§ 3
Captain Michael Malet-Marsac alighted from his horse at the great gate of the Gungapur Jail, loosed girths, slid stirrup irons up the leathers to the saddle, and handed his reins to the orderly who had ridden behind him.
“Walk the horses up and down,” said he, for both were sweating and the morning was very cold. Perhaps it was the cold that made Captain Michael Malet-Marsac’s strong face so white, made his teeth chatter and his hands shake. Perhaps it was the cold that made him feel so sick, and that weakened the tendons of his knees so that he could scarcely stand—and would fain have thrown himself upon the ground.
With a curious coughing sound, as though he swallowed and cleared his throat at the same moment, he commenced to address another order or remark to the mounted sepoy, choked, and turned his back upon him.
Striding to the gate, he struck upon it loudly with his hunting-crop, and turning, waved the waiting orderly away.
Not for a king’s ransom could he have spoken at that moment. He realized that something which was rising in his throat must be crushed back and swallowed before speech would be possible. If he tried to speak before that was done—he would shame his manhood, he would do that which was unthinkable in a man and a soldier. What would happen if the little iron wicket in the great iron door in the greater wooden gates opened before he had swallowed the lump in his throat, had crushed down the rising tumult of emotion, and a European official, perhaps Major Ranald himself, spoke to him? He must either refuse to answer, and show himself too overcome for speech—or he must—good God forbid it—burst into tears. He suffered horribly. His skin tingled and he burnt hotly from head to foot.
And then—he swallowed, his will triumphed—and he was again as outwardly self-possessed and nonchalant as he strove to appear.
He might tremble, his face might be blanched and drawn, he might feel physically sick and almost too weak and giddy to stand, but he had swallowed, he had triumphed over the rising flood that had threatened to engulf him, and he was, outwardly, himself again. He could go through with it now, and though his face might be ghastly, his lips white, his hand uncertain, his gait considered and careful, he would he able to chat lightly, to meet Ross-Ellison’s jest with jest—for that Ross-Ellison would die jesting he knew….
Why did not the door open? Had his knock gone unheard? Should he knock again, louder? And then his eye fell upon the great iron bell-pull and chain, and he stepped towards it. Of course—one entered a place like this on the sonorous clanging of a deep-throated bell that roused the echoes of the whole vast congeries of buildings encircled by the hideous twelve-foot wall, unbroken save by the great gatehouse before which he stood insignificant. As his shaking hand touched the bell-pull he suddenly remembered, and withdrew it. He was to meet the City Magistrate outside the jail and enter with him. He could gain admittance in no other way.
He looked at his watch. Seventeen minutes to seven. Wellson should be there in a minute—he had said, “At the jail-entrance at 6.45”. God send him soon or the new-found self-control might weaken and a rising tide creep up and up until it submerged his will-power again.
With an effort he swallowed, and turning, strode up and down on a rapid, mechanical sentry-go.
A guard of police-sepoys emerged from a neighbouring guard-room and “fell in” under the word of command of an Inspector. They were armed with Martini-Henry rifles and triangular-bladed bayonets, very long. Their faces looked cruel, the stones of the gate-house and main-guard looked cruel, the beautiful misty morning looked cruel.
Would that damned magistrate never come? Didn’t he know that Malet-Marsac was fighting for his manhood and terribly afraid? Didn’t he know that unless he came quickly Malet-Marsac would either leap on his horse and ride it till it fell, or else lose control inside the jail and either burst into tears, faint, or—going mad—put up a fight for his friend there in the jail itself, snatch weapons, get back to back with him and die fighting then and there—or, later, on the same scaffold? His friend—by whose side he had fought, starved, suffered, triumphed—his poor two-natured friend….
Could not one of these cursed clever physicians, alienists, psychologists, hypnotists—whatever they were—have cut the strange savagery and ferocity out of the splendid John Robin Ross-Ellison?…
A buffalo passed, driven by a barely human lout. The lout was free—the brainless, soulless bovine lout was free in God’s beautiful world—and Ross-Ellison, soldier and gentleman, lay in a stone cell, and in quarter of an hour would dangle by the neck in a pit below a platform—perhaps suffering unthinkable agonies—who could tell?… His old friend and commandant—
Would Wellson never come? What kept the fellow? It was disgraceful conduct on the part of a public servant in such circumstances. Think what an eternity of mental suffering each minute must now be to Ross-Ellison! What was he doing? What were they doing to him? Could the agony of Ross-Ellison be greater than that of Malet-Marsac? It must be a thousand times greater. How could that tireless activity, that restless initiative, that cool courage, that unfathomable ingenuity be quenched in a second? How could such a wild free nature exist in a cell, submit to pinioning, be quietly led like a sheep to the slaughter? He who so loved the mountain, the wild desert, the ocean, the free wandering life of adventure and exploration.
Would Wellson never come? It must be terribly late. Could they have hanged Ross-Ellison already? Could he have gone to his death thinking his friend had failed him; had passed by, like the Levite, on the other side; had turned up a sanctimonious nose at the letter of the Murderer; had behaved as some “friends” do behave in time of trouble?
Could he have died thinking this? If so, he must now know the truth, if the Parsons were right, those unconvincing very-human Parsons of like passions, and pretence of unlike passions. Could his friend be dead, his friend whom he had so loved and admired? And yet he was a murderer—and he had murdered … her….
Captain Michael Malet-Marsac leant against a tree and was violently sick.
Curse the weak frail body that was failing him in his hour of need! It had never failed him in battle nor in athletic struggle. Why should it weaken now. He would see his friend, and bear himself as a man, to help him in his dreadful hour.
Would that scoundrel never come? He was the one who should be hanged.
A clatter of hoofs behind, and Malet-Marsac turned to see the City Magistrate trot across the road from the open country. He drew out his watch accusingly and as a torrent of reproach rose to his white parched lips, he saw that the time was—exactly quarter to seven.
“‘Morning, Marsac,” said the City Magistrate as he swung down from the saddle. “You’re looking precious blue about the gills.”
“‘Morning, Wellson,” replied the other shortly.
To the City Magistrate a hanging was no more than a hair-cut, a neither pleasing nor displeasing interlude, hindering the doing of more strenuous duties; a nuisance, cutting into his early-morning report—writing and other judicial work. He handed his reins to an obsequious sepoy, eased his jodhpores at the knee, and rang the bell.
The grille-cover slid back, a dusky face appeared behind the bars and scrutinized the visitors, the grille was closed again and the tiny door opened. Malet-Marsac stepped in over the foot-high base of the door-way and found himself in a kind of big gloomy strong-room in which were native warders and a jailer with a bunch of huge keys. On either side of the room was an office. Following Wellson to a large desk, on which reposed a huge book, he wrote his name, address, and business, controlling his shaking hand by a powerful effort of will.
This done, and the entrance-door being again locked, bolted, and barred, the jailer led the way to another pair of huge gates opposite the pair through which they had entered, and opened a similar small door therein. Through this Malet-Marsac stepped and found himself, light-dazzled, in the vast enclosure of Gungapur Jail, a small town of horribly-similar low buildings, painfully regular streets, soul-stunning uniformity, and living death.
“‘Morning, Malet-Marsac,” said Major Ranald of the Indian Medical Service, Superintendent of the jail. “You look a bit blue about the gills, what?”
“‘Morning, Ranald,” replied Malet-Marsac, “I am a little cold.”
Was he really speaking? Was that voice his? He supposed so.
Could he pretend to gaze round with an air of intelligent interest? He would try.
A line of convicts, clad in a kind of striped sacking, stood with their backs to a wall while a native warder strode up and down in front of them, watching another convict placing brushes and implements before them. Suddenly the warder spoke to the end man, an elderly stalwart fellow, obviously from the North. The reply was evidently unsatisfactory, perhaps insolent, for the warder suddenly seized the grey beard of the convict, tugged his head violently from side to side, shook him, and then smote him hard on either cheek. The elderly convict gave no sign of having felt either the pain or the indignity, but gazed straight over the warder’s head. Of what was he thinking? Of what might be the fate of that warder were he suddenly transported to the wilds of Kathiawar, to lie at the mercy of his late victim and the famous band of outlaws whom he had once led to fame—a fame as wide as Ind?
There was something fine about the old villain, once a real Robin Hood, something mean about the little tyrant.
Had Ranald seen the incident? No, he stood with his back to a buttress looking in the opposite direction. Did he always stand with a wall behind him in this terrible place? How could he live in it? A minute of it made one sick if one were cursed with imagination. Oh, the horror of the prison system—especially for brave men, men with a code of honour of their own—possibly sometimes a higher code than that of the average British politician, not to mention the be-knighted cosmopolitan financier, friend of princes and honoured of kings.
Could not men be segregated in a place of peace and beauty and improved, instead of being segregated in a dull hell and crushed? What a home of soulless, hopeless horror!… And his friend was here…. Could he contain himself?… He must say something.
“Do you always keep your back to a wall when standing still, in here?” he asked of Major Ranald.
“I do,” was the reply, “and I walk with a trustworthy man close behind me.” “Would you like to go round, sometime?” he added.
“No, thank you,” said Malet-Marsac. “I would like to get as far away as possible and stay there.”
Major Ranald laughed.
“Wouldn’t like to visit the mortuary and see a post-mortem?”
“No, thank you.”
“What about the Holy One?” put in the City Magistrate. “Did you ‘autopsy’ him? A pleasure to hang a chap like him.”
“Yes, the brute. I’ll show you his neck vertebrae presently if you like. Kept ’em as a curiosity. An absolute break of the bone itself. People talk about pain, strangulation, suffocation and all that. Nothing of the sort. Literally breaks the neck. Not mere separation of the vertebrae you know. I’ll show you the vertebra itself—clean broken….”
Captain Malet-Marsac swayed on his feet. What should he do? A blue mist floated before his eyes and a sound of rushing waters filled his ears. Was he fainting? He must not faint, and fail his friend. And then, the roar of the waters was pierced and dominated by the voice of that friend saying—
“Hul_lo_! old bird. Awf’ly good of you to turn out, such a beastly cold morning.”
John Robin Ross-Ellison had come round an adjacent corner, a European warder on either side of him and another behind him, all three, to their credit, as white as their white uniforms and helmets. On his head was a curious bag-like cap.
Ross-Ellison appeared perfectly cheerful, absolutely natural, and without the slightest outward and visible sign of any form of perturbation.
“‘Morning, Ranald,” he continued. “Sorry to be the cause of turning you out in the cold. Gad! isn’t it parky. Hope you aren’t going to keep me standing. If I might be allowed I’d quote unto you the words which a pretty American girl once used when I asked if I might kiss her—‘Wade right in, Bub!’”
“’Fraid I can’t ’wade in’ till seven o’clock—er—Ross-Ellison,” answered the horribly embarrassed Major Ranald. “It won’t be long.”
“Right O, I was only thinking of your convenience. I’m all right,” said the remarkable criminal, about to suffer by the Mosaic law at the hands of Christians, to receive Old Testament mercy from the disciples of the New, to be done-by as he had done.
An Indian clerk, salaaming, joined the group, and prepared to read from an official-looking document.
“Read,” said Major Ranald, and the clerk in a high sing-song voice, regardless of punctuation, read out the charge, conviction and death-warrant of the man formerly calling himself John Robin Ross-Ellison, and now professing and confessing himself to be a Baluchi. Having finished, the clerk smiled as one well pleased with a duty well performed, salaamed and clacked away in his heelless slippers.
“It is my duty to inquire whether you have anything to say or any last request to make,” said Major Ranald to the prisoner.
“Well, I’ve only to say that I’m sorry to cause all this fuss, y’ know—and, well, yes, I would like a smoke,” replied the condemned man, and added hastily: “Don’t think I want to delay things for a moment though—but if there is time….”
“It is four minutes to seven,” said Major Ranald, “and tobacco and matches are not supposed to be found in a Government Jail.”
Ross-Ellison winked at the Major and glanced at a bulge on the right side of the breast of the Major’s coat.
At this moment the warder standing behind the condemned man seized both his wrists, drew them behind him and fastened them with a broad, strong strap.
“H’m! That’s done it, I suppose,” said the murderer. “Can’t smoke without my hands. Queer idea too—never thought of it before. Can’t smoke without hands…. Rather late in life to realize it, what?”
“Oh, yes, you can,” said the Major, drawing his big silver cheroot-case from his pocket and selecting a cheroot. Placing it between the prisoner’s lips he struck a match and held it to the end of the cigar. Ross-Ellison drew hard and the cigar was lit. He puffed luxuriously and sighed.
“Gad! That’s good,” he said, “May some one do as much for you, old chap, when you come to be—er—no, I don’t mean that, of course…. Haven’t had a smoke for weeks. Yes—you can smoke without hands after all—but not for long without feeling the inconvenience. I used to know an American (wicked old gun-running millionaire he was, Cuba way, and down South too) who could change his cigar from one corner of his mouth right across to the other with his tongue. Fascinatin’ sight to watch….”
Captain Malet-Marsac swallowed continuously, lest he lose the faculty of swallowing—and be choked.
Major Ranald looked at his watch.
“Two minutes to seven. Come on,” he said, and took the cheroot from the prisoner’s mouth.
“Good-bye, Mike,” said that person to the swallowing fainting wretch. “Don’t try and say anything. I know exactly what you feel. Sorry we can’t shake hands,” and he stepped off in the wake of Major Ranald, closely guarded by three warders.
The City Magistrate and Captain Malet-Marsac followed. At Major Ranald’s knock, the small inner door of the gate-house was opened and the procession filed through it into the strong room where the warders stood to attention. Having re-fastened the door, the jailer opened the outer one and the procession passed out of the jail into the blessed free world, the world that might be such a place of wonder, beauty, delight, health and joy, were man not educated to materialism, false ideals, false standards, and blind strife for nothing worth.
The sepoy-guard stood in a semicircle from the gate-house to the entrance to a door-way in the jail-wall. Ross-Ellison took his last look at the sky, the distant hills, the trees, God’s good world, and then turned into the doorless door-way with his jailers, and faced the scaffold in a square, roofless cell. The warder behind him drew the cap down over his face, and he was led up a flight of shallow stairs on to a platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps met. As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign, received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting the hinged flaps. These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the platform, and Christian Society was avenged.
Without a word, Captain Malet-Marsac strode, as in a dream, to his horse, rode home, and, as in a dream, entered his sanctum, took his revolver from its holster and loaded it.
Laying it on the table beside him, he sat down to write a few words to the Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, and to send his will to a brother-officer whom he wished to be his executor.
This done, he took up the revolver, placed the muzzle in his mouth, the barrel pointing upward, and—pulled the trigger.
Click!
And nothing more.
A tiny, nerve-shattering, world-shaking, little universe-rocking click—and nothing more.
A bad cartridge. He remembered complaints about the revolver ammunition from the Duri Small Arms Ammunition Factory. Too long in stock.
Should he try the same one again, or go on to the next? Probably get better results from the first, as the cap would be already dented by the concussion. He took the muzzle of the big revolver from his aching mouth and, releasing the chamber, spun it round…. He would place it to his temple this time. Holding one’s mouth open was undignified. He raised the revolver—and John Bruce burst into the room. He had seen Malet-Marsac ride by, and knew where he had been.
“Half a second!” he shouted. “News! Do that afterwards.”
“What is it?” asked Malet-Marsac, taken by surprise.
“Put that beastly thing in the drawer while I tell you, then. It might go off. I hate pistols,” said Bruce.
Malet-Marsac obeyed. Bruce was a man to be listened to, and what had to be done could be done when he had gone. If it were some last piece of duty or service, it should be seen to.
“It is this,” said Bruce. “You are a liar, a forger, a thief, a dirty pickpocket, a coward, a seller of secrets to Foreign Powers,” and, ere the astounded soldier could speak, John Bruce sprang at him and tried to knock him out. “Take that you greasy cad—and fight me if you dare,” he shouted as the other dodged his punch.
Malet-Marsac sprang to his feet, furious, and returned the blow. In a second the men were fighting fiercely, coolly, murderously.
Bruce was the bigger, stronger, more scientific, and there could be but one result, given ordinary luck. It was a long, severe, and punishing affair.
“Time,” gasped Malet-Marsac at length, and dropped his hands. “Get—breath—fight—decently—time—’nother round—after,” and as he spoke Bruce knocked him down and out, proceeding instantly to tie his feet with the punkah-cord and his hands with two handkerchiefs and a pair of braces. This done, he carried him into his bedroom, and laid him on the bed, and sprinkled his face with water.
Malet-Marsac blinked and stirred.
“Awful sorry, old chap,” said Bruce at length. “I thought it the best plan. Will you give me your word to chuck the suicide idea, or do you want some more?”
“You damned fool! I….” began the trussed one.
“Yes, I know—but I solemnly swear I won’t untie you, nor let anybody else, until you’ve promised.”
Malet-Marsac swore violently, struggled valiantly and, anon, slept.
When he awoke, ten hours later, he informed Bruce, sitting by the bed, that he had no intention of committing suicide….
Years later, as a grey-haired Major, he learnt, from the man’s own brother, the story of the strange hero who had fascinated him, and of whose past he had known nothing—save that it had been that of a man.