Chapter THIRTY-SIX: Out of the Depths

Alick Gell, also, had travelled far.

After his temporary detention at Castletown, he had returned to Douglas in a frenzy.

For four days everything had fed his fury. Having no housekeeper he took his meals in a neighbouring hotel which was frequented by his younger fellow-advocates. Sitting alone in a corner he spoke to none of them, but they seemed to be always speaking at him. In loud voices they praised Stowell--his eloquence, his knowledge, above all his impartiality, his superiority to the calls of friendship.

This was gall and wormwood to Gell. He wanted to come face to face with Stowell that he might charge him with his treachery. He knew the police were watching him, but one day he eluded them and took the train to Ballamoar.

It was evening when he got there. The cowman, who lived in the lodge, told him the master was out in his car and might not return until late. To beguile the time of waiting Gell walked in the lanes and woods about the house. These evoked both kind and cruel memories, the worst of them being the memory of the day when he stammered his excuses for loving Bessie Collister, and Stowell had said, "Good-bye and God bless you, old fellow!" What a scoundrel!

The darkness gathered. There was the last bleating of the sheep, the last calling of the curlew (like the cry of a bird without a mate), and then night fell, dark night, without a star, and still Stowell did not come.

Where was he? Gell thought he knew. He was at Government House with Fenella Stanley. They were reconciled, of course; they were kissing and caressing, while Bessie .... but no, he dare not think of that.

What stung him most was the thought of the money he had taken from Stowell. It had been neither more nor less than the price of Bessie's honour. He remembered the Peel fisherman who had burnt his boat. How he wished he had the money now that he might ram it down Stowell's throat!

There had been rain and the frogs were croaking, but otherwise the air was still. All at once the silence of the Curraghs was broken by a low hum. Stowell's car was coming! Looking down the long straight road Gell saw its two white headlights opening the darkness like a reversed wedge. Then in a moment, unpremeditated, unprepared for, his wild thirst for personal vengeance returned to him.

"Now, now," he thought, and he closed the gates to give himself time.

But when Stowell came up and got out of his car to open them, and his lamps lit up his face, a mysterious wave of emotion heaved up out of the depths of Gell's soul. Something took him by the throat and cried "Stop! What are you doing?" and he dropped back into the deeper darkness of some bushes behind one of the gate-posts. He must have made a noise, for Stowell cried,

"Who's there?"

But Gell made no answer, and at the next moment Stowell was back in his seat and gliding up the drive.

After that, horrified by the homicidal impulse which had so suddenly taken possession of him, Gell kept to his rooms for several days, going out only at night, with the collar of his coat up to his ears, to eat and drink in the tap-room of a low tavern on the quay.

He had been denying himself to everybody who called at his chambers, but one morning there came an unsteady knock, followed by a peremptory voice, saying,

"Alick, let me in!"

It was his father, and an inherited instinct of obedience compelled him to open the door. He was shocked to see the change in the Speaker. His burly figure had become slack, his clothes (especially his trousers) baggy, his long beard thinner and more white, the crown of his head bald. Only his red eyes, with their unquenchable fire, remained the same.

The old man sat down heavily with his stick between his knees, and his trembling hands on its ebony handle.

"I didn't expect that I should have to come here, but Farrell says that since that trial at Castletown you have not been responsible, and if things go farther he'll have to put you away."

"Put me away?"

"Don't you understand?--the asylum."

"He doesn't know, father, and neither do you...."

"I don't want to know. If you had listened to me long ago this wouldn't have happened. But I'm not here to reproach you. I'm here to advise you to do something for your own good--mine, too, everybody's."

"What is that, father?"

Gell had expected the usual storm and his father's emotion was moving him deeply.

"Leave the island before anything worse happens. Look" (the Speaker drew a stout envelope from his breast pocket), "I've just been to the bank for you. A thousand pounds in Bank of England notes, and if it's not enough there's more where that came from. Take it and go away at once--to America--anywhere."

Alick drew back and his lips tightened. "This is a trick to get me to desert Bessie," he thought.

"I can't do it," he said, and he pushed back the old man's trembling hand.

The Speaker fixed his red eyes on his son, and said,

"Alick, I must tell you something. I've heard on good authority that they are going to hang that girl."

"They can't. Some of them would like to, but they can't."

"They can and they will, I tell you."

"Then I'll .... I'll murder...."

"There you are! That's what Farrell says. A little more and you'll be capable of anything. Go away, my boy. Think of me. It has taken me forty years to get to where I am. I was born neither an aristocrat nor a pauper, but I've got my hand on all of them. That's just the kind of man both sorts would like to pull down. If my son disgraced me I should have to give up everything. Go, my son, go."

"I can't, father, I can't."

The old man passed his hand over his bald head and in a low voice he said,

"Perhaps I've not been a good father exactly, but there's your mother. Bad as it would be for me it would be worse for her. She has only one son--one child you might say--and since that affair at Castletown she has never been out of doors--just creeping over the fire with her feet in the fender. If you don't want to bring your mother to her grave...."

Gell felt as if his heart were breaking.

"But I can't, I can't!"

"You mean you won't?"

"Very well, I won't."

The old man's voice thickened--the storm was coming.

"And for the sake of this woman who killed her brat...."

"Call her what you like. I'll stay here until she comes out of prison, and then .... then I'll marry her."

"You fool! You damned heartless fool! God forgive me for bringing such a fool into the world."

Struggling to his feet the old man made for the door. But having reached it, and while tugging at the handle, he stopped and said,

"Look here, I'll give you one more chance."

He took the stout envelope out of his breast pocket again and flung it on to Alick's desk.

"There's the money and this is Monday. If you are not off the island by this day week I'll not leave matters to Farrell--I'll have you put into a madhouse myself to prevent you from plunging us all into disgrace and ruin. Idiot! Fool! Madman!"

He screamed like a sea-gull until his breath was gone, and then, gesticulating wildly, went downstairs with heavy thudding steps like a man walking on stilts.

A few minutes later Gell, going to the window with wet eyes, saw his father on the opposite side of the street, looking up at the house as if half minded to return. His stick fell from his nervous hand, and with difficulty he picked it up. It dropped again, and a passer-by handed it back. Then he went off in the direction of the railway station, dragging his feet after him.

II

Frightened by what his father had said about the intention of the Chief Constable to have him arrested as insane, Gell stayed indoors altogether.

This meant days without food. At first he drank a great deal of water, being very thirsty. Then his thirst abated and his head began to feel light. After a while he became dizzy, and even in the darkness everything seemed to float about him.

On the morning after his father's visit he heard a woman's step on the stairs, followed by her knock at his door. He thought it was his sister Isabella and that she had come, with her sharp tongue, to remonstrate, so he made no answer.

On the day following he heard the same light step. Isabella again! But no, she had always railed against Bessie, and he was not going to give her another opportunity of doing so.

Meantime, without food or drink, he was travelling fast towards the borderland of the desert realm of Insanity, with its cruelly-beautiful mirages.

Lying on his sofa with eyes closed he was picturing to himself the day of Bessie's release, when he would go to Castletown to bring her away, and then the day after, when he would marry her, and then the day after that when they would leave the island for America--Bessie walking along the pier with head down, but himself with head up, as if saying, "There you are--I told you so!"

The knock came again, and again he did not answer it. "No, no, Mistress Isabella! You shan't speak ill to me of the woman who cared so much for me that she went to prison for my sake."

He had still travelled farther by this time. He was out in the middle-west, on one of the high plains of that free continent. He was working at his profession. He was not a great lawyer, but he could speak out of his heart, and when he defended injured women juries heard him and judges listened.

He saw them coming to him from far and near--that long trail of the broken followers after the merciless army of civilisation. They were nearly always poor and could pay him nothing. But what matter about that? At home, at night, wet or cold, there was a bowl of soup, a cheerful fire and .... Bessie!

On the Saturday morning he awoke from a dizzy sleep, with the sun shining into his room and the sea outside the breakwater singing softly. He was in his shirt sleeves, for he had thrown himself on the bed in his clothes; his boots were unbuttoned; his fair hair was tangled; he had not shaved for many days.

Again he heard the light step on the stairs. But something in the rustle of the dress seemed to say that after all it was not his sister. He listened. There were two knocks, louder and more insistent than before; then the rattle of the brass lid of his letter-box, and then something falling on the floor.

A letter! After the light footsteps had gone downstairs he crept over the carpet on tiptoe, picked up the letter and looked at it. There were two lines at the top, partly printed, and partly written--

"_Castle Rushen Prison--Number 7._"

Gell stared at the blue envelope, and then with trembling fingers tore it open. It was the letter which Bessie had dictated to Fenella Stanley. She was to die, and was calling on him to save her. Through her heart-breaking words he could hear her cries and supplications. The letter had been written five days ago, and in two days more she was to be executed!

Whatever he had been before, Gell was no longer a sane man now. He was thinking of Stowell and cursing him. Oh, that God would only put it in his power to punish him!

Then he remembered that this was the Deemster's fortnightly Court-day. The Court began to sit at eleven, and it was now half-past ten.

He would go across to the Court-house. Why not? He was an advocate--nobody dare refuse him admission to a Court of Law. And as soon as Stowell stepped on to the bench he would rise in his place and cry, "You scoundrel! Come down from the Judgment seat! Because you were rich you thought you could buy a man's soul and a woman's body. But take that, and that!" and then he would fling his father's money into Stowell's face.

At that moment, having parted from the Chief Constable, Stowell was driving down the street.

Gell dragged his black bag from the corner into which he had thrown it on returning from Castletown, and put on his gown without remembering that he was in his shirt-sleeves, and then his wig, without knowing that his hair was dishevelled.

He was staggering from weakness and the pictures on the walls were going round him with an increasing vertigo, but he was struggling to regain his strength.

He heard a step on the stair (a man's step this time) and then a firm knock at his door.

"Farrell!" he thought. The Chief Constable was coming to arrest him. But nobody should do that yet--not until he had come face to face with Stowell.

The knock was repeated.

"Go away!" he cried.

Then he pulled open the door, and found Stowell himself standing on the threshold. He fell back breathless. Stowell entered the room and closed the door behind him.

III

"Alick!"

"Go away!"

"I have something to say to you."

"Go away, I tell you."

"But I have something to tell you."

"There's only one thing you can tell me. Is it true--is she to die?"

"It .... it is so appointed."

"Then take that," cried Gell, and flinging himself upon Stowell with the fury of madness he struck him in the face and laid open his cheek-bone.

There was an awful silence. Gell had staggered to a bookcase behind him, expecting Stowell to strike back. But Stowell remained standing, and then said, with a break in his voice,

"I have well deserved it."

That was too much for Gell. He began to stammer incoherently and when he saw a streak of blood begin to flow down Stowell's cheek he broke down altogether. Out of the depths of a thousand memories of their friendship, all the way up since they were boys, a great tide of tenderness came surging over him, and he dropped into a chair and cried,

"Then it's true--I'm mad."

But after another moment he was up and hurrying into the next room for a sponge and a basin of water.

"It's nothing! Nothing at all," said Stowell. "See, it has stopped already. And now sit down and listen."

A few minutes later they were sitting side by side on the sofa--Gell sniffling, Stowell talking quietly.

"Alick!"

"Yes?"

"Bessie is waiting for you. She thinks you are trying to obtain her pardon."

"I know. She has written. But what can _I_ do? Nothing!"

"If _I_ can help her to escape from Castle Rushen will you take her away from the island?"

Gell's eyes glistened. "Only give me the chance," he said.

"She could never come back. Therefore you could never come back either."

"What do I care?"

"You would have to give up everything--your inheritance, your family, your....!"

"I .... I can't help that."

"You are sure you would never regret the sacrifice?"

"Never! Only show me the way...."

"I will," said Stowell.

And then he explained his scheme and the motives which had inspired it. He had been compelled to condemn the girl, according to law, but he had come to see that the old Statute was a crime, and that it was his duty to break it.

"Do you say that, Victor--you?"

"Listen."

An Irish tramp steamer would be lying in Castletown Harbour on Sunday night. She would berth in front of the Castle, not more than fifteen yards from the gates. At eleven o'clock Stowell would open the Deemster's private door and bring Bessie out. Gell must be there to take her aboard. The tide being up, the vessel would sail immediately. She would sail north, past the Point of Ayre, to give the appearance of going to Scotland; but in the morning, when out of sight from the land, she would steer south and land her passengers at Queenstown. Atlantic liners called there twice a week and Gell and Bessie must take passages to New York. On reaching New York they must travel west--far west....

"But can it be done? Can you get Bessie out of the Castle?"

"I've counted every chance," said Stowell. "Whatever happens, I must not fail."

"What a good fellow...." began Gell, but Stowell dropped his head and hurried on with his story.

"I've given the Irish Captain a hundred pounds, and you are to give him another hundred when he puts you ashore at Queenstown. I'll find you the money."

"No, no! I've enough of my own--see," said Gell, and he showed the bundle of banknotes given to him by his father.

"Your father gave you that?"

"Yes, to pay my way to America."

Stowell's face glowed with a kind of superstitious rapture. More than ever now he was certain he was doing right, that the Divine powers were directing him. But all the same he kept up the cunning of the criminal.

"I must see you again to-morrow night in some secret place. Where shall it be?"

"Why not the Miss Browns' at Derby Haven? They'll hold their tongues. They owe me something."

"Very well, eight o'clock, Sunday night," said Stowell, and he rose to go.

"What a good fellow...." began Gell again, but Stowell looked at him and he stopped.

The Deemster's Court had to wait for the Deemster. When he arrived with a patch of plaster on his cheek-bone, he told Joshua Scarff that he had accidentally knocked his face against a gas-bracket and had had to go to a chemist to get the wound dressed.

It was an intricate case he tried that day, but the advocates engaged in it said he had never before been so cool, so clear, so collected.

"After all, the Governor knew what he was doing," they told themselves.

That night, Saturday night, after a furtive visit to the tavern on the quay, Gell slipped through the back streets to the railway station and leapt into the last train for the north as the carriages were leaving the platform.

He was going home to say good-bye to his mother--not with his tongue, for he had no hope of speaking to her, but with his eyes and his heart. If he could only see her for a moment before leaving the island!

It was late when he reached the lane to his father's house, and the night was dark, for it was the time between the going and the coming of two moons.

At length the blacker darkness of the house stood out against the gloomy sky. There was no light in any of the windows--the family had gone to bed. But Alick had been born there, and he thought he could find his way blindfold.

For some time he walked stealthily about, trying to discover the dining-room window, for he remembered what his father had said about his mother sitting with her feet in the fender. He found it at last, but, peering behind the edge of the blind, he saw nothing except the dull slack of the fire dropping to ashes in the grate.

Groping about in the darkness on the gravel his footsteps had made a noise and presently a dog inside began to bark. It was his own dog, Mona, and he remembered that when he was a boy he had bought her as a pup for five shillings from a farmer and brought her home in his arms, licking his hand.

The dog's clamour awakened the household, and presently, through the long staircase window, he saw his sisters on the landing, in their nightdresses and curl-papers, carrying candles and looking frightened.

Then the sash of a window went up with a bang and his father's voice came in a husky roar through the night,

"Who's that?"

With a chill down his back, Alick turned about and hurried away, feeling that he was being driven from the home of his boyhood as if he were a thief.