The waiting guards laid hold of us in a twinkling, and others came
crowding the doors. They shackled our hands behind us, and covered
our eyes again. Dark misgivings of what was to come filled me, but
I bore all in silence. They shoved us roughly out of doors, and
there I could tell they were up to no child's play. A loud jeer
burst from the mouths of many as we came staggering out. I could
hear the voices of a crowd. They hurried us into a carriage.
"We demand the prisoners!" a man shouted near me.
Then I could hear them scuffling with the guards, who, I doubt not,
were doing their best to hold them back. In a moment I knew the
mob had possession of us and the soldiers were being hustled away.
D'ri sat shoulder to shoulder with me. I could feel his muscles
tighten; I could hear the cracking of his joints and the grinding
of the shackle-chain. "Judas Pr-r-i-e-st!" he grunted, straining
at the iron. Two men leaped into the carriage. There was a crack
of the whip, and the horses went off bounding. We could hear
horsemen all about us and wagons following. I had a stout heart in
me those days, but in all my life I had never taken a ride so
little to my liking. We went over rough roads, up hill and down,
for an hour or more.
I could see in prospect no better destination than our graves, and,
indeed, I was not far wrong. Well, by and by we came to a town
somewhere--God knows where. I have never seen it, or known the
name of it, or even that of the prison where we were first immured.
I could tell it was a town by the rumble of the wheels and each
echoing hoof-beat. The cavalcade was all about us, and now and
then we could hear the sound of voices far behind. The procession
slowed up, horsemen jammed to the left of us, the carriage halted.
I could hear footsteps on a stone pavement.
"You're late," said a low voice at the carriage door. "It's near
eleven."
"Lot o' fooling with the candidates," said one of the horsemen,
quietly. "Everything ready?"
"Everything ready," was the answer.
The carriage door swung open.
"We get out here," said one of the men who sat with us.
I alighted. On each side of me somebody put his hand to my
shoulder. I could see the glow of a lantern-light close to my
face. I knew there was a crowd of men around, but I could hear
nothing save now and then a whisper.
"Wall, Ray," said D'ri, who stood by my side, "hol' stiddy 'n'
don't be scairt."
"Do as they tell ye," a stranger whispered in my ear. "No matter
what 't is, do as they tell ye."
They led us into a long passage and up a steep flight of wooden
stairs. I have learned since then it was a building equipped by a
well-known secret society for its initiations.[1] We went on
through a narrow hall and up a winding night that seemed to me
interminable. Above it, as we stopped, the man who was leading me
rapped thrice upon a rattling wooden door. It broke the silence
with a loud echoing noise. I could hear then the sliding of a
panel and a faint whispering and the sound of many feet ascending
the stairs below. The door swung open presently, and we were led
in where I could see no sign of any light. They took me alone
across a wide bare floor, where they set me down upon some sort of
platform and left me, as I thought. Then I could hear the
whispered challenge at the door and one after another entering and
crossing the bare floor on tiptoe. Hundreds were coming in, it
seemed to me. Suddenly a deep silence fell in that dark place of
evil. The blindfold went whisking off my head as if a ghostly hand
had taken it. But all around me was the darkness of the pit. I
could see and I could hear nothing but a faint whisper, high above
me, like that of pine boughs moving softly in a light breeze. I
could feel the air upon my face. I thought I must have been moved
out of doors by some magic. It seemed as if I were sitting under
trees alone. Out of the black silence an icy hand fell suddenly
upon my brow. I flinched, feeling it move slowly downward over my
shoulder. I could hear no breathing, no rustle of garments near
me. In that dead silence I got a feeling that the hand touching me
had no body behind it. I was beyond the reach of fear--I was in a
way prepared for anything but the deep, heart-shaking horror that
sank under the cold, damp touch of those fingers. They laid hold
of my elbow firmly, lifting as if to indicate that I was to rise.
I did so, moving forward passively as it drew me on. To my
astonishment I was unable to hear my own footfall or that of my
conductor. I thought we were walking upon soft earth. Crossing
our path in front of me I could see, in the darkness, a gleaming
line. We moved slowly, standing still as our toes covered it.
Then suddenly a light flashed from before and below us. A cold
sweat came out upon me; I staggered back to strong hands that were
laid upon my shoulders, forcing me to the line again. By that
flash of light I could see that I was standing on the very brink of
some black abyss--indeed, my toes had crossed the edge of it. The
light came again, flickering and then settling into a steady glow.
The opening seemed to have a grassy bottom some ten feet below. In
front of me the soil bristled, on that lower level, with some black
and pointed plant: there was at least a score of them. As I
looked, I saw they were not plants, but a square of bayonets
thrust, points up, in the ground. A curse came out of my hot
mouth, and then a dozen voices mocked it, going fainter, like a
dying echo. I heard a whisper in my ear. A tall figure in a
winding-sheet, its face covered, was leaning over me.
"To hesitate is to die," it whispered. "Courage may save you."
Then a skeleton hand came out of the winding-sheet, pointing down
at the square of bristling bayonets. The figure put its mouth to
my ear.
"Jump!" it whispered, and the bare bones of the dead fingers
stirred impatiently.
Some seconds of a brief silence followed. I could hear them slowly
dripping out of eternity in the tick of a watch near me. I felt
the stare of many eyes invisible to me. A broad beam of bright
light shot through the gloom, resting full upon my face. I started
back upon the strong hands behind me. Then I felt my muscles
tighten as I began to measure the fall and to wonder if I could
clear the bayonets. I had no doubt I was to die shortly, and it
mattered not to me how, bound as I was, so that it came soon. For
a breath of silence my soul went up to the feet of God for help and
hope. Then I bent my knees and leaped, I saw much as my body went
rushing through the air--an empty grave its heap of earth beside
it, an island of light, walled with candles, in a sea of gloom,
faces showing dimly in the edge of the darkness, "Thank God! I
shall clear the bayonets," I thought, and struck heavily upon a
soft mat, covered over with green turf, a little beyond that
bristling bed. I staggered backward, falling upon it. To my
surprise, it bent beneath me. They were no bayonets, but only
shells of painted paper. I got to my feet none the worse for
jumping, and as dumfounded as ever a man could be. I stood on a
lot of broken turf with which a wide floor had been overlaid.
Boards and timbers were cut away, and the grave dug beneath them.
I saw one face among others in the gloom beyond the candle
rows--that of his Lordship. He was coming up a little flight of
stairs to where I stood. He moved the candles, making a small
passage, and came up to me.
"You're a brave man," said he, in that low, careless tone of his.
"And you a coward," was my answer, for the sight of him had made me
burn with anger.
"Don't commit yourself on a point like that," said he, quickly,
"for, you know, we are not well acquainted. I like your pluck, and
I offer you what is given to few here--an explanation."
He paused, lighting a cigarette. I stood looking at him. The cold
politeness of manner with which he had taken my taunt, his perfect
self-mastery, filled me with wonder. He was no callow youth, that
man, whoever he might be. He was boring at the floor with the end
of a limber cane as he continued to address me.
"Now, look here," he went on, with a little gesture of his left
hand, between the fingers of which a cigarette was burning. "You
are now in the temple of a patriotic society acting with no letters
patent, but in the good cause of his Most Excellent Majesty King
George III, to whom be health and happiness."
As he spoke the name he raised his hat, and a cheer came from all
sides of us.
"It is gathered this night," he continued, "to avenge the death of
Lord Ronley, a friend of his Majesty, and of many here present, and
an honored member of this order. For his death you, and you alone,
are responsible, and, we suspect, under circumstances of no credit
to your sword. Many of our people have been cut off from their
comrades and slain by cowardly stealth, have been led into ambush
and cruelly cut to pieces by an overwhelming number, have been shut
in prison and done to death by starvation or by stabs of a knife
there in your country. Not content with the weapons of a soldier,
you have even resorted to the barbarity of the poison-wasp. Pardon
me, but you Yankees do not seem to have any mercy or fairness for a
foe. We shall give you better treatment. You shall not be killed
like a rat in a trap. You shall have a chance for your life. Had
you halted, had you been a coward, you would not have been worthy
to fight in this arena. You would not have come where you are
standing, and possibly even now your grave would have been filled.
If you survive the ordeal that is to come, I hope it will prove an
example to you of the honor that is due to bravery, of the fairness
due a foe."
Many voices spoke the word "Amen" as he stopped, turning to beckon
into the gloom about us. I was now quite over my confusion. I
began to look about me and get my bearings. I could hear a stir in
the crowd beyond the lights, and a murmur of voices. Reflecting
lanterns from many pillars near by shot their rays upon me. I
stood on a platform, some thirty feet square, in the middle of a
large room. Its floor was on a level with the faces of the many
who stood pressing to the row of lights, Here, I took it, I was to
fight for my life, I was looking at the yawning grave in the corner
of this arena, when four men ascended with swords and pistols. One
of them removed the shackles, letting my hands free. I thanked him
as he tossed them aside. I was thinking of D'ri, and, shading my
eyes, looked off in the gloom to see if I could discover him. I
called his name, but heard no answer. His Lordship came over to
me, bringing a new sword. He held the glittering blade before me,
its hilt in his right hand, its point resting on the fingers of his
left. "It's good," said he, quietly; "try it."
It was a beautiful weapon, its guard and pommel and quillons
sparkling with wrought-silver, its grip of yellow leather laced
with blue silk. The glow and the feel of it filled me with a joy I
had not known since my father gave me the sword of my childhood.
It drove the despair out of me, and I was a new man. I tried the
blade, its point upon my toe. It was good metal, and the grip
fitted me.
"Well, how do you find it?" said he, impatiently.
"I am satisfied," was my reply.
He helped me take off my blouse and waistcoat, and then I rolled my
sleeves to the elbow. The hum of voices had grown louder. I could
hear men offering to bet and others bantering for odds.
"We'll know soon," said a voice near me, "whether he could have
killed Ronley in a fair fight."
I turned to look at those few in the arena. There were half a
dozen of them now, surrounding my adversary, a man taller than the
rest, with a heavy neck and brawny arms and shoulders. He had come
out of the crowd unobserved by me. He also was stripped to the
shirt, and had rolled up his sleeves, and was trying the steel. He
had a red, bristling mustache and overhanging brows and a vulgar
face--not that of a man who settles his quarrel with the sword. I
judged a club or a dagger would have been better suited to his
genius. But, among fighters, it is easy to be fooled by a face.
In a moment the others had gone save his Lordship and that portly
bald-headed man I had heard him rebuke as "Sir Charles." My
adversary met me at the centre of the arena, where we shook hands.
I could see, or thought I could, that he was entering upon a
business new to him, for there was in his manner an indication of
unsteady nerves.
"Gentlemen, are you ready?" said his Lordship.
But there are reasons why the story of what came after should be
none of my telling. I leave it to other and better eyes that were
not looking between flashes of steel, as mine were. And then one
has never a fair view of his own fights.
[1] The intrepid Fitzgibbon, the most daring leader on the Canadian
frontier those days, told me long afterward that he knew the
building--a tall frame structure on the high shore of a tributary
of the St. Lawrence. It was built on a side of the bluff and used
originally as a depot for corn, oats, rye, and potatoes, that came
down the river in bateaux. The slide was a slanting box through
which the sacks of grain were conveyed to sloops and schooners
below. It did not pay and was soon abandoned, whereupon it was
rented by the secret order referred to above. The slide bottom was
coated with lard and used for the hazing of candidates. A prize
fight on the platform was generally a feature of the entertainment.
A man was severely injured in a leap on the bayonets, after which
that feature of the initiation was said to have been abandoned.