“Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,In Twilight land, in No-man’s land,Two wandering shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand.“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,Shuddering in the gloaming light,‘I know not,’ said the second shape,‘I only died last night.’”
“Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,In Twilight land, in No-man’s land,Two wandering shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand.“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,Shuddering in the gloaming light,‘I know not,’ said the second shape,‘I only died last night.’”
“Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,In Twilight land, in No-man’s land,Two wandering shapes met face to face,And bade each other stand.“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,Shuddering in the gloaming light,‘I know not,’ said the second shape,‘I only died last night.’”
“Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,
In Twilight land, in No-man’s land,
Two wandering shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
“‘And who are you?’ cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light,
‘I know not,’ said the second shape,
‘I only died last night.’”
The picture had fascinated her profoundly until she had suddenly noticed that one of the shapes looked as if she had left her teeth on her death-bed. She laughed aloud suddenly. . . .
For the first time she felt curious about the hereafter. Poetry had demonstrated to her that hereafter of some sort there must be: the poet sees only the soul of his creations, makes the soul talk as it would if untrammelled of flesh, and in unconscious forecast of its freedom. Browning, alone, would have taught her this. His greater poems were those of another and loftier world. No wonder poets were a mad unhappy race with their brief awakenings of the cosmic sense, their long contemplations of what should be, in awful contrast to what is. . . .
Patience suddenly turned from the thoughts of the hereafter in shuddering horror. Then, as now, she should be alone. Perhaps it would be as well, if she were to look like that shape. . . . But she should know soon enough!
Whimsies deserted her as abruptly as they had come. She realised with terrible vividness all that she was leaving, the sweetness of it, the beauty of it—and the awful part allotted to the man.
She had imagined that in her last night on earth—if it came to that—her mind would dwell on the great problems of life; but she cried herself to sleep.
Bourke and the priest arrived in Albany at two minutes past eight in the morning. A hack carried them to the governor’s house in less than ten minutes.
Bourke’s ring was answered immediately. He had his card ready, also that of the priest.
“Take these to the governor,” he said to the butler. “We must see him at once.”
“The governor took the 8.13 express for New York.”
Bourke uttered an oath which the priest did not rebuke.
“Did he leave an answer to a telegram he received between two and five this morning?”
“No, sir; no telegrams are ever sent here—by special orders, sir. They are all sent to the State House.”
Bourke’s skin turned grey; his eyes dulled like those of a dying man. But only for a moment. His brain worked with its customary rapidity.
“Come,” he said to the priest. “There is only one thing to do.”
To the hackman he said: “Twenty dollars if you get to the station in five minutes.”
He and the priest jumped into the hack. The driver lashed the horses. They dashed down the steep hills of Albany. Two policemen rushed after them, shouting angrily; but the horses galloped the faster, the driver bounding on his seat. People darted shrieking out of their way. Other teams pulled hastily aside, oaths flying.
They reached the station in exactly four minutes and a half. Bourke had little money with him, but he was well known, and known to be wealthy. In less than five minutes the superintendent, in regard for a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, had ordered out the fastest engine in the shop. In ten minutes more it was ready, and the message had flashed along the line to make way for “45.”
By this time every man in the yard was surging about the engine in excited sympathy. As the engineer gave the word and Bourke and the priest climbed in, the men cheered lustily. Bourke raised his hat. Father Connor waved them his blessing. The engine sprang down the road in pursuit of the New York express.
Despite the flying moments, the horror that seemed to sit grimacing upon the hour of eleven every time that he looked at his watch, Bourke felt the exhilaration of that ride, the enchantment of uncertainty. The morning air was cool; the river flashed with gold; the earth was very green. They seemed to cut the air as they raced through fields and towns, dashed and whizzed round curve after curve. People ran after them, some shouting with terror, thinking it was a runaway engine.
Father Connor had bought some sandwiches at the station, and Bourke ate mechanically. He wondered if he should ever recognise the fine flavour of food again.
The priest put his lips to Bourke’s ear and spoke for the first time.
“Where do you expect to catch the train?”
“At Poughkeepsie. It waits there ten minutes.”
“And what shall you do if you don’t catch it?”
“Go on to Sing Sing, and do the best I can. I have made one fatal mistake: I should have telegraphed to Sing Sing. But I was mad, I think, until I reached Albany, and there it is no wonder I forgot it. The regular time for—that business is round eleven o’clock, about a quarter past; but if the warden happens to be drunk there’s no telling what he will take it into his head to do. But I dare not stop.”
Suddenly they shot about a curve. The engineer shouted “There! There!” A dark speck was just making another curve, far to the south.
“The express!” cried the engineer. “We’ve side-tracked everything else. We’ll catch her now.”
An hour later they dashed into Poughkeepsie, the express only two minutes ahead of them. Amidst a crowd of staring people, Bourke and the priest, begrimed, dishevelled, leaped from the engine and boarded a parlour car of the express. Alone, Bourke would probably have been arrested as a madman, controlled as was his demeanour; but the priest’s frock forbade interference.
The governor was not in the parlour car, nor in the next, nor in the next.
Yes, he had been there, a porter replied, and would be there again; but he had left the train as soon as it had stopped. No, he did not know in what direction he had gone; nor did any one else.
There was nothing to do but to wait. Bourke sent a telegram to Sing Sing, but it relieved his anxiety little: he knew the languid methods of the company’s officials in country towns.
There were five of those remaining seven minutes when he thought he was going mad. An immense crowd had gathered by this time about the station. Nobody knew exactly what was the matter, and nobody dared ask the man walking rapidly up and down the platform, watch in hand, gripping the arm of a priest; but hints were flying, and no one doubted that this sudden furious incursion of a flying engine and the extraordinary appearance of Bourke had to do with the famous prisoner at Sing Sing.
At exactly three minutes to starting time the governor came sauntering down the street, a tooth-pick in his mouth, his features overspread with the calm and good-will which bespeak a recently warmed interior. Bourke reached him almost at a bound. He was a master of words, and in less than a minute he had presented the governor with the facts in the case and handed him the affidavit.
“Good,” said the governor. “I’m glad enough to do this. It’s you that will understand, Mr. Bourke, that I would have been violating a sacred duty if I’d slapped public opinion in the face before.”
He wrote rapidly on the back of the affidavit.
“This will do for the present,” he said. “I’ll fix it up in style when I go back. You’re a great man, Mr. Bourke.”
But Bourke had gone. Whistles were sounding, train men were yelling. He and the priest barely had time to jump on their engine when they were ordered to clear the track.
Bourke glanced at his watch as they sprang out of the station. The time was twenty minutes past ten. It was barely possible to reach Sing Sing in three quarters of an hour. Lead was in his veins. His head felt light. The chances for his last and paramount success were very slim.
But the great engine dashed along like an inspired thing, and seemed to throb in sympathy. There was a note of triumphant encouragement in its sudden piercing shrieks. It tossed a cow off the track as lightly as the poor brute had lately whisked a fly from its hind-quarters. It whistled merrily to the roaring air. It snorted disdainfully when Bourke, refusing to heed its mighty lullaby, curved his hands about his mouth and shouted to the engineer:—
“For God’s sake, go faster!”
The town of Sing Sing was awake at daylight. It was the most exciting and important day of its history. The women, even the pitiful ones, arose with a pleasurable flutter and donned their Sunday frocks. The matrons dressed the children in their brightest and best, and laid the gala cover on the baby carriage. The men of the village took a half-holiday and made themselves as smart as their women. The saloon keepers stocked their shelves and spread their counters with tempting array of corned beef, cold ham, cheese, crackers, pickles, and pretzels.
By ten o’clock a hundred teams had driven into the town, and were hitched to every post, housed in every stable. A number stood along that part of the road which commanded a view of the prison towers.
The women sat about on the slope opposite the prison, pushing the baby carriages absently back and forth, or gossiping with animation. Other women crowded up the bluff, settling themselves comfortably to await, with what patience they could muster, the elevation of the black flag.
The reporters and witnesses of the execution sat on a railing near the main entrance, smoking cigarettes and discussing probabilities. Inside and out the atmosphere of intense and suppressed excitement was trying to even the stout nerves of the head-keeper. The assistant keepers, in bright new caps, moved about with an air of portentous solemnity.
Never had Sing Sing seen a more beautiful day. The sky was a dome of lapis-lazuli. The yellow sun sparkled down on the imposing mediæval pile of towers and turrets, on the handsome grey buildings above the green slopes near by, on the graveyard with its few dishonoured dead, on the gayly dressed expectant people, as exhilaratingly as had death and dishonour never been. The river and the wooded banks beyond were as sweet and calm as if the great building with the men in the watch towers were some feudal castle, in which, perchance, a captured princess pined.
The head-keeper walked once or twice to the telegraph table in a corner of the office, and asked the girl in charge if any message had come.
“It’s the wish that’s father to the thought,” he said to the warden; “but I can’t help hoping for a reprieve or a commutation or something. Poor thing, I feel awful sorry for her.”
“Damn her,” growled his chief. “She’s too high-toned for me. When I read the death warrant to her this morning she turned her back on me square.”
“She’s awful proud, and I guess she has a hard time keeping up; but it ain’t no time for resentment. I must say I did think Mr. Bourke’d save her, and I can’t help thinking he will yet.”
“Time’s getting short,” said the warden, with a dry laugh. “It’s 10.40, and the execution takes place at 11.12 sharp.”
“Couldn’t you make some excuse to put it off a day or so? It ain’t like Mr. Bourke.”
“Not much. Off she goes at 11.12.” And he got up heavily and shuffled out.
The head-keeper took a decanter of brandy from the sideboard and placed it, with a number of glasses, on the table. Then he called in the newspaper men and other witnesses.
He wandered about restlessly as the men entered and drank in silence. He carried a stick of malacca topped with silver. One or two of the newspaper men shuddered as it caught their eye. They knew its hideous portent.
“Guess we’d better go,” he said, after one more fruitless trip to the telegraph table. “It takes time to go through those underground passages.”
As the great gates were about to close behind them he turned suddenly and called a guard.
“If it should so happen that Mr. Bourke should come, or telegraph, or that anything should happen before—11.16—I can delay it that long—just you be on hand to make a bolt. It ain’t like Mr. Bourke to sit down and do nothing. I feel it in my bones that he’s moving heaven and earth this minute.”
It was five minutes after eleven. Patience sat on the edge of her bed, her hands clenched, her face grey. But she was calm. The horror and sinking which had almost mastered her as the warden read the death warrant, she had fought down and under. And she had drunk a quantity of black coffee. She had but one thought, one desire left,—to die bravely. Even Bourke was forgotten, and hope and regret. She was conscious of but one passionate wish, not to quail, not for a second. Perhaps there was a slight touch of the dramatic instinct, even in this last extremity, for she imagined the scene and her attitude again and again. In consequence, there was a sense of unreality in it all. She felt as if about to play some great final act; she could not realise that the climax meant her own annihilation. Physically she was very tired, and should have liked to lie down for hours, although the coffee had routed sleep. Once she half extended herself on the bed, then sat erect, her mouth contracting spasmodically.
Suddenly she heard the noise of many feet shuffling on a bare floor. She knew that it came from the execution room. She shuddered and bit her lips. Now and again, through the high windows, came the shrill note of a woman’s voice, or a baby’s soft light laugh.
A moment later she sprang to her feet, quivering in every nerve, her hands clenched in a final and successful attempt at absolute self-mastery. On the door separating the Death House from the main building, resounded three loud raps, slow and deliberate. They reverberated in the ears of the condemned like the blast of the last trumpet.
The door opened, and the head-keeper entered, walking slowly, and stopping once to hold whispered converse with the death watch. Patience controlled an impulse to call to him to hurry and have it over.
He came forward at last, tapping his malacca stick on the floor, unlocked the door of her cell, and offered her his arm. He bent to her ear as if to whisper something, then evidently thought better of it, and led her slowly to the passage facing the execution room. Again she wanted to ask him to hurry, but dared not speak. The death watch turned away his head. The lace of her low shoe untied, and she stooped mechanically and fastened it.
The head-keeper asked her if she would like some brandy,—he would send and get it for her. She shook her head emphatically. The exaltation of heroism was beginning to possess her, and she would give no newspaper the chance to say that she owed her fortitude to alcohol.
They walked down the narrow vaulted way through which so many had gone to their last hideous moments. The head-keeper fumbled at the lock. The door swung open. For a moment Patience closed her eyes; the big room of yellow wood was a blaze of sunlight. Then she opened them and glanced curiously about her.
The execution room was large and high and square and cheerful. On the left, many feet above the floor, was a row of windows. At the far end a number of men that had been sitting on stools stood up hurriedly as the prisoner entered, and doffed their hats. They were the newspaper men. She recognised most of them, and bent her head. At the opposite end near the door leading to the Death House was a chair. Patience regarded it steadily in spite of its brilliancy. It was a solid chair of light coloured oak, like the room, and supported on three legs. Two were at the back; in front was one of curious construction, almost a foot in breadth. This leg was divided in two at the extremity. Half way up there was a cross piece which spread the full width of the chair. To this was fastened the straps to hold the ankles of the condemned. The chair stood on a rubber mat to ensure perfect insulation. It was studded with small electric lamps, dazzling, white-hot.
Behind the chair was a square cupboard in which stood the unknown, who, at a given signal, would turn on the current.
Two prison guards stood by the chair, one behind it and one on the right. The State electrician, two surgeons, and a man in light blue clothes stood near.
Patience turned her eyes to the reporters. The young men were very pale. They regarded her with deep sympathy, and perhaps a bitter resentment at the impotence of their manhood. One looked as if he should faint, and turning his back suddenly raised something to his lips. Even the “Eye” man still held his hat in his hand, and had not resumed his seat. Only one watched her with eager wolfish curiosity. He was the youngest of them all, and it was his first great story.
Patience wondered if she looked ugly after her long confinement, and possibly ridiculous, as most women look when they have dressed without a mirror. But there was no curve of amusement on the young men’s faces, and they were shuffling their feet uneasily. Her hair hung in a long braid. She looked very young.
She dropped the head-keeper’s arm and walked deliberately to the chair; but he caught her hand and held her back.
“Wait a minute,” he said, with affected gruffness. He went to the chair and examined it in detail. He asked a number of questions, which were answered by the electrician with haughty surprise. In a moment the reporters were staring, and like a lightning flash one brain informed another that “something was in the wind.”
When the head-keeper had lingered about the chair as long as he dared he returned to Patience, who was standing rigidly where he had left her, and drawing a short breath said,—
“If you have any last words, ma’am, you are at liberty to speak.”
“I have nothing to say,” replied Patience, wondering if her mouth or brain were speaking.
“Yes, yes, speak,” exclaimed several of the reporters. They had out their pads in an instant; but, for once, it was not the news instinct that was alert. The most quick-witted men in the world, they realised that the head-keeper was endeavouring to gain time. Their stiff felt hats dropped to the floor and bounced about. Their hands shook a little. For perhaps the first time in their history they were more men than journalists.
“I don’t wish to speak,” said Patience, and again she walked toward the chair. The newspaper men sprang forward with an uncontrollable movement, but the guards waved them back.
“Be careful, young men,” said the head-keeper with pompous severity. “Any more of that, and you go out.” Taking advantage of the momentary scraping of boots, he whispered in Patience’s ear, “For God’s sake speak—and a good long one. You must have something to say; and it’s your last chance on earth.”
“I have nothing to say,” she replied, her brain closed to all impressions but one. “Can’t you see that I need all my strength? If you have any mercy in you put me in that chair and have done with it.”
“Oh, you are not the kind to break down—my God!”
The silence of the prison, the hush without the walls, was pierced by a single shriek, a shriek which seemed shot from earth to heaven, a mighty shriek of furious warning.
Every man in the room jumped. The newspaper men drew their breath with a hard sound. Only Patience gave no heed.
“It’s an engine,” stuttered the head-keeper, “and there’s no train due at this hour—”
The outer door was flung violently open. The warden stamped heavily into the room. His face was purple.
“Why in hell hasn’t this execution taken place?” he roared. “Get to work!”
The head-keeper’s face turned very white. His hand shook a little. The men stared at him with jumping nerves. Patience and the warden were the only persons in the room unaffected by the inexplicable excitement which had taken possession of the atmosphere.
“Get to work,” repeated the warden.
Patience walked to the chair and seated herself, extending her arms in position. Once more her brain relaxed its grasp on every thought but the determination not to scream nor quiver. She closed her eyes and set her teeth.
The guards began to fasten the straps, but slowly, under the significant eyes of the head-keeper. The warden stamped up and down. The electrician came forward. The surgeon went into an adjoining room and cast his eyes over his instruments, laid out on a long table.
The brain works eccentrically in such moments. Patience’s suddenly flung upon her consciousness a picture of Carmel tower. She speculated upon the fate of her owl. She recalled that the Mission had been restored, and wondered if Solomon, that proud and elderly hermit, had turned his haughty back upon civilisation to dwell alone in the black arbours of the remote pine tops of the forest. She saw the spray toss itself into scattering wraiths, as when she had knelt there—a thousand years ago—a little lonely girl in copper-toed boots, dreaming dreams that were pricked with no premonition of life’s tragic horrors.
She frowned suddenly, recalling her long-lived determination to take life as a spectacular drama. Life had gotten the best of her! Assuredly there was nothing impersonal about this ignominious and possibly excruciating death. The thought banished Carmel tower. Her mind was a sudden blaze of light—white light she thought with a stifled shrink—in which every detail of the room was sharply accentuated. She opened her eyes, but only a trifle, lest these men see the horror in them. Her blood was curdling, but she knew that she was making no sign.
Her sensitised mind received the immediate impression that the atmosphere of the room was vibrating with excitement. She saw the head-keeper’s neck crane, his furtive glance at the outer door. He expected some one. Bourke!
She set her teeth. She had believed up to last night that he would save her. Why had she doubted him for an instant? She understood now the diplomacy of the head-keeper. Why had she not spoken when he had implored her?
It seemed to her that the men fastening the straps were racing each other. She wanted to whisper to them to lag, but pride stayed her tongue.
The warden was striding about and swearing. The electricians and surgeons were whispering in a group.
She looked at the newspaper men. She met their gaze of excited sympathy, understood at last the spirit that animated them, and bowed her head. She dared not speak.
But in a moment indignation routed gratitude. Why did they not rescue her, these young vigorous men! They knew her to be innocent. They outmatched in number the guards. Where was their manhood? What had become of all the old traditions? Then her anger left as suddenly as it had come. They were not knights with battle axes, but the most exaggerated product of modern civilisation. It was almost a miracle that they passionately wished to save her.
Her head was drawn gently back, her eyes covered. Something leapt and fought within her. Horror tore at her vitals, snarling like a wolf-hound. But once more her will rose supreme. Then, as she realised that her last moment had come, she became possessed by one mighty desire, to compel her imagination to give her the phantasm, the voice, the touch of her lover.
The wrench with which she accomplished her object was so violent, the mental concentration so overmastering, that all other consciousness was extinguished.
Suddenly her ears were pierced by a din which made her muscles leap against the straps. Was she in hell, and was this her greeting? She felt a second’s thankfulness that death had been painless.
Then, out of the babel of sound she distinguished words which made her sit erect and open her eyes, her pulses bound, her blood leap, hot and stinging, her whole being rebound with gladness of life.
The cap had been removed, the men were unbuckling the straps. The head-keeper had flung his cap on the floor and run his hands through his hair until it stood up straight. Round her chair the newspaper men were pressing, shouting and cheering, trying to get at her hand to shake it.
She smiled and held out her hand, but dared not speak to them. Pride still lived, and she was afraid that she should cry.
Then she forgot them. A sudden parting in the ranks showed her the open door. At the same moment the men stopped shouting. Bourke had entered. He had followed the guard mechanically, neither hoping nor fearing until the far-reaching cheers sent the blood springing through his veins once more.
He was neither clean nor picturesque, but Patience saw only his eyes. He walked forward rapidly, and lifting her in his arms carried her from the room.
Transcriber’s Note:
A Table of Contents was added for the convenience of the reader.
Hyphenation and archaic spellings have been retained as in the original. Punctuation and type-setting errors have been corrected without note. Other corrections are as noted below.
page 301, not by a long short ==> not by a longshotpage 343, and the diplomate kissed ==> and thediplomatkissed
page 301, not by a long short ==> not by a longshot
page 343, and the diplomate kissed ==> and thediplomatkissed