyond the company of soldiers standing thirty
yards in front, the butts of their rifles resting on the ground.
"John Dacre, you are found guilty of high treason to the people. Have
you anything to say?" It was Bagshaw, the President, who spoke, in his
capacity as general of the army.
Dacre made no reply. He was thinking of the treason of his King, and not
of his own. And there in front of him were the people--the people, in
might of numbers, in the majesty of strength, ten thousand to his one.
But as he looked upon them their ten thousand faces were turned on his,
their hearts within their eyes; and Dacre might have noted that in all
of them there was not one but spoke pity--pity, in their silence, for
himself. Then he turned aside from the door, with his back to the prison
wall. "I am ready."
"John Dacre--you have nothing to say?" said the President again. "You
may yet save yourself. Where is the King?" Dacre turned his glance upon
him, slowly.
"I am ready," said he again. He seemed to overlook the President as he
spoke, and he never looked at him again.
"Give the order to make ready!" said Bagshaw, angrily, to the officer in
command, and the slight click of the rifles followed his words.
The narrow courtyard was as still as if deserted, though it seemed you
could almost hear the breathing of the multitude that thronged the
streets. But to die thus, penned in a narrow courtyard, passively,
vainly, shot like a dog. A low murmur began to come from the people,
indeterminate, inarticulate; it came to Dacre's ears like the hum of
distant battle, and perhaps he saw the battle, and the royal standard,
and that last unworthy King for whom this thing was done. Then came
Bagshaw's voice again: "Where is the King?"
"Silence, sir!" thundered Richard Lincoln, and Bagshaw slunk back a pace
or two, like a chidden dog.
"The King is dead," said Dacre, so clearly that all the people in the
street heard him, but no one made a sound. Then he threw back his coat,
as if to bare his breast to the levelled muskets; and as he did so the
withered rose dropped out and fell into his hand. It was Mary Lincoln's
rose that he had thrust there on the day before. And as he looked at it
the false bonds of his faith fell from him like the fetters of a dream,
and he looked upon the multitude and saw that theirs was the right, and
he knew that his life was thrown away; then first he remembered she had
loved him, and he saw what might have been. He saw the poor image of a
king--the King who had deserted his own cause and left him in his
loyalty alone; he saw the throng of humanity standing silent there
before him, and the sweetness and the virtue of the life which he had
put behind. Then for the first time his firm lips trembled, as he lifted
the poor rose to his lips, and kissed it once, in memory of her whom he
was leaving, as he thought. But Mary Lincoln was dead; and as he turned
his face upward, he seemed to see some vision in the sky, and they say
that a great glory shone into his face.
"Fire!" came the word, and the sheet of flame leaped out toward him, and
he fell; and the rose-leaves, scattered by a bullet, lay about him on
the stones.