Chapter II: Part 2

Vigorously sputtered Isaac, spitting out the ill-omened words. He said: “Your servant did not kill Mephibosheth”.

“Well, there was an inquest to-day, the Court decided that you did, and has sentenced you to be hanged by the neck like a dog”.

The Arab sprang up, his thick bluish under-lip shivering.

“An eye for an eye”, said Frankl solemnly: “it is written in the Torah”.

“_Mercy_ My father served your father--”

“I have remembered that: that is why I have saved you from hanging like a dog at the hands of these _Goyim_ vermin: but, Isaac, you must die--”

“God of--!”

“You dare raise your voice! Blood for blood--”

“_Mercy_!--I did not mean to kill--!”

“Blood for blood, you dog! Raise it, and I fell you! Raise it, and the noose sinks into your fat swine's-throat! Can't you understand?--you have been tracked by the avengers of blood! and you may swing lingeringly, with a crowd of Christian boys and girls mocking round you, or you may shoot yourself in one painless flash. Which shall it be?”

Isaac, again dropping a-heap, covered his face, without answer.

“Well”, said Frankl, walking away, “I can't wait all day. The detectives are at this moment downstairs--”

Now the Arab leapt up, and, in a movement of great dignity, with an out-rush of both arms, rent his caftan from the top to its muslin girdle.

“I will shoot myself”, he said quietly.

Frankl took snuff.

The same night he took his secretary's typewriter, and spelled out the following note:

“SIR,

“Permit me to ask you as an old friend of your father's if you are aware that your sister Margaret is the lover of the lord of the manor? Everybody seems to see it, but yourself. I have reason to know that the very day you receive this she will be meeting him at about 7.30 P.M. under the old elm in the beech-wood near the Hall-park.

“ONE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS”.

Hogarth received it by post the next morning.

He had to think, as he worked, of something to say at the service that night on the text: “God's way is in the Sea”, but the glare of forge and heated metal swam vaguely, a fog of red, about his consciousness. And mixed with those recurring words: “the old elm”, “God's way”, something with a voice shouted inside him--a name--_Margaret!_ Anon his face flushed to a dusky turbulence, and he hurled the sledge high to shatter the earth, like Thor.

Suddenly he had the thought that he would clean his rifle, and, dropping a hot iron which vanished with a stifled cry into black water, he tossed his tongs clattering, and almost ran toward the cottage.

He had not, however, reached the back door when he heard his name called from behind.

And now happened to him the most momentous event of his life--though nothing could have seemed more commonplace.

It was an old fellow named Tom Bates who had called him--father to that Fred arrested for the murder of his wife--a Yarmouth fisher and herring-curer.

And when Hogarth twisted round, with that stare of his large and bloodshot eye, “Here”, said the old man, “take them”--holding out a basket of herrings.

Hogarth seemed not to understand, but then said: “All those for me?”

“Every bloomin' one!” answered Bates, with the dropped jaw of pantomime, and a far-away look of blue astonishment which he had.

“It is extremely handsome of you. Can you spare all that--?”

“Spare, _ya'as!_ They're easy enough come by, for that matter. Why, the day's work of a fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all the week, and he could lie around idling the other six days, if he chose, only anybody can't live on nothing but fish “.

These words, destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a cup of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly affected Hogarth at the time. He _did_, indeed, shoot an interested glance at the old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that morning, was left dark.

“Here--take them--they are yours”, said Bates. “But with regard to that God-forsaken son of mine: you'll be givin' evidence agen him, I'm told--”

When his sleeve wiped a tear, Hogarth promised to make his evidence mild, and was left alone.

Now his purpose of cleaning the rifle was turned: he went back to the forge, and worked till Margaret, at one o'clock, called: “The dinner is on the table”.

At that table, for a long time, silence reigned, Margaret's eyes fixed on his face, his on his plate.

Toward the end he said: “Are you going to chapel to-night?”

Her bosom heaved; she cleared her throat: she had to meet Frankl by the towing-path.

“I don't think I shall...”

_Margaret!_

“Why not?”

“I have something to do”.

“_What?_”

Silence.

“_What?_”

“Something”--with a stubborn nod, and pallor--“if I tell you _something_ that should be enough”.

“You will go to chapel to-night”.

“That I shan't”.

“Yes”

Silence.

A little before seven they left the cottage together for the chapel, Hogarth taking his hunting-crop--from habit; he had also a little Bible; in his jacket, tight at the slight waist, unbuttoned at the breast, lay the anonymous letter, and a little poetry-book, neither moon nor star lighting the night, bleak winds swooping like the typhoon among the year's dead leaves.

The chapel was a paltry place, though in the wall to the right of the preacher was a slab bearing the inscription:

ON THIS STONE
JOHN WESLEY PREACHED
IN THE VILLAGE, ON THE
9TH JULY 1768

And they sang a hymn; Hogarth “prayed”; read a chapter; once more the harmonium mourned; Hogarth gave the text: “God's way is in the sea...”

Even as he uttered it, he happened to glance toward the “mission-pew”--a square pew rather behind the pulpit: Margaret no longer there.

A paleness as of very death--then a dreadful wrath reddened his dark face.

He seized his hunting-crop; and, without a word, sped bent and thievish down the steps--and was gone.

Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something sinister, like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the amazement of the people had given place to a flutter like leafage; and running fast, he came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards behind the chapel, touched his shoulder.

“To the devil with you...!” shouted Hogarth, running still, and there Loveday stood.

Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while Richard, in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward that spot terrible to him--the elm.

At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he heard what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by drop, and through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen, swooped the tomboy winds.

Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot had for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the gibbering rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and now he was at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened: silence, sightlessness: Margaret not there.

One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body.

As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver--which was his own; another moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park-keepers, and by their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had shot himself with the weapon that was in Hogarth's hand.

The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could speak Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the dead.

He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to Hogarth, then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed: “Why, bless my heart, you've _murdered_ the man....”

XI

WROXHAM BROAD

In a cottage in Thring Street, marked “E. Norfolk, E. 58, Constabulary”, Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the moment he returned home from the elm.

A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout Thring, so that sleep overcame the village only toward morning.

At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an inquest-verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was committed.

One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been Loveday, who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was, beyond doubt, in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret, who, standing thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she: “Is it possible that he can be giving evidence against Richard like that? And smiling, the mean, false thing--”

She had disappeared on the morning after the arrest: and Loveday was now racked by disquiet, wondering how she was living, though she and he were in the same train, unconscious of each other, when he followed Hogarth to Norwich; and, as Margaret stepped upon the Thorpe platform there, a Jew, who was watching the arrival of every train, spied and shadowed her to the old Maid's Head, this intricate city being now crowded, the Assizes all in the air, mixed with the Saturday cattle-market.

At ten the next morning Margaret learned at the Guildhall the address of her brother's defending solicitor, and set out to find him, the wretchedest woman on earth now.

But as she passed by the archway in the tower of St. Peter Mancroft, Loveday stood before her; and she started like a shying horse.

“Good morning”--she went on past him.

He took two steps after her. “Are you in a hurry? Can I come with you?”

“It is quite near. Thank you--I'd liefer go alone”.

He, a delicate being, all nerves, was repelled; lifted the old cloth hat; but then again stepped after her, saying: “But are you angry with me for something?”

“Why should I be? I have no right to expect anything from you, Mr. Loveday”.

“No right? You _have_, a little, I fancy!”

He said it at her ear with such a lowering of the eyelids, that it pierced to her fond heart, and she smiled with a “H'm!” uncertain, half turned to him; but said: “I must be getting on--”

“But it is most important that I should talk to you about everything. Where are you staying?”

“It is some distance from here”, she answered, undecided whether or not to give her address.

“Ah--in that case--but still--will you meet me? Say here--this evening?”

“I will see if I can”.

“At seven?”

“I will see”.

So they parted, she to tread that intricacy of streets round the Market, with stoppages for enquiries, till she found the office, where she presently sat in an inner room, veil at nose-tip, and before her at a grate stood Hogarth's solicitor.

What, till now, for shame, she had concealed, she revealed: showing how Richard could not possibly have taken the revolver with him to the elm, since she, two days previously, had secretly given it to--someone.

Mr. Carr, the solicitor, frowned, elaborating his nails.

“This is very extraordinary”, he said. “Whyever did you keep us in the dark as to all this before? And to whom was it that you gave the revolver? and why?”

“Am I bound to tell that?”

“No, but you may be sure that the truth will be got from you. Stay--I must ask you to excuse me now. But tomorrow morning at this hour--will you? As for your brother, have no fears at all: he is now absolutely safe”.

Margaret went rapidly away, not knowing whither, only returning toward late afternoon to her inn. As she entered, a letter was handed her from Frankl.

“Dear Miss Hogarth:

“It is only due to you that I should see you at once to explain the mystery of this affair, so as to clear your brother, and as it would not do for me to call upon you for obvious reasons, the only thing for us to do is to meet to-night on Mousehold Heath at 7 P.M. without fail...”

What now was she to do? At “7 P.M.” she had half promised Loveday to meet him.

And what had her meetings with Baruch Frankl, innocent as they were, brought upon her and hers!

Yet Frankl _must_ be kindly intentioned, she reasoned--since he had sent them the £50; and she thought of that agony of humiliation when she had asked Loveday for £2, and he had refused.

And he had given evidence against Richard with his down-turned smile.

But he had said a word at her ear--and her crushed heart had leapt. She did not know what to do, fell by her bedside and prayed to be taught which of the two was Richard's best friend.

As she passed over the inn-threshold, she decided in favour of Frankl: and a few minutes past seven was on Mousehold Heath.

Frankl hurried to meet her, and the hand which he held out was rather cold; but she did not take it.

“No, Mr. Frankl”, said she, “before I give my hand, it is only what is due to me to hear how Richard's pistol, which I trusted to you, was found where it was--”

“Well, that is only fair”, answered Frankl; “that is only fair. But I have a carriage there, let us get into it, and sit as we talk”.

She could see no carriage in that dark, yet it stood only some yards away--Frankl's own.

“I think I prefer to stand...” said she.

“As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that you could have guessed how it was--but no, you always mistrust me instead--the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in my house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to shoot himself, stole one, that's all”.

“It was _he_ shot himself?”

“Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool as they make them”.

“Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the police-court--?”

“I am _going_ to at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill now, and here have I been running about all day on your brother's behalf, and dead tired--and ill, and all--and you won't let me have a rest in the carriage--”

“Well, as you put it in that way...” she said.

So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they commenced to talk again, the brougham moved.

“Tell me”, said Frankl, “have you mentioned to anyone that you had given the guns to me?”

“I told Richard's solicitor this morning--”

“That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!”

“I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention your name, but--”

“Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here, do you know--?”

“Well?”

“I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself”.

“Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of fun to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my God knows”.

“_I_ love _you_!”

He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing.

“Stop--let me get out of this--” she said.

“Wait!--I give you your chance!--Listen: I am not a man whose mind you can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, I am tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. Ninety-nine per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the truth, it is a lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am talking the God's truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl! Chuck Richard!--chuck the swine's-flesh!--I'll take you right away--to Paris--this very night--”

She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. “But, you are stark, staring, raving mad”, she said proudly, “that is what you are”.

Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret tottered backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent forth a scream, the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones.

“Where are we going?” she cried out.

“I gave you your chance!” was Frankl's fierce answer.

“Let me get out!--you must be a wretch--to take advantage--”

He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. “Your nice Richard flogged me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my damned soul! Now I've got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped me! you helped me! That's good! And I've got you, too”.

Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon they were by a great pool of gloomy water--Wroxham Broad--where hern, wild duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among bulrush; and now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping over the lawn of a lonely building, surrounded by walls.

She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and woman; and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity, Frankl with her, still grasping her wrist.

“Sir”, she blurted out at once, “you will help me, I know. I am a poor unfortunate woman--my name is Margaret Hogarth--”

“We know!” said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked in Yiddish: “How long has she had her delusion?”

“Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but--”

“Come in, Miss--Hogarth”, said the gentleman.

Margaret passed the threshold; the doors closed upon her...

XII

THE ROSE

On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box--in the dock Fred Bates.

Bates had denied--with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own hand also burned by the poker with which, _red-hot_, he was presumed to have beaten her.

The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.

And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock clang behind himself.

The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain of inference was not assailable.

“Not assailable” found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name was changed to Rachel.

Now was the régime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The usher called: “Baruch Frankl!”

A voice in the gallery shouted: “Caps and tassels!” while Frankl, in the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave to his beard a downward waving.

“Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the prisoner's feelings toward you”.

“For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little bit weak on my account--”

“A little bit _what_?” asked his lordship.

“Just a little bit weak, my lord”.

“A _reciprocal_ weakness?”

“Well, my lord, you know the world--so do the gentlemen of the jury--”

“And of the Jewry!” screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the merry wigs.

As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold as a ghost: “Rebekah Frankl”.

And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with that retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her throat and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the gaudy heat of the Orient, Baal and Astarté, orgies of Hindoo women in temples of Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not tall, she was lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the stare of the bent form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like paddle-wheels that thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife of his wild youth....

At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed.

She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the West--sharp--a bass almost like her father's.

“You recognize the prisoner?”

“Yes”. She smiled.

“You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?”

“Did strike him”.

“He did?”

“Yes”.

“Did he seem in a passion?”

“Seemed severe”.

“Severe! But was he not highly excited?”

“He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged”.

“By whom was he ejected?”

“Went of his own accord”.

“But--try to remember. What made him go?”

“He suddenly saw _me_, and fled”.

Laughter droned through the court, in which she naïvely joined, while Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously, and dropped....

That was all. Counsel bowed.

The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat.

But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court, and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed.

The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The King of Terrors was here.

When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.

The foreman said: “We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend him to the mercy of the Crown”.

“On what grounds?” asked his lordship.

“On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation”.

The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the sentence of the Court.

During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing her mass of cloak about her throat.

XIII

OUT OF THE WORLD

A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's cell with news of his reprieve.

Eight months later he was being trundled in “Black Maria” to Paddington Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in his pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: “Well, Jim, we're away to the mountain's brow!”

Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: “Worse luck! I knows Colmoor, and I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say--give me Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?”

“Hi, you in front there, who _are_ yer?” cried the first, pounding.

He was answered by a deep voice, which said:

“I AM WHO I AM”.

“All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!”

“'Old on! _I_ knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he was once a priest--”

But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering down a rough street near the station.

Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.

The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and “You, Bates”, he said, “I thought you were in Eternity!”

But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.

The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and grey eyes.

He it was who had been--a priest: and in “Black Maria” had given that answer: “I am who I am”.

XIV

THE PRIEST

A year passed, during which John Loveday exhausted the resources of civilization, (1)in seeking Margaret, and (2)in investigating the innocence of Richard.

He had, however, a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and would pull his velvet sleeves busily up--such was his little way. He began to plot.

About the same time the ex-priest, in that far-off world of Colmoor, said one day to Hogarth: “_You_ won't be here long!”

“You jest,” Hogarth answered; “if I had the chance of escape, I should never take it. I am here by due legal process”.

“Tut, if I say that you will escape, it is not because I am a prophet, but a man of the world, and know what happens in it”.

Converse with this deep, world-wise, and fluent man had now become to Hogarth like manna, or rather a vice, like opium: for in those grey eyes of the cleric was hinted anon the baleful glint of the cobra's.

That day, a Saturday, outdoor gangs were recalled early, to “clean up” for Sunday, and out across the heath rang the great bell, Colmoor being famous for its bell, its tone and great size, larger than even the eight-ton “Mighty Tom” of Christ Church, for though its thickness was only six inches, it weighed, bell and clapper, ten tons, and was seven feet high and seven in diameter.

A busy Saturday afternoon ensued, and whatsoever Hogarth's hand found to do he did it with his might, though his face now seemed all eyes--brown, bloodshot, imperially large, morbidly staring.

He was giving the finishing touches of order to his wooden spoon and salt-cellar, his tin knife, plate, and pint cup for gruel, when a Warder Jennings peeped in with, “No. 76--you are to follow the assistant warder at once”, and Hogarth descended to an ante-room where an official handed him a letter, which had been read and initialed by governor and chaplain.

An event!--a letter in Colmoor, like a shark's fin on the voyages of old sailing ships.

It was from Loveday, and concluded with a reference to Hogarth's “poor old grandmother”.

So Hogarth, who had no “grandmother”, propped his forehead to ponder that thing; and presently said: “Oh, it is a cypher”.

And by noting little peculiarities in the shapes of the letters, a double cross to a t, a q like a g, etc., he soon had “flemecops-leftquary”--which he took to mean: “flee to me in the copse to the left of the quarry”.

He smiled with tenderness at the dear heart planning and daring so very much for him. But in his smile was a touch of disdain also, he not intending to “flee”.

XV

MONSIGNOR

Hogarth's first thought, as getting-up bell clattered réveille through the gallery, was of Loveday's cypher, and by the time the warder came to ask if he would see governor or doctor, a thought of Monsignor O'Hara had somehow mixed itself with the thought of the cypher; when an orderly handed in the day's brown loaf, he was thinking, “Strange that he never told me what he has done”; eating his pint of gruel, he thought: “If I will not escape myself, I might perhaps let another.”

“What!” said O'Hara on the march out, “you still here?”

“Where should I be?” answered Hogarth, dull and sullen.

“Where palaces stand open for you, and bank-notes--have you ever realized something very charming in the Helen pallor of a bank-note, Hogarth? And gold-yellow, sparkling gold! Hogarth, I--_love_ gold! It is a confession--”

“Is it that love which brought you here?” Hogarth asked with his sideward stare.

Whereupon the priest turned a cold gaze upon him--had regarded Hogarth as a well-bred man, or would hardly have conversed with him.

“I had a motive for asking”, said Hogarth, eyeing the face of the prelate--a man of very coarse feature; a small head, made to receive the tonsure, with a low brow; a stern bottom lip, and long upper; a fat neck held majestically erect; and up stuck his double chin. In profile, the part between the sharp edge of the bottom lip and the chin-tip was divided, down near the chin tip, by an angle and crease; and the lower face seemed too massive for the size of the head.

Nothing could be more exquisite than the contrast between his air of force, authority and importance, and the knickerbockers, the coarse cap, the canvas slop-jacket, which he wore.

Outwardly calm, he was yet very excited by that “I had a motive”; he said to himself: “Suppose this man has some plan! He could invent ten, if he only knew it. And suppose he would tell me it, if I make him believe me innocent! It would be like him!”

When the eleven o'clock dinner-bell rang, and they two were again together, O'Hara said: “Hogarth, I have for some time been intending to give you my story. Have I in your eyes the air of a guilty man?”

“God knows,” answered Hogarth, with a shrug; “you talk nicely, and you know much”.

“So much for the hollowness of friendship!”

“Don't be sentimental”, said Hogarth: “I never pretended to be any friend of yours; but I do respect your talents, do pity your misery: and if I knew the solid facts of, as you have said, your 'innocence', I might--”

“_What_?” whispered O'Hara with a thievish, fierce glance.

“Help you”.

“_In God's truth?_”

“I might”.

O'Hara said: “I don't find it so cold as it was this morning. You must have observed a certain peculiarity of moorland climates--the same being true of the Roman Campagna, and of Irish peat-lands--that they are colder than elsewhere in the absence of the sun, and warmer in its presence. This afternoon--_I will tell you_--”

They had reached the great gates, and were marched to parade-ground for the second of the four daily searches; then, after three ounces of fat mutton and forty minutes' rest, the third search, the second march-out.

And immediately beyond the gates O'Hara began: “In order to paint you my life, Hogarth, I must give you at once to understand what has been its mainspring and secret: my passion for my Church--”

He paused, while his lips moved in prayer, and he crossed himself.

“From boyhood my dream was to see my Church supreme in the warfare of the world, I being a King's College and Maynooth man, at twenty-three was Senior Chancellor's Medallist, and seven years later, sent to Rome was quickly received into the Vatican household. It was recognized that I had a future: both gifts and graces; piety; a versatile tongue; a powerful voice; some learning; could dine, I could look august; above all, I knew my man and could talk him over. My great day came when, one morning, in St. Gregory the Great on Mount Coelius, I was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor to his Eminence the Archbishop of Westminster. Now I was on the heights. My life during the next ten years was a life of bustling action--and was led always with one unselfish object. No man ever spoke a greater number of words than I, Hogarth. I have breakfasted with the Prime Minister, lunched with a President of the Conference, and dined with the Bishop of London: between the three meals I have written a hundred letters and pitched into ten cabs. Such a life is very exhilarating, in comparison, for example, with quarrying. Oh, my God what am I fallen! Most of that time I was running over Europe: from Madrid to Vienna, from Rouen to Rome. It happened that the Archbishop of Paris was organizing a scheme of Church-workhouses in France, in the absence of municipal ones, such as we have here.... Well, it was a grand thing, but was falling through for lack of funds: so I, on my way to Rome, undertook the mission to plead the cause before his Holiness, and succeeded to this extent that, on my return, I had with me a casket from the good old man containing seven diamonds, which I might either dispose of personally, or hand over to the Paris fund. Now, it was during my stay at Rome that that series of events, culminating in the Jewish exodus from Europe, occurred; and on my journey home I was seized with the mighty thought that, since many of the Jews were perishing of want, _that_ was the moment to reach their spirit through the body, and add their race to the trophies of the Church. Was it not a thought? You yourself, who are a Jew--”

Hogarth's eyes opened in surprise.”_I_ am not a Jew “.

“No? I should have said that there was a hint of expression somewhere--But to resume. I retained those seven diamonds, and disposed of them”.

“Honest behaviour!”

“Perfectly honest! I acquainted the Pope--he sanctioned it! And now, I, single-handed almost, threw myself into that task. I hired, I built, I begged, I borrowed, I formed committees, I haunted Religious Houses, I sweated, I ran, I wept, I visited dens, I smoked opium, I drank gin, I framed memorials, I learned Yiddish, I read the Mishna and Gemara, I interviewed Rabbonim, I wrote tracts: I was busy. In the midst of it, I had to visit Rome ceremoniously, to assist at an interview between the Duke of York and his Holiness--arrived on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, I remember, attended a Court Ball in the suite of his Royal Highness. That night, when I returned to the Vatican, I found all the Piazza di San Pietro crowded. I do not know if you were free at the time when my friend, M. Tissot, startled everybody by predicting the collision of an asteroid with the earth? Tut, the silly being--he should have known from the body's response to the spectroscope that its condition was too friable to resist our atmosphere. But I never yet knew an astronomer not imbued with sensationalism they acquire a certain megalomania from their intercourse with space. But, at all events, the people, dreading the destruction of everything, had crowded toward the Vatican. The Duke of Genoa, I, and some of the College of Cardinals, stood watching from a balcony; and very imposing, I remember, was the moment when a glare appeared--I must stop--”

They were at the face of the rock, and the “halt” and “set to work” parted them.

But again on the final march back at 5.15 when nightshades were falling fast like snow, and the arm now felt the pick a load, O'Hara began his muttering:

“I was telling you about the asteroid”, he said. “Now this body, it was given out, contained diamonds in large evidence, and the mere thought of such a thing bursting in mid-air, and scattering itself about was, I--I confess, a little fascinating to my mind. A man might let his soul gloat upon such a hope till he went lunatic with lust! I--I confess, the thought was alluring to me. Diamond, my son: lucid--But when the body burst, and none of it came my way, I drove it from my mind: in fact, I never heard of a trace of it having been seen--hissed itself into gases in mid-air. Except in one instance--one instance.

“When I reached Calais on my homeward way, stopped there a day, awaiting the coming of Rouen, for whom I had nuncio communications, and in the evening went to visit a cottage where I had once been a great favourite with an old fellow called Santé-you know those Calais fishers, with painted sabots, and ochred trousers. And 'What!' said I to Santé, 'the nets already spread at this hour?' 'Nothing to be done to-day, my Father', he answered, and explained that he had attempted to pick up a stone before his door, and--it had burned him: he showed it me: it had the appearance of a piece of ferruginous rock, stuck with pieces of dirty glass; and it had burned Santé on the midnight of the asteroid's scattering.

“Imagine my excitement: 'The asteroid', I thought, 'may add fifty thousand Jews to the Church'. I asked Santé for the stone--Do you blame me?”

“Go on,” said Hogarth.

“That day two months I had the diamonds lying polished in a casket in my house. My evil destiny, Hogarth, ordained that the casket was the one given me for Paris by the Pope, the number of the new diamonds the same--seven: and one day, about that time, the Vatican organ, the _Osservatore Romano_, published a dreadful article, hinting that I had applied to my own purposes seven diamonds entrusted me for Paris: the Pope, just dead, must have left some record of his gift. My friend, before I had heard a whisper of the attack upon me, the casket, whose lid was mosaicked with the Papal fanon, was secretly searched by a secretary in my house: the seven diamonds were seen.

“Imagine the horror of what followed: I was abandoned by all--superior and inferior; the story of the meteor was received with sneers. The scandal reached the public papers--the public prosecutor. And here now is the wretch, Patrick O'Hara.”

The latter part of this narrative was fiction! The Pope's diamonds O'Hara had duly handed to the Archbishop! and though there was such a man as Santé, no asteroid had ever fallen at his door. In fact, O'Hara was “serving time” for an assault upon a lady in a railway compartment between Whitchurch and Salisbury.

But Hogarth spent that night in meditating the pros and cons as to O'Hara's escaping; and, in a moment of destiny, said at last: “If he is undeservedly doomed--” and swooned to sleep.

The very next day was foggy....

On the march out O'Hara said: “Here is something like a fog. On the Carinthian Alps, where you have dense woolly fogs, there is a race of goats, which--”

“Would you like to escape?” whispered Hogarth.

“_Who?_”

“You”.

“Hogarth--! My God--!”

A trembling seized the priest's leathery left cheek, he at that instant seeing a vision of the world--Andalusian wines, hued ices, the opera-house, and great greyhounds of the sea, and a snuff which his gross nose loved at Gorey.

“Hogarth, you are not mocking me?” chattered the priest's jaws, hurrying like a jarred spring.

“I am quite serious. You will have to run for it though”.

“_Run!_ I am not such a young man! Have pity Hogarth”.

“Bah! Be a man”.

The priest approached his mouth to Hogarth's ear: “_I should die of fright!_ My heart--”

“What would it matter? I thought you had more beans”.

“But have you--a plan?”

“Yes. You must run to the copse--”

“I shall be shot!”

“Probably”.

“I _could_ not--”

“Then, do not”.

“Tell me, boy! Tell me, Hogarth...”

“Within the copse to the left of the quarry there is almost certainly at this moment waiting a man who, as soon as you pronounce my name, will help you--”

“You say _almost_ certainly”.

“I can't see him, O'Hara. But I should say he is there on a morning like this”.

“_What_ a risk! _What_ a risk!” went the priest with lifted eyelids each time.

“You cannot escape from prison without risk. But I, personally, would venture upon ten times as much, if I thought it becoming. There is, however, another risk: that you may not strike the part of the copse where he is. But near the 1 middle it is high--”

“Why, it is nothing but risks!” whined O'Hara with opening arms.

“You are not bound to try it. By the way--can you swim?”

“Yes--I suppose so--yes”.

“Then lift yourself to it, and risk it. I should, if I were you. Think of liberty, activity. Prick your spirit, grip at it, and spring it”.

“Do you think I shall be shot?”

“No! It does not matter! Crush your doubts, martyr yourself to your aim, and your aim will give you the crown of martyrdom”.

“Well--God reward you--I will think of it--”

“_Do_ it!”

“I will!”

“In that case, don't trust to your own eyes--_I_ will give you the signal with my handkerchief--so: you keep your eyes fixed on me. Then run, zigzagging. And tell Loveday for me to look after you, and not make any more plans for me. Good-bye, O'Hara! All this is very unselfish of me, for I lose my old talky-talky O'Hara--”

They parted at the rock, and set to work.

As minutes, half-hours passed, the condition of O'Hara became piteous, hideous. His knees knocked together. Like death he dreaded, like life awaited, that signal. He said to himself: “This Hogarth will be my ruin...God deal not with me after my sins...!”

Hogarth was waiting that the warders' morning watchfulness might yield to the influence of use and time; but near nine, when the morning fog showed signs of thinning, he approached the water-can to ask for a drink, O'Hara being then two yards from him, wheeling a barrow.

As he stooped to the water, his huge stare ranged the moor, took in the truth of it, and, after waiting ten, fifteen seconds, he upset the can. As two officers, at the outcry, ran toward the spot, Hogarth, his eyes fixed upon them, waited--and all at once, with a flourish, drew his handkerchief.

O'Hara, with a heavy but impassioned run, was away...

He had not run five yards when a chorus of whistles was shrilling.

And quick, that monotony reels into a very frenzy of sensation: it is no more the same world, the same men. Lo, in the Palace of Continuity is an Event.

33 was off.

Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its breadth, the little social “system” which has produced Colmoor.

But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the blockade of two pickets of the civil guard.

The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished.

So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush.

Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle.

Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped.

XVI

THE ROPE

Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of eyes.

Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another “graft”: from quarrying was set to trenching.

Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and quarried.

And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates.

One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.

“What, Fred, not giving in?” He went quickly and pressed his palm on Bates' brow, saying: “Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip into it!”

“Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man”.

“So am I.”

“Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!”

“And how did you expect to be out?”

“I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--to a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--”

“But I don't understand a word of what you are saying”, interrupted Hogarth.

“I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on my hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here, you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowed up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walking home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm over after you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to see anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a piece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll put a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'. Well--I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the pay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer that afternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying of her--dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly gone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we was just like--well--two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin' drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here's Black--”

They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.

Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, of which one paragraph was as follows: “The fifteen pounds which you left in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority of your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth”, and at once he scented a cypher, having no fifteen pounds, and no aunt.

When he had unravelled it as before, he had: “Why you failed? Expect--Balloon--Rope”.

He was astounded: and could only conclude that O'Hara had not delivered his message.

And as the image of O'Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of the copse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon.

It was partly through _his_ evidence that Bates was here...!

On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed his story:

“You know Seely's, the general shop, at Priddlestone”, said he; “it was there we always did our Wednesday-night marketin'--nobody would believe what high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great Eastern blokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart of four-ale down us, let alone what we'd had before, and, as the saying is, one glass leads to another. By now we was feeling just nicely, thank you, and instead of going to Seely's, we took a short cut to 'The Broom', and it was going on for past eleven when we found ourselves in--you know the beechwood between Priddlestone and Thring--she singing all the time with her head thrown back, at the top of her voice.

“Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as if the whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with streamers, I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a whishin' and a rushin' among the trees, like steam--and I saw my Kit drop smack. In two ticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I staggered sideways upon my left hand, and I let such a _yell_ out of me--had put my hand upon something flamin' hot.

“The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and I dropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was quite two hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the affair what struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. 'This should mean a cool thou', says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested first thing in the morning, except I told plain out what had happened: and that, you bet, I didn't mean to do, for if once I mentioned that there piece of iron before I had it safe off the lord-o'-the-manor's land, I knew it 'ud be taken from me. But to take it off before another day or two was out of the question--it was too hot. So says I to myself: 'I'll _get_ convicted; and to-night I'll write a letter to Bob, telling him where to find the affair, how to get the thou, and _after_ he's got it, how to set about gettin' the case retried '.

“Well, so said, so done. You know that old elm in the beech-wood? I dug a grave at the foot of it, and managed to kick and roll the affair into the grave, then I took up my Kit, carried her home, and by the time I pegged out the letter to Bob, I saw day breakin'. So I made paces for Beccles, knocked up old Harris, and gave him the letter for Bob. By eight o'clock I was arrested--”

At this point the 5.15 recall-bell rang out, and there was falling into line.

The next time that they had speech together, Hogarth said: “And were you such a clown, Fred Bates, as to imperil your life for a paltry thousand pounds?”

“_Paltry_ thousand pounds?” answered Bates, surprised: “Hark at this! Didn't I peril my life ten times more in Egypt for a bob a day? I tell you I was certain in my own mind of getting out in a few weeks!”

“Well, what happened to prevent you?”

“Only this: Bob died on the troop-ship coming home; that's all”.

“But you could write old Harris to open your letter to Bob, and act on it, or else hand it over to your father”.

“My word, but haven't I wrote? Old 'Arris is either dead and buried, or gorn away, or somethin'. I've waited a year and nine months--good God! and no answer yet”.

“Poor Fred! I could weep blood for you. Believe in God!”

“More Devil than God about Colmoor, it strikes me”.

“As though _you_ knew! Suppose I strike you blind--_now_--with a flash of Him?”

“I don't take your meaning, sir”, said Bates, with a strange heart-bound and sense of awe.

“Do you remember 33 of the quarry-gang, Fred?”

“Yes”.

Hogarth whispered: “It was _I_ who got him off”.

Bates whitened to the lips. “I--I thought as much”.

“There is yet another chance, which _you_, if you like, may take”.

Bates saw heaven opening; but with this vague hope was left two days.

On the third, Hogarth explained what he assumed to be the new plan of Loveday.

“I take it”, he said, “that he will pass over the moor in a balloon trailing a rope, which will have a loop to be slipped under the arms. I tell you, there are dangers in this scheme: you may be shot. Are you for trying it?”

“Trying it, aye”, said Bates, with fifty times the boldness of O'Hara.

And now began for these two a painfulness of waiting days, the sleep of both, meanwhile, being one nightmare of confused affrights, balloons and deliriums.

Ten times they re-discussed every possibility of the scheme, Hogarth giving messages for Loveday, heaping counsels upon Bates. Nothing remained to be said, and still the days passed over the time-worn hearts, till a month went by.

At last something was observed in the sky--afar to the N.W.--in the afternoon turn, about two o'clock, a mist on the moor, but the sky almost cloudless.

Whereupon Hogarth, who first saw the object, stepped, as if looking for something, close to Bates, hissing: “_Goodbye!_ Keep cool--choose well--”

Bates shovelled on steadily, as though this was a day like others; but twice his knees gave and bent beneath him; and there was a twitching of the livid under-lip, piteous to see.

It drew nearer, that silent needle, while Bates worked, delving, barrowing, making little trips; plenty of time; and no one noted his lip which pulled and twitched.