to a sane and humane soul there is no revelation so shocking as that of the scorn in which its rectitude is held by the prevailing beasts of the world. to the most of us at some time comes this bitter realization of the force that keeps humanity low. high as our sense of justice and of decency may be—serene as may figure the outlook from our lofty chambers of self-respect, we have only to descend into the plain to find manifest the brutal ruggedness of life that our hitherto aloofness has idealized. the impotence of honesty to enforce itself in any question of might; the impotence of morality to convince self-interest of its baseness—these are the first lessons in the despair of being. and when, for climax, actual bodily violence shakes us out of all the uses of dignity, we are fain to wonder what creative incongruity seeks to leaven all these seething continents of devils with a finger-pinch of just men, and how the end has justified the means of blazing sodom and the deluge.
to the fainting and battered prisoner in the lodge something in the nature of such reflections was conveyed through his sufferings. he had been beaten and mastered, it seemed, by the force that was merely brutal. such a situation for himself he had never remotely conceived. his vagabondage was to have been of the picturesque sort that aims at nothing more definite than a scorn of conventions. that which gives or receives a blow—sings with the birds or plays with the prison rats, with an equal philosophy, or an equal bluntness of perception, was outside his scope, and certainly outside his knowledge. if asked, he would have said the condition was not possible to him, inasmuch as all his experience led him to such a confidence in his innate capacity for finesse, in his own masterfulness and sense of what was due to himself, as would carry the most difficult situation. that any, no matter who, should dare to treat him with the contempt of the strong for the weak, he had not dreamed could be; and waking to the realization that it was, a bitter stubborn hatred of those who had taught him his lesson stung in his veins like poison.
it was a poison, nevertheless, that was a tonic. it brought him to himself, and to a determination to subordinate his passions to his intellect. let him recover a little, regain a moiety of his strength, and, instead of wasting his time in fruitless ravings, he would study to set his wits against his captors’, and win or die in the attempt to vindicate their superiority.
he was lying on his back on the floor as he had fallen. for how long a time he had been stretched there he could not guess; but he was stiff and numb with cold, and all his agony of being seemed concentrated in a single flaring thread. this was underneath him, he fancied—a taut string of pain; and at first he could not account for it, or disassociate the sensation from some ridiculous travesties of delirium. he had been given a red-hot knife with which to carve his dinner—a joint all ribs and emptiness; he had thrust his hand into his pocket, which had been lined with a grid of steel blades; he had broken a great crystal goblet from which he was about to drink, and a keen fragment had sliced his arm.
by and by the unfailing localization of these grotesque injuries led his recovering perceptions to the remembrance that his hands were tied behind him and that he was lying upon them. then in a flash he recalled the final scene—the vicious swoop of the knife and the stinging pain that followed; and he recognized all at once that he had been stabbed.
the nature of the wound—what was it? with an effort he turned upon his side. for all the cramp and torment in his arms he could move his fingers a little. the pressure on these maltreated limbs had wrought one benefit—it had stopped the flow of blood. but there was something else—something——
with the little weak cry he gave out, he rolled on to his back once more; for there had been a sound at the door, and a man came into the room.
“joe,” he said feebly—“joe corby!”
the new-comer, looking down upon him, nodded.
“how’s you?” said he.
“i’m very bad, joe. i’m hurt in body, and more in mind that you should lend yourself to this business. what makes you do it, joe?”
mr. corby’s answer was enigmatical and brief.
“bulbs,” said he.
“joe,” said the patient, “you’re a man of such few words that i hardly like to ask you to squander any on an explanation. still circumstances have dulled my faculties.”
“i spekilated in ’em,” said joe, “and i were sold.”
“i see, sold up. a man of courage would have turned and taken fortune by the neck.”
“would he? it ain’t my way. you may thumb me in like a march onion for to come up in june, but if the ground don’t soot me i jumps out. gardening was my ban and i tuk to the road. what’s the odds? here be the lake o’ wine a-blossoming like a toolip at the end of it.”
“but is it, joe?”
“ain’t it, now? i speaks free, me and rudland being left alone on guard.”
“why, where are the others?”
the ex-gardener gave a ponderous wink.
“two ’ll suffice,” he said, “to keep this ’ere maggot from eatin’ his way out of the apple.”
“a baby would suffice, joe, in my present state.”
the man nodded again serenely.
“i can ventur’ to ease you a trifle,” he said.
“no, leave me alone. i’m best left quiet. it’s odd what browsing lambs you all were till misfortune came like a wolf into the fold. what do you expect for your share, joe?”
“more or less than you are a-going to offer me to let you escape. it’s no good, cap’en. the riches of the world wouldn’t bribe me with fern a-treadin’ on my tail.”
with the words he went to the door, looked back grinning, and vanished.
tuke waited during an interval of suspense, until he judged himself strong enough to make a noiseless effort to rise. then, very cautiously and by slow degrees, he got to his knees—to his feet, and stood swaying. suddenly he wrenched his arms, and they parted and swung down idly by his sides. it was as he had felt and dared to hope—the slash of the murderous knife had severed his bonds at the wrist.
for some moments he stood wrapt in the mere ecstasy of physical relief. then he tried to lift his arms, found himself unable to, and looked down at the poor dangling limbs. they were a pitiful sight—swollen, paralyzed, discoloured, and streaked with clotted blood. in alarm he endeavoured to woo them to a return of circulation by gently swinging and rubbing them against his coat-skirts. for a time no result was apparent; but persisting, in what panic flurry of motion he could contrive without noise, he was rewarded by and by with an awakening of such twinges as he was convinced betokened a renewal of life in the maltreated members. the twinges increased in quick recurrence and in force, until his arms seemed mere engines of boiling and bursting pains. he could hardly endure the agony and not cry out; but he set his teeth and rubbed either limb furiously with a hand, unconscious in his torment that the power of motion was thus restored to him.
at last the pain slackened, and he was able to think. he examined his wrist and found the wound to be a long and superficial one, but enough to have caused him considerable loss of blood had chance not applied an effective tourniquet. his hands were still little capable, his whole frame was suffering and enfeebled; but his triumph of release from bondage was a stimulant that wrought upon him like wine.
a weapon—that was his first necessity. moving with extreme nicety, he examined every corner and crevice in the room. not so much as a broken penknife rewarded his search. across the hall-passage mr. corby lifted up his voice in sincere but unmelodious praise of the red, red rose. escape appeared impossible but by some bold and unexpected coup. was he strong enough to venture it—to issue from the room suddenly, overwhelm the unsuspecting joe, put him hors de combat with his own hanger, and made a bolt for the wood by the garden-way? the risk was fearful; and what but a floundering death in the drift should follow, with pursuit perhaps in his tracks? on the other hand, to delay meant probable outrage and mutilation, and a certain steady decrease of physique hour by hour.
he was resolved to it; he stood with his shoulder set to the door-jamb, tense for one uttermost effort—when the sound of voices close by in the drive brought him to a pause; and the next moment he heard the front door flung open.
silently, his heart fearfully drumming, he stepped back to the very spot from which he had risen, and, slipping down upon the boards, resumed as nearly as he could the position in which the ruffians had left him. as he did so, he heard the tramp of men in the passage, a sound of jeering voices, and the next moment the door of the room was thrown open and his visitors of the morning re-entered.
they bore the appearance of men baffled, but with some gloating evil in their hearts. fern strode to the prisoner and picked at him roughly with his boot-toe.
“how now!” he shrilled. “d’you make your bed there?”
tuke judged defiance the better policy.
“curse you!” he cried in a broken voice. “do you see this patch on the floor? ’twould have said little for your judgment to have left me to bleed to death. a fine leader of rogues, on my faith!”
“ha! my friend—we’ll cauterize the next wound for you with a red-hot blade. and so you’ve been seeking to bribe the sentry?”
there was hoarse laughter from the door, where a half-dozen scoundrel faces were gathered.
“i take my cue from the foremost of you,” said the prisoner, speaking up from the boards. “’tis not so long since mr. brander there made me an offer of half-shares if i would give him secret possession of the gem.”
the devil stood a-tiptoe and looked out through the schoolmaster’s eyes. mr. fern’s face was gone a raw beetroot colour.
“how’s that, brander?” said he.
“a ruse,” said the other coolly. “i have more tricks to my philosophy of persuasion than you have methods to your villainy.”
“my style suits my company best, i think. you acknowledge you tried to treat, then?”
“and do you look to my condescension to deny or explain?”
there had been murmurs at the door; and, upon this: “he’s lying!” cried a voice.
mr. brander was a man of few superfluities—a born director of others. this was because he never let an occasion over-ripen, but plucked his fruit before it fell. he had been quite prepared before the threatening utterance, and with the echo of it he wheeled about and fired his pistol with unerring aim into the thick of the group.
on the clap of the shot broke a loud hiccough—as if the bullet had pierced a wind-bag—and a fellow pitched forward on the threshold and bled silently on the floor.
“that’s my bird,” said the sportsman.
he strode to the door, the company stumbling and retreating before him.
“i’ve the other barrel,” he said. “does any one want it?”
he stood waiting a moment in a black pause before he spoke again:
“you’re reflecting who it is plans the entrances while your cow-heads are butting at the wall. who is it prepares the way, here and everywhere, i say, and supplies the brains without which you’d never finger a crown-piece of your own getting?”
a little patter of voices murmured up, “ebenezer brander!”
“ah!” he said, “that’s proper scholars, and spoken to the word.”
he pocketed his discharged pistol.
“when you feel you can do without me—when you feel you can depend upon him there” (he turned fiercely and signified his captain, who stood with an infernal smile on his face) “for all that suits you best—then’ll be the time to question my methods and offer me my pass to hell.”
he kicked out his foot slightly in the direction of the dead rogue.
“we were a baker’s dozen. take away judas iscariot and change the luck.”
perhaps the suggestion, the appeal to superstition, operated as powerfully with the company as the man’s own sinister personality. with exclamations of approval they dragged away the fallen body. it left a torn wake of red behind it.
“now, mr. fern,” said brander, turning once more upon his chief—“in your own interests you’ll thank me, i know, for this exhibition of authority. it only remains to give this gentleman his last warning.”
“you bitter dogs!” cried up the captive, horror-stricken and overcome at the swiftness of the tragedy. “i refuse any terms you may offer. why, what could such brutal cowards effect against a couple of honest, determined men? kill me, if you like, and certify yourselves for the gallows. i back my good fellows to hold you at bay till the snow melts, and there you’ll be caught in a trap and the crows shall banquet. kill me, and effect more than you’ve done in all these two days!”
forgetful in his emotion of every prudence, he raised himself on an arm. brander uttered a hoarse chuckling cry.
“god of thunder!” he exclaimed. “where’s joe corby?”
the man was pushed into the room.
“joe,” said the villain—“he tempted but couldn’t prevail, eh? isn’t that so?”
the puzzled fellow scratched his head.
“work it out, joe. we cut you short in cutting his bonds, didn’t we?”
he was fingering his second pistol. tuke cried out in agony:
“the man’s innocent, you hound! ’twas that ruffian’s knife severed the strands when he slashed at me!”
brander hesitated; but joe’s profound amazement was convincing.
“providence works for us in spite of fools—eh, jack fern?” said the former.
he called in two of the men.
“splice him up again,” he said, “and firmly.”
it was useless to resist. they tied the wretched gentleman’s hands behind him once more, cruelly enough, with a long cord, and the slack of this they fastened to the fire-grate.
“now,” said brander—(he seemed virtually the leader; through all this scene the nominal one stood blazing sullenness)—“we’ve a little surprise for you, my buck, and have effected more, perhaps, than you think. bring in the girl there!”
lost, broken, and dumfounded, the captive raised his miserable head at the words. what new triumph of devilry did they betoken?
darda, before god! his swimming heart was conscious of a shock, and following it a little burst of shameful thankfulness. bad was it, in all conscience, but——
he knew his cracked lips trying to mutter, “what has happened? how did she fall into your hands?”—but only inarticulate sounds came from them.
the girl stood there on the threshold, fierce, defiant, held by two men. the next moment, at a gesture from brander, she was gone.
“now, sir,” said the schoolmaster, beckoning his coconspirator, and coming close up to his victim—“we deal, as you see, in very severe realities. we have two in our power at this outset of our little campaign. a capture a day would serve, but we are impatient for a quicker settlement. to-night again for reflection. ’tis a concession, but we grant it you. with dawn to-morrow it is for you to decide the fate of this maid and of your own very ornamental members.”
tuke, like a dying man, saw him nod to him darkly—a grotesque phantasm as of a last delirium; saw him turn and, in company with his chief, stalk from the room; knew himself committed to such a further ordeal of torture as he feared his weakened body would be powerless to sustain; and, as the last echo of retreating footsteps came to his ears, his head dropped upon his breast and he despaired.
