The first decent word I had spoken to me after that for months came from my turnkey at Newgate. It was when he welcomed me back from my examination before the Thames Court magistrate. The magistrate, a bad-tempered man, snuffy, with red eyes, and the air of being a piece of worn and dirty furniture of his court, had snapped at me when I tried to speak:
“Keep your lies for the Admiralty Session. I’ve only time to commit you. Damn your Spaniards; why can’t they translate their own papers;†had signed something with a squeaky quill, tossed it to his clerk, and grunted, “Next case.â€
I had gone back to Newgate.
The turnkey, a man with the air of an innkeeper, bandy-legged, with a bulbous, purple-veined nose and watering eyes, slipped out of the gatehouse door, whilst the great, hollow-sounding gate still shook behind me. He said:
“If you hurries up you’ll see a bit of life.... Do you good. Condemned sermon. Being preached in the chapel now; sheriffs and all. They swing tomorrow—three of them. Quick with the stumps.â€
He hurried me over the desolate mossy-green cobbles of the great solitary yard into a square, tall, bare, whitewashed place. Already from the outside one caught a droning voice. There might have been three hundred people there, boxed off in pews, with turnkeys at each end. A vast king’s arms, a splash of red and blue gilt, sprawled above a two-tiered pulpit that was like the trunk of a large broken tree. The turnkey pulled my hat off, and nudged me into a box beside the door.
“Kneel down,†he whispered hoarsely.
I knelt. A man with a new wig was droning out words, waving his hands now and then from the top of the tall pulpit. Beneath him a smaller man in an old wig was dozing, his head bent forward. The place was dirty, and ill-lighted by the tall, grimy windows, heavily barred. A pair of candles flickered beside the preacher’s right arm....
“They that go down to the sea in ships, my poor brethren,†he droned, “lying under the shadow...â€
He directed his hands towards a tall deal box painted black, isolated in the centre of the lower floor. A man with a red head sat in it, his arms folded; another had his arms covering his head, which leant abjectly forward on the rail in front. There were large rusty gyves upon his wrists.
“But observe, my poor friends,†the chaplain droned on, “the psalmist saith, ‘At the last He shall bring them unto the desired haven.’ Now...â€
The turnkey whispered suddenly into my ear: “Them’s the condemned he’s preaching at, them in the black pew. See Roguey Cullen wink at the woman prisoners up there in the gallery.... Him with the red hair.... All swings to-morrow.â€
“After they have staggered and reeled to and fro, and been amazed... observe. After they have been tempted; even after they have fallen....â€
The sheriffs had their eyes decorously closed. The clerk reached up from below the preacher, and snuffed one of the candles. The preacher paused to rearrange his shining wig. Little clouds of powder flew out where he touched it. He struck his purple velvet cushion, and continued:
“At the last, I say, He shall bring them to the haven they had desired.â€
A jarring shriek rose out of the black pew, and an insensate jangling of irons rattled against the hollow wood. The ironed man, whose head had been hidden, was writhing in an epileptic fit. The governor began signalling to the jailers, and the whole dismal assembly rose to its feet, and craned to get a sight. The jailers began hurrying them out of the building. The redheaded man was crouching in the far corner of the black box.
The turnkey caught the end of my sleeve, and hurried me out of the door.
“Come away,†he said. “Come out of it.... Damn my good nature.â€
We went swiftly through the tall, gloomy, echoing stone passages. All the time there was the noise of the prisoners being marshalled somewhere into their distant yards and cells. We went across the bottom of a well, where the weeping December light struck ghastly down on to the stones, into a sort of rabbit-warren of black passages and descending staircases, a horror of cold, solitude, and night. Iron door after iron door clanged to behind us in the stony blackness. After an interminable traversing, the turnkey, still with his hand on my sleeve, jerked me into my familiar cell. I hadn’t thought to be glad to get back to that dim, frozen, damp-chilled little hole; with its hateful stone walls, stone ceiling, stone floor, stone bed-slab, and stone table; its rope mat, foul stable-blanket, its horrible sense of eternal burial, out of sound, out of sight under a mined mountain of black stones. It was so tiny that the turnkey, entering after me, seemed to be pressed close up to my chest, and so dark that I could not see the colour of the dirty hair that fell matted from the bald patch on the top of his skull; so familiar that I knew the feel of every little worming of rust on the iron candlestick. He wiped his face with a brown rag of handkerchief, and said:
“Curse me if ever I go into that place again.†After a time he added: “Unless ’tis a matter of duty.â€
I didn’t say anything; my nerves were still jangling to that shrieking, and to the clang of the iron doors that had closed behind me. I had an irresistible impulse to get hold of the iron candlestick and smash it home through the skull of the turnkey—as I had done to the men who had killed Seraphina’s father... to kill this man, then to creep along the black passages and murder man after man beside those iron doors until I got to the open air.
He began again. “You’d think we’d get used to it—you’d think we would—but ’tis a strain for us. You never knows what the prisoners will do at a scene like that there. It drives ’em mad. Look at this scar. Machell the forger done that for me, ’fore he was condemned, after a sermon like that—a quiet, gentlemanly man, much like you. Lord, yes, ’tis a strain....†He paused, still wiping his face, then went on: “AndI swear that when I sees them men sit there in that black pew, an’ hev heard the hammers going clack, clack on the scaffolding outside, and knew that they hadn’t no more chance than you have to get out of there...†He pointed his short thumb towards the handkerchief of an opening, where the little blurr of blue light wavered through the two iron frames crossed in the nine feet of well. “Lord, younevergets used to it. Youwantsthem to escape; ’tis in the air through the whole prison, even the debtors. I tells myself again and again, ‘You’re a fool for your pains.’ But it’s the same with the others—my mates. You can’t get it out of your mind. That little kid now. I’ve seen children swing; but that little kid—as sure to swing as what... as whatyouare....â€
“You think I am going to swing?†I asked.
I didn’t want to kill him any more; I wanted too much to hear him talk. I hadn’t heard anything for months and months of solitude, of darkness—on board the admiral’s ship, stranded in the guardship at Plymouth, bumping round the coast, and now here in Newgate. And it had been darkness all the time. Jove! That Cuban time, with its movements, its pettiness, its intrigue, its warmth, even its villainies showed plainly enough in the chill of that blackness. It had been romance, that life.
Little, and far away, and irrevocably done with, it showed all golden. There wasn’t any romance where I lay then; and there had been irons on my wrists; gruff hatred, the darkness, and always despair.
On board the flagship coming home I had been chained down in the cable-tier—a place where I could feel every straining of the great ship. Once these had risen to a pandemonium, a frightful tumult. There was a great gale outside. A sailor came down with a lanthorn, and tossed my biscuit to me.
“You d———d pirate,†he said, “maybe it’s you saving us from drowning.â€
“Is the gale very bad?†I had called.
He muttered—and the fact that he spoke to me at all showed how great the strain of the weather must have been to wring any words out of him:
“Bad—there’s a large Indiaman gone. We saw her one minute and then...†He went away, muttering.
And suddenly the thought had come to me. What if the Indiaman were theLion—theLionwith Seraphina on board? The man would not speak to me when he came again. No one would speak to me; I was a pirate who had fired on his own countrymen. And the thought had pursued me right into Newgate—if she were dead; if I had taken her from that security, from that peace, to end there.... And to end myself.
“Swing!†the turnkey said; “you’ll swing right enough.†He slapped the great key on his flabby hand. “You can tell that by the signs. You, being an Admiralty case, ought to have been in the Marshalsea. And you’re ordered solitary cell, and I’m tipped the straight wink against your speaking a blessed word to a blessed soul. Why don’t they let you see an attorney? Why? Because theymeanyou to swing.â€
I said, “Never mind that. Have you heard of a ship called theLion?Can you find out about her?â€
He shook his head cunningly, and did not answer. If theLionhad been here, I must have heard. They couldn’t have left me here.
I said, “For God’s sake find out. Get me a shipping gazette.â€
He affected not to hear.
“There’s money in plenty,†I said.
He winked ponderously and began again. “Oh, you’ll swing all right. A man with nothing against him has a chance; with the rhino he has it, even if he’s guilty. But you’llswing. Charlie, who brought you back just now, had a chat with the ’Torney-General’s devil’s clerk’s clerk, while old Nog o’ Bow Street was trying to read their Spanish. He says it’s a Gov’nment matter. They wants to hang you bad, they do, so’s to go to the Jacky Spaniards and say, ‘He were a nob, a nobby nob.’ (So you are, aren’t you? One uncle an earl and t’other a dean, if so be what they say’s true.) ‘He were a nobby nob and we swung ’im. Go you’n do likewise.’ They want a striking example t’ keep the West India trade quiet...†He wiped his forehead and moved my water jug of red earth on the dirty deal table under the window, for all the world like a host in front of a guest. “They means you to swing,†he said. “They’ve silenced the Thames Court reporters. Not a noospaper will publish a correct report t’morrer. And you haven’t see nobody, nor you won’t, not if I can help it.â€
He broke off and looked at me with an expression of candour.
“Mind you,†he said, “I’m not uffish. To ’n ornery gentleman—of the road or what you will—I’m not, if so be he’s the necessary. I’d take a letter like another. But for you, no—fear. Not that I’ve my knife into you. What I can do to make you comfor’ble I will do,bothnow an’ hereafter. But when I gets the wink, I looks after my skin. So’d any man. You don’t see nobody, nor you won’t; nor your nobby relations won’t have the word. Till the Hadmir’lty trile. Charlie says it’s unconstitutional, you ought to see your ’torney, if you’ve one, or your father’s got one. But Lor’, I says, ‘Charlie, if they wants it they gets it. This ain’t nohabeas carpis, give-the-man-a-chance case. It’s the Hadmir’lty. And not a man tried for piracy this thirty year. See what a show it gives them, what bloody Radicle knows or keeres what the perceedin’s should be? Who’s a-goin’ t’ make a question out of it? Go away,’ says I to Charlie. And that’s it straight.â€
He went towards the door, then turned.
“You should be in the Marshalsea common yard; even I knows that. But they’ve the wink there. ‘Too full,’ says they. Too full be d———d. I’ve know’d the time—after the Vansdell smash it were—when they found room for three hundred more improvident debtors over and above what they’re charted for. Too full! Their common yard! They don’t want you to speak to a soul, an’ you won’t till this day week, when the Hadmir’lty Session is in full swing.†He went out and locked the door, snorting, “Too full at the Marshalsea!... Go away!â€
“Find out about theLion,†I called, as the door closed.
It cleared the air for me, that speech. I understood that they wanted to hang me, and I wanted not to be hung, desperately, from that moment. I had not much cared before; I had—call it, moped. I had not really believed, really sensed it out. It isn’t easy to conceive that one is going to be hanged, I doubt if one does even with the rope round one’s neck. I hadn’t much wanted to live, but now I wanted to fight—one good fight before I went under for good and all, condemned or acquitted. There wasn’t anything left for me to live for, Seraphina could not be alive. TheLionmust have been lost.
But I was going to make a fight for it; curse it, I was going to give them trouble. My “them†was not so much the Government that meant to hang me as the unseen powers that suffered such a state of things, that allowed a number of little meannesses, accidents, fatalities, to hang me. I began to worry the turnkey. He gave me no help, only shreds of information that let me see more plainly than ever how set “they†were on sacrificing me to their exigencies.
The whole West Indian trade in London was in an uproar over the Pirate Question and over the Slave Question. Jamaica was still squealing for Separation before the premonitory grumbles of Abolition. Horton Pen, over there, came back with astonishing clearness before me. I seemed to hear old, wall-eyed, sandy-headed Macdonald, agitating his immense bulk of ill-fitting white clothes in front of his newspaper, and bellowing in his ox-voice:
“Abolition, they give us Abolition... or ram it down our throats.Theywho haven’t even the spunk to rid us o’ the d———d pirates, not the spunk to catch and hang one.... Jock, me lahd, we’s abolush them before they sail touch our neegurs.... Let them clear oor seas, let them hangonepirate, and then talk.â€
I was the one they were going to hang, to consolidate the bond with the old island. The cement wanted a little blood in the mixing. Damn them! I was going to make a fight; they had torn me from Seraphina, to fulfill their own accursed ends. I felt myself grow harsh and strong, as a tree feels itself grow gnarled by winter storms. I said to the turnkey again and again:
“Man, I will promise you a thousand pounds or a pension for life, if you will get a letter through to my mother or Squire Rooksby of Horton.â€
He said he daren’t do it; enough was known of him to hang him if he gave offence. His flabby fingers trembled, and his eyes grew large with successive shocks of cupidity. He became afraid of coming near me; of the strain of the temptation. On the next day he did not speak a word, nor the next, nor the next. I began to grow horribly afraid of being hung. The day before the trial arrived. Towards noon he flung the door open.
“Here’s paper, here’s pens,†he said. “You can prepare your defence. You may write letters. Oh, hell! why did not they let it come sooner, I’d have had your thousand pounds. I’ll run a letter down to your people fast as the devil could take it. I know a man, a gentleman of the road. For twenty pun promised, split between us, he’ll travel faster’n Turpin did to York.†He was waving a large sheet of newspaper agitatedly.
“What does it mean?†I asked. My head was whirling.
“Radical papers got a-holt of it,†he said. “Trust them for nosing out. And the Government’s answering them. They say you’re going to suffer for your crimes. Hark to this... um, um... ‘The wretched felon now in Newgate will incur the just penalty...’ Then they slaps the West Indies in the face. ‘When the planters threaten to recur to some other power for protection, they, of course, believe that the loss of the colonies would be severely felt. But...’â€
“TheLion’shome,†I said.
It burst upon me that she was—that she must be. Williams—or Sebright—he was the man, had been speaking up for me. Or Seraphina had been to the Spanish ambassador.
She was back; I should see her. I started up.
“TheLion’shome,†I repeated.
The turnkey snarled, “She was posted as overdue three days ago.â€
I couldn’t believe it was true.
“I saw it in the papers,†he grumbled on. “I dursn’t tell you.†He continued violently, “Blow my dickey. It would make a cat sick.â€
My sudden exaltation, my sudden despair, gave way to indifference.
“Oh, coming, coming!†he shouted, in answer to an immense bellowing cry that loomed down the passage without.
I heard him grumble, “Of course, of course. I shan’t make a penny.†Then he caught hold of my arm. “Here, come along, someone to see you in the press-yard.â€
He pulled me along the noisome, black warren of passages, slamming the inner door viciously behind him.
The press-yard—the exercising ground for the condemned—was empty; the last batch had gone out,mybatch would be the next to come in, the turnkey said suddenly. It was a well of a place, high black walls going up into the desolate, weeping sky, and quite tiny. At one end was a sort of slit in the wall, closed with tall, immense windows. From there a faint sort of rabbit’s squeak was going up through the immense roll and rumble of traffic on the other side of the wall. The turnkey pushed me towards it.
“Go on,†he said. “I’ll not listen; I ought to. But, curse me, I’m not a bad sort,†he added gloomily; “I dare say you’ll make it worth my while.â€
I went and peered through the bars at a faint object pressed against other bars in just another slit across a black passage.
“What, Jackie, boy; what, Jackie?†Blinking his eyes, as if the dim light were too strong for them, a thin, bent man stood there in a brilliant new court coat. His face was meagre in the extreme, the nose and cheekbones polished and transparent like a bigaroon cherry. A thin tuft of reddish hair was brushed back from his high, shining forehead. It was my father. He exclaimed:
“What, Jackie, boy! How old you look!†then waved his arm towards me. “In trouble?†he said. “You in trouble?â€
He rubbed his thin hands together, and looked round the place with a cultured man’s air of disgust. I said, “Father!†and he suddenly began to talk very fast and agitatedly of what he had been doing for me. My mother, he said, was crippled with rheumatism, and Rooksby and Veronica on the preceding Thursday had set sail for Jamaica. He had read to my mother, beside her bed, the newspaper containing an account of my case; and she had given him money, and he had started with violent haste for London. The haste and the rush were still dazing him. He had lived down there in the farmhouse beneath the downs, with the stackyards under his eyes, with his books of verse and his few prints on the wall———My God, how it all came back to me.
In his disjointed speeches, I could see how exactly the same it all remained. The same old surly man with a squint had driven him along the muddy roads in the same ancient gig, past the bare elms, to meet the coach. And my father had never been in London since he had walked the streets with the Prince Regent’s friends.
Whilst he talked to me there, lines of verse kept coming to his lips; and, after the habitual pleasure of the apt quotation, he felt acutely shocked at the inappropriateness of the place, the press-yard, with the dim light weeping downwards between immensely high walls, and the desultory snowflakes that dropped between us. And he had tried so hard, in his emergency, to be practical. When he had reached London, before even attempting to see me, he had run from minister to minister trying to influence them in my favour—and he reached me in Newgate with nothing at all effected.
I seemed to know him then, so intimately, so much better than anything else in the world.
He began, “I had my idea in the up-coach last night. I thought, ‘A very great personage was indebted to me in the old days (more indebted than you are aware of, Johnnie). I will intercede with him.’ That was why my first step was to my old tailor’s in Conduit Street. Because... what is fit for a farm for a palace were low.†He stopped, reflected, then said, “What is fit forthefarm forthepalace were low.â€
He felt across his coat for his breast pocket. It was what he had done years and years ago, and all these years between, inscribe ideas for lines of verse in his pocket-book. I said:
“You have seen the king?â€
His face lengthened a little. “Notseenhim. But I found one of the duke’s secretaries, a pleasant young fellow... not such as we used to be. But the duke was kind enough to interest himself. Perhaps my name has lived in the land. I was called Curricle Kemp, as I may have told you, because I drove a vermilion one with green and gilt wheels....â€
His face, peering at me through the bars, had, for a moment, a flush of pride. Then he suddenly remembered, and, as if to propitiate his own reproof, he went on:
“I saw the Secretary of State, and he assured me, very civilly, that not even the highest personage in the land....†He dropped his voice, “Jackie, boy,†he said, his narrow-lidded eyes peering miserably across at me, “there’s not even hope of a reprieve afterwards.â€
I leaned my face wearily against the iron bars. What, after all, was the use of fighting if theLionwere not back?
Then, suddenly, as the sound of his words echoed down the bare, black corridors, he seemed to realize the horror of it. His face grew absolutely white, he held his head erect, as if listening to a distant sound. And then he began to cry—horribly, and for a long time.
It was I that had to comfort him. His head had bowed at the conviction of his hopeless uselessness; all through his own life he had been made ineffectual by his indulgence in perfectly innocent, perfectly trivial enjoyments, and now, in this extremity of his only son, he was rendered almost fantastically of no avail.
“No, no, sir! You have done all that any one could; you couldn’t break these walls down. Nothing else would help.â€
Small, hopeless sobs shook him continually. His thin, delicate white fingers gripped the black grille, with the convulsive grasp of a very weak man. It was more distressing to me than anything I had ever seen or felt. The mere desire, the intense desire to comfort him, made me get a grip upon myself again. And I remembered that, now that I could communicate with the outer air, it was absolutely easy; he would save my life. I said:
“You have only to go to Clapham, sir.â€
And the moment I was in a state to command him, to direct him, to give him something to do, he became a changed man. He looked up and listened. I told him to go to Major Cowper’s. It would be easy enough to find him at Clapham. Cowper, I remembered, could testify to my having been seized by Tomas Castro. He had seen me fight on the decks. And what was more, he would certainly know the addresses of Kingston planters, if any were in London. They could testify that I had been in Jamaica all the while Nikola el Escoces was in Rio Medio. I knew there were some. My father was fidgeting to be gone. He had his name marked for him, and a will directing his own. He was not the same man. But I particularly told him to send me a lawyer first of all.
“Yes, yes!†he said, fidgeting to go, “to Major Cowper’s. Let me write his address.â€
“And a solicitor,†I said. “Send him to me on your way there.â€
“Yes, yes,†he said, “I shall be able to be of use to the solicitor. As a rule, they are men of no great perspicacity.â€
And he went hurriedly away.
The real torture, the agony of suspense began then. I steadied my nerves by trying to draw up notes for my speech to the jury on the morrow. That was the turnkey’s idea.
He said, “Slap your chest, ’peal to the honour of a British gent, and pitch it in strong.â€
It was not much good; I could not keep to any logical sequence of thought, my mind was forever wandering to what my father was doing. I pictured him in his new blue coat, running agitatedly through crowded streets, his coat-tails flying behind his thin legs. The hours dragged on, and it was a matter of minutes. I had to hold upon the table edge to keep myself from raging about the cell. I tried to bury myself again in the scheme for my defence. I wondered whom my father would have found. There was a man called Cary who had gone home from Kingston. He had a bald head and blue eyes; he must remember me. If he would corroborate! And the lawyer, when he came, might take another line of defence. It began to fall dusk slowly, through the small barred windows.
The entire night passed without a word from my father. I paced up and down the whole time, composing speeches to the jury. And then the day broke. I calmed myself with a sort of frantic energy.
Early the jailer came in, and began fussing about my cell.
“Case comes on about one,†he said. “Grand jury at half after twelve. No fear they won’t return a true bill. Grand jury, five West India merchants. They means to have you. ’Torney-General, S’lic’tor-General. S’r Robert Mead, and five juniors agin you... You take my tip. Throw yourself on the mercy of the court, and make a rousing speech with a young ’ooman in it. Not that you’ll get much mercy from them. They Admir’lty jedges is all hangers. ’S we say, ‘Oncet the anchor goes up in the Old Bailey, there ain’t no hope. We begins to clean out the c’ndemned cell, here. Sticks the anchor up over their heads, when it is Hadmir’lty case,’†he commented.
I listened to him with strained attention. I made up my mind to miss not a word uttered that day. It was my only chance.
“You don’t know any one from Jamaica?†I asked.
He shook his bullet head, and tapped his purple nose. “Can’t be done,†he said. “You’d get a ornery hallybi fer a guinea a head, but they’d keep out of this case. They’ve necks like you and me.â€
Whilst he was speaking, the whole of the outer world, as far as it affected me, came suddenly in upon me—that was what I meant to the great city that lay all round, the world, in the centre of which was my cell. To the great mass, I was matter for a sensation; to them I might prove myself beneficial in this business. Perhaps there were others who were thinking I might be useful in one way or another. There were the ministers of the Crown, who did not care much whether Jamaica separated or not. But they wanted to hang me because they would be able to say disdainfully to the planters, “Separate if you like; we’ve done our duty, we’ve hanged a man.â€
All those people had their eyes on me, and they were about the only ones who knew of my existence. That was the end of my Romance! Romance! The broadsheet sellers would see to it afterwards with a “Dying confession.â€
I never saw my father again until I was in the prisoner’s anteroom at the Old Bailey. It was full of lounging men, whose fleshy limbs bulged out against the tight, loud checks of their coats and trousers. These were jailers waiting to bring in their prisoners. On the other side of one black door the Grand Jury was deliberating on my case, behind another the court was in waiting to try me. I was in a sort of tired lull. All night I had been pacing up and down, trying to bring my brain to think of points—points in my defence. It was very difficult. I knew that I must keep cool, be calm, be lucid, be convincing; and my brain had reeled at times, even in the darkness of the cell. I knew it had reeled, because I remembered that once I had fallen against the stone of one of the walls, and once against the door. Here, in the light, with only a door between myself and the last scene, I regained my hold. I was going to fight every inch from start to finish. I was going to let no chink of their armour go untried. I was going to make a good fight. My teeth chattered like castanets, jarring in my jaws until it was painful. But that was only with the cold.
A hubbub of expostulation was going on at the third door. My turnkey called suddenly:
“Let the genman in, Charlie. Pal o’ ourn,†and my father ran huntedly into the room. He began an endless tale of a hackney coachman who had stood in front of the door of his coach to prevent his number being taken; of a crowd of caddee-smashers, who had hustled him and filched his purse. “Of course, I made a fight for it,†he said, “a damn good fight, considering. It’s in the blood. But the watch came, and, in short—on such an occasion as this there is no time for words—I passed the night in the watch-house. Many and many a night I passed there when I and Lord———But I am losing time.â€
“You ain’t fit to walk the streets of London alone, sir,†the turnkey said.
My father gave him a corner of his narrow-lidded eyes. “My man,†he said, “I walked the streets with the highest in the land before your mother bore you in Bridewell, or whatever jail it was.â€
“Oh, no offence,†the turnkey muttered.
I said, “Did you find Cowper, sir? Will he give evidence?â€
“Jackie,†he said agitatedly, as if he were afraid of offending me, “he said you had filched his wife’s rings.â€
That, in fact, was what Major Cowperhadsaid—that I had dropped into their ship near Port Royal Heads, and had afterwards gone away with the pirates who had filched his wife’s rings. My father, in his indignation, had not even deigned to ask him for the address of Jamaica planters in London; and on his way back to find a solicitor he had come into contact with those street rowdies and the watch. He had only just come from before the magistrates.
A man with one eye poked his head suddenly from behind the Grand Jury door. He jerked his head in my direction.
“True bill against that ’ere,†he said, then drew his head in again.
“Jackie, boy,†my father said, putting a thin hand on my wrist, and gazing imploringly into my eyes, “I’m... I’m ... I can’t tell you how....â€
I said, “It doesn’t matter, father.†I felt a foretaste of how my past would rise up to crush me. Cowper had let that wife of his coerce him into swearing my life away. I remembered vividly his blubbering protestations of friendship when I persuaded Tomas Castro to return him his black deed-box with the brass handle, on that deck littered with rubbish.... “Oh, God bless you, God bless you. You have saved me from starvation....†There had been tears in his old blue eyes. “If you need it I will go anywhere... do anything to help you. On the honour of a gentleman and a soldier.†I had, of course, recommended his wife to give up her rings when the pirates were threatening her in the cabin. The other door opened, another man said:
“Now, then, in with that carrion. D’you want to keep the judges waiting?â€
I stepped through the door straight down into the dock; there was a row of spikes in the front of it. I wasn’t afraid; three men in enormous wigs and ermine robes faced me; four in short wigs had their heads together like parrots on a branch. A fat man, bareheaded, with a gilt chain round his neck, slipped from behind into a seat beside the highest placed judge. He was wiping his mouth and munching with his jaws. On each side of the judges, beyond the short-wigged assessors, were chairs full of ladies and gentlemen. They all had their eyes upon me. I saw it all very plainly. I was going to see everything, to keep my eyes open, not to let any chance escape. I wondered why a young girl with blue eyes and pink cheeks tittered and shrugged her shoulders. I did not know what was amusing. What astonished me was the smallness, the dirt, the want of dignity of the room itself. I thought they must be trying a case of my importance there by mistake.
Presently I noticed a great gilt anchor above the judges’ heads. I wondered why it was there, until I remembered it was an Admiralty Court. I thought suddenly, “Ah! if I had thought to tell my father to go and see if theLionhad come in in the night!â€
A man was bawling out a number of names.... “Peter Plimley, gent., any challenge.... Lazarus Cohen, merchant, any challenge....â€
The turnkey beside me leant with his back against the spikes. He was talking to the man who had called us in.
“Lazarus Cohen, West Indian merchant.... Lord, well, I’d challenge....â€
The other man said, “S—sh.â€
“His old dad give me five shiners to put him up to a thing if I could,†the turnkey said again.
I didn’t catch his meaning until an old man with a very ragged gown was handing up a book to a row of others in a box so near that I could almost have touched them. Then I realized that the turnkey had been winking to me to challenge the jury. I called out at the highest of the judges:
“I protest against that jury. It is packed. Half of them, at least, are West Indian merchants.â€
There was a stir all over the court. I realized then that what had seemed only a mass of stuffs of some sort were human beings all looking at me. The judge I had called to opened a pair of dim eyes upon me, clasped and unclasped his hands, very dry, ancient, wrinkled. The judge on his right called angrily:
“Nonsense, it is too late.... They are being sworn. You should have spoken when the names were read.†Underneath his wig was an immensely broad face with glaring yellow eyes.
I said, “It is scandalous. You want to murder me, How should I know what you do in your courts? I say the jury is packed.â€
The very old judge closed his eyes, opened them again, then gasped out:
“Silence. We are here to try you. This is a court of law.â€
The turnkey pulled my sleeve under cover of the planking. “Treat him civil,†he whispered, “Lord Justice Stowell of the Hadmir’lty. ’Tother’s Baron Garrow of the Common Law; a beast; him as hanged that kid. You can sass him; it doesn’t matter.â€
Lord Stowell waved his hand to the clerk with the ragged gown; the book passed from hand to hand along the faces of the jury, the clerk gabbling all the while. The old judge said suddenly, in an astonishingly deep, majestic voice:
“Prisoner at the bar, you must understand that we are here to give you an impartial trial according to the laws of this land. If you desire advice as to the procedure of this court you can have it.â€
I said, “I still protest against that Jury. I am an innocent man, and———â€
He answered querulously, “Yes, yes, afterwards.†And then creaked, “Now the indictment....â€
Someone hidden from me by three barristers began to read in a loud voice not very easy to follow. I caught:
“For that the said John Kemp, alias Nichols, alias Nikola el Escoces, alias el Demonio, alias el Diabletto, on the twelfth of May last, did feloniously and upon the high seas piratically seize a certain ship called theVictoria... um... um, the properties of Hyman Cohen and others... and did steal and take therefrom six hundred and thirty barrels of coffee of the value of... um... um... um... one hundred and one barrels of coffee of the value of... ninety-four half kegs... and divers others...â€
I gave an immense sigh.... That was it, then. I had heard of theVictoria; it was when I was at Horton that the news of her loss reached us. Old Macdonald had sworn; it was the day a negro called Apollo had taken to the bush. I ought to be able to prove that. Afterwards, one of the judges asked me if I pleaded guilty or not guilty. I began a long wrangle about being John Kemp but not Nikola el Escoces. I was going to fight every inch of the way. They said:
“You will have your say afterwards. At present, guilty or not guilty?â€
I refused to plead at all; I was not the man. The third judge woke up, and said hurriedly:
“That is a plea of not guilty, enter it as such.†Then he went to sleep again. The young girl on the bench beside him laughed joyously, and Mr. Baron Garrow nodded round at her, then snapped viciously at me:
“You don’t make your case any better by this sort of foolery.†His eyes glared at me like an awakened owl’s.
I said, “I’m fighting for my neck... and you’ll have to fight, too, to get it.â€
The old judge said angrily, “Silence, or you will have to be removed.â€
I said, “I am fighting for my life.â€
There was a sort of buzz all round the court.
Lord Stowell said, “Yes, yes;†and then, “Now, Mr. King’s Advocate, I suppose Mr. Alfonso Jervis opens for you.â€
A dusty wig swam up from just below my left hand, almost to a level with the dock.
The old judge shut his eyes, with an air of a man whoisgoing a long journey in a post-chaise. Mr. Baron Garrow dipped his pen into an invisible ink-pot, and scratched it on his desk. A long story began to drone from under the wig, an interminable farrago of dull nonsense, in a hypochondriacal voice; a long tale about piracy in general; piracy in the times of the Greeks, piracy in the times of William the Conqueror...pirata nequissima Eustachio, and thanking God that a case of the sort had not been heard in that court for an immense lapse of years. Below me was an array of wigs, on each side a compressed mass of humanity, squeezed so tight that all the eyeballs seemed to be starting out of the heads towards me. From the wig below, a translation of the florid phrases of the Spanish papers was coming:
“His very Catholic Majesty, out of his great love for his ancient friend and ally, his Britannic Majesty, did surrender the body of the notorious El Demonio, called also...â€
I began to wonder who had composed that precious document, whether it was theJuez de la Primera Instancia, bending his yellow face and sloe-black eyes above the paper, over there in Havana—or whether it was O’Brien, who was dead since the writing.
All the while the barrister was droning on. I did not listen because I had heard all that before—in the room of the Judge of the First Instance at Havana. Suddenly appearing behind the backs of the row of gentlefolk on the bench was the pale, thin face of my father. I wondered which of his great friends had got him his seat. He was nodding to me and smiling faintly. I nodded, too, and smiled back. I was going to show them that I was not cowed. The voice of the barrister said:
“M’luds and gentlemen of the jury, that finishes the Spanish evidence, which was taken on commission on the island of Cuba. We shall produce the officer of H. M. S. Elephant, to whom he was surrendered by the Spanish authorities at Havana, thus proving the prisoner to be the pirate Nikola, and no other. We come, now, to the specific instance, m’luds and gentlemen, an instance as vile...â€
It was some little time before I had grasped how absolutely the Spanish evidence damned me. It was as if, once I fell into the hands of the English officer on Havana quays, the identity of Nikola could by no manner of means be shaken from round my neck. The barrister came to the facts.
A Kingston ship had been boarded... and there was the old story over again. I seemed to see the Rio Medio schooner rushing towards where I and old Cowper and old Lumsden looked back from the poop to see her come alongside; the strings of brown pirates pour in empty-handed, and out laden. Only in the case of theVictoriathere were added the ferocities of “the prisoner at the bar, m’luds and gentlemen of the jury, a fiend in human shape, as we shall prove with the aid of the most respectable witnesses....â€
The man in the wig sat down, and, before I understood what was happening, a fat, rosy man—the Attorney-General—whose cheerful gills gave him a grotesque resemblance to a sucking pig, was calling “Edward Sadler,†and the name blared like sudden fire leaping up all over the court. The Attorney-General wagged his gown into a kind of bunch behind his hips, and a man, young, fair, with a reddish beard and a shiny suit of clothes, sprang into a little box facing the jury. He bowed nervously in several directions, and laughed gently; then he looked at me and scowled. The Attorney-General cleared his throat pleasantly...
“Mr. Edward Sadler, you were, on May 25th, chief mate of the good shipVictoria....â€
The fair man with the beard told his story, the old story of the ship with its cargo of coffee and dye-wood; its good passage past the Gran Caymanos; the becalming off the Cuban shore in latitude so and so, and the boarding of a black schooner, calling itself a Mexican privateer. I could see all that.
“The prisoner at the bar came alongside in a boat, with seventeen Spaniards,†he said, in a clear, expressionless voice, looking me full in the face.
I called out to the old judge, “My Lord... I protest. This is perjury. I was not the man. It Was Nichols, a Nova Scotian.â€
Mr. Baron Garrow roared, “Silence,†his face suffused with blood.
Old Lord Stowell quavered, “You must respect the procedure....â€
“Am I to hear my life sworn away without a word?†I asked.
He drew himself frostily into his robes. “God forbid,†he said; “but at the proper time you can cross-examine, if you think fit.â€
The Attorney-General smiled at the jury-box and addressed himself to Sadler, with an air of patience very much tried:
“You swear the prisoner is the man?â€
The fair man turned his sharp eyes upon me. I called, “For God’s sake, don’t perjure yourself. You are a decent man.â€
“No, I won’t swear,†he said slowly. “I think he was. He had his face blacked then, of course. When I had sight of him at the Thames Court I thought he was; and seeing the Spanish evidence, I don’t see where’s the room....â€
“The Spanish evidence is part of the plot,†I said.
The Attorney-General snickered. “Go on, Mr. Sadler,†he said. “Let’s have the rest of the plot unfolded.â€
A juryman laughed suddenly, and resumed an abashed sudden silence. Sadler went on to tell the old story.... I saw it all as he spoke; only gaunt, shiny-faced, yellow Nichols was chewing and hitching his trousers in place of my Tomas, with his sanguine oaths and jerked gestures. And there was Nichol’s wanton, aimless ferocity.
“He had two pistols, which he fired twice each, while we were hoisting the studding-sails by his order, to keep up with the schooner. He fired twice into the crew. One of the men hit died afterwards....â€
Later, another vessel, an American, had appeared in the offing, and the pirates had gone in chase of her. He finished, and Lord Stowell moved one of his ancient hands. It was as if a gray lizard had moved on his desk, a little toward me.
“Now, prisoner,†he said.
I drew a deep breath. I thought for a minute that, after all, there was a little fair play in the game—that I had a decent, fair, blue-eyed man in front of me. He looked hard at me; I hard at him; it was as if we were going to wrestle for a belt. The young girl on the bench had her lips parted and leant forward, her head a little on one side.
I said, “You won’t swear I was the man... Nikola el Escoces?â€
He looked meditatively into my eyes; it was a duel between us.
“I won’t swear,†he said. “You had your face blacked, and didn’t wear a beard.â€
A soft growth of hair had come out over my cheeks whilst I lay in prison. I rubbed my hand against it, and thought that he had drawn first blood.
“You must not say ‘you,’†I said. “I swear I was not the man. Did he talk like me?â€
“Can’t say that he did,†Sadler answered, moving from one foot to the other.
“Had he got eyes like me, or a nose, or a mouth?â€
“Can’t say,†he answered again. “His face was blacked.â€
“Didn’t he talk Blue Nose—in the Nova Scotian way?â€
“Well, he did,†Sadler assented slowly. “But any one could for a disguise. It’s as easy as...â€
Beside me, the turnkey whispered suddenly, “Pull him up; stop his mouth.â€
I said, “Wasn’t he an older man? Didn’t he look between forty and fifty?â€
“What doyoulook like?†the chief mate asked.
“I’m twenty-four,†I answered; “I can prove it.â€
“Well, you look forty and older,†he answered negligently. “So did he.â€
His cool, disinterested manner overwhelmed me like the blow of an immense wave; it proved so absolutely that I had parted with all semblance of youth. It was something added to the immense waste of waters between myself and Seraphina; an immense waste of years. I did not ask much of the next witness; Sadler had made me afraid. Septimus Hearn, the master of theVictoria, was a man with eyes as blue and as cold as bits of round blue pebble; a little goat’s beard, iron-gray; apple-coloured cheeks, and small gold earrings in his ears. He had an extraordinarily mournful voice, and a retrospective melancholy of manner. He was just such another master of a trader as Captain Lumsden had been, and it was the same story over again, with little different touches, the hard blue eyes gazing far over the top of my head; the gnarled hands moving restlessly on the rim of his hat.
“Afterwards the prisoner ordered the steward to give us a drink of brandy. A glass was offered me, but I refused to drink it, and he said, ‘Who is it that refuses to drink a glass of brandy?’ He asked me what countryman I was, and if I was an American.â€
There were two others from the unfortunateVictoria—a Thomas Davis, boatswain, who had had one of Nikola’s pistol-balls in his hip; and a sort of steward—I have forgotten his name—who had a scar of a cutlass wound on his forehead.
It was horrible enough; but what distressed me more was that I could not see what sort of impression I was making. Once the judge who was generally asleep woke up and began to scratch furiously with his quill; once three of the assessors—the men in short wigs—began an animated conversation; one man with a thin, dark face laughed noiselessly, showing teeth like a white waterfall. A man in the body of the court on my left had an enormous swelling, blood-red, and looking as if a touch must burst it, under his chin; at one time he winked his eyes furiously for a long time on end. It seemed to me that something in the evidence must be affecting all these people. The turnkey beside me said to his mate, “Twig old Justice Best making notes in his stud-calendar,†and suddenly the conviction forced itself upon me that the whole thing, the long weary trial, the evidence, the parade of fairness, was being gone through in a spirit of mockery, as a mere formality; that the judges and the assessors, and the man with the goitre took no interest whatever in my case. It was a foregone conclusion.
A tiny, fair man, with pale hair oiled and rather long for those days, and with green and red signet rings on fingers that he was forever running through that hair, came mincingly into the witness-box. He held for a long time what seemed to be an amiable conversation with Sir Robert Gifford, a tall, portentous-looking man, who had black beetling brows, like tufts of black horsehair sticking in the crannies of a cliff. The conversation went like this:
“You are the Hon. Thomas Oldham?â€
“Yes, yes.â€
“You know Kingston, Jamaica, very well?â€
“I was there four years—two as the secretary to the cabinet of his Grace the Duke of Manchester, two as civil secretary to the admiral on the station.â€
“You saw the prisoner?â€
“Yes, three times.â€
I drew an immense breath; I thought for a moment that they had delivered themselves into my hands. The thing must prove of itself that I had been in Jamaica, not in Rio Medio, through those two years. My heart began to thump like a great solemn drum, like Paul’s bell when the king died—solemn, insistent, dominating everything. The little man was giving an account of the “’bawminable†state of confusion into which the island’s trade was thrown by the misdeeds of a pirate called Nikola el Demonio.
“I assure you, my luds,†he squeaked, turning suddenly to the judges, “the island was wrought up into a pitch of... ah... almost disloyalty. The... ah... planters were clamouring for... ah... separation. And, to be sure, I trust you’ll hang the prisoner, for if you don’t...â€
Lord Stowell shivered, and said suddenly with haste, “Mr. Oldham, address yourself to Sir Robert.â€
I was almost happy; the cloven hoof had peeped so damningly out. The little man bowed briskly to the old judge, asked for a chair, sat himself down, and arranged his coat-tails.
“As I was saying,†he prattled on, “the trouble and the worry that this man caused to His Grace, myself, and Admiral Rowley were inconceivable. You have no idea, you... ah... can’t conceive. And no wonder, for, as it turned out, the island was simply honeycombed by his spies and agents. You have no idea; people who seemed most respectable, people we ourselves had dealings with...â€
He rattled on at immense length, the barrister taking huge pinches of yellow snuff, and smiling genially with the air of a horse-trainer watching a pony go faultlessly through difficult tricks. Every now and then he flicked his whip.
“Mr. Oldham, you saw the prisoner three times. If it does not overtax your memory pray tell us.†And the little creature pranced off in a new direction.
“Tax my memory! Gad, I like that. You remember a man who has had your blood as near as could be, don’t you?â€
I had been looking at him eagerly, but my interest faded away now. It was going to be the old confusing of my identity with Nikola’s. And yet I seemed to know the little beggar’s falsetto; it was a voice one does not forget.
“Remember!†he squeaked. “Gad, gentlemen of the jury, he came as near as possible———You have no idea what a ferocious devil it is.â€
I was wondering why on earth Nichols should have wanted to kill such a little thing. Because it was obvious that it must have been Nichols.
“As near as possible murdered myself and Admiral Rowley and a Mr. Topnambo, a most enlightened and loyal... ah... inhabitant of the island, on the steps of a public inn.â€
I had it then. It was the little man David Mac-donald had rolled down the steps with, that night at the Ferry Inn on the Spanish Town road.
“He was lying in wait for us with a gang of assassins. I was stabbed on the upper lip. I lost so much blood... had to be invalided... cannot think of horrible episode without shuddering.â€
He had seen me then, and when Ramon (“a Spaniard who was afterwards proved to be a spy of El Demonio’s—of the prisoner’s. He was hung sinceâ€) had driven me from the place of execution after the hanging of the seven pirates; and he had come into Ramon’s store at the moment when Carlos (“a piratical devil if ever there was one,†the little man protested) had drawn me into the back room, where Don Balthasar and O’Brien and Seraphina sat waiting. The men who were employed to watch Ramon’s had never seen me leave again, and afterwards a secret tunnel was discovered leading down to the quay.
“This, apparently, was the way by which the prisoner used to arrive and quit the island secretly,†he finished his evidence in chief, and the beetle-browed, portly barrister sat down. I was not so stupid but what I could see a little, even then, how the most innocent events of my past were going to rise up and crush me; but I was certain I could twist him into admitting the goodness of my tale which hadn’t yet been told. He knew I had been in Jamaica, and, put what construction he liked on it, he would have to admit it. I called out:
“Thank God, my turn’s come at last!â€
The faces of the Attorney-General, the King’s Advocate, Sir Robert Gifford, Mr. Lawes, Mr. Jervis, of all the seven counsel that were arrayed to crush me, lengthened into simultaneous grins, varying at the jury-box. But I didn’t care; I grinned, too. I was going to show them.
It was as if I flew at the throat of that little man. It seemed to me that I must be able to crush a creature whose malice was as obvious and as nugatory as the green and red rings that he exhibited in his hair every few minutes. He wanted to show the jury that he had rings; that he was a mincing swell; that I hadn’t and that I was a bloody pirate. I said:
“You know that during the whole two years Nichols was at Rio I was an improver at Horton Pen with the Macdonalds, the agents of my brother-in-law, Sir Ralph Rooksby. You must know these things. You were one of the Duke of Manchester’s spies.â€
We used to call the Duke’s privy council that. “I certainly know nothing of the sort,†he said, folding his hands along the edge of the witness-box, as if he had just thought of exhibiting his rings in that manner. He was abominably cool. I said:
“You must have heard of me. The Topnambos knew me.â€
“The Topnambos used to talk of a blackguard with a name like Kemp who kept himself mighty out of the way in the Vale.â€
“You knew I was on the island,†I pinned him down.
“You used tocometo the island,†he corrected. “I’ve just explained how. But you were not there much, or we should have been able to lay hands on you. We wanted to. There was a warrant out after you tried to murder us. But you had been smuggled away by Ramon.â€
I tried again:
“You have heard of my brother-in-law, Sir Ralph Rooksby?â€
I wanted to show that, if I hadn’t rings, I had relations.
“Nevah heard of the man in my life,†he said.
“He was the largest land proprietor on the island,†I said.
“Dessay,†he said; “I knew forty of the largest. Mostly sharpers in the boosing-kens.†He yawned.
I said viciously:
“It was your place to know the island. You knew Horton Pen—the Macdonalds?â€
The face of jolly old Mrs. Mac. came to my mind—the impeccable, Scotch, sober respectability.
“Oh, I knew the Macdonalds,†he said—“ofthem. The uncle was a damn rebellious, canting, planting Scotchman. Horton Pen was the centre of the Separation Movement. We could have hunghimif we’d wanted to. The nephew was the writer of an odious blackmailing print. He calumniated all the decent, loyal inhabitants. He was an agent of you pirates, too. We arrested him—got his papers; know all about your relations with him.â€
I said, “That’s all nonsense. Let us hearâ€â€”the Attorney-General had always said that—“what you know of myself.â€
“What I know of you,†he sniffed, “if it’s a pleasuah, was something like this. You came to the island in a mysterious way, gave out that you were an earl’s son, and tried to get into the very excellent society of... ah... people like my friends, the Topnambos. But they would not have you, and after that you kept yourself mighty close; no one ever saw you but once or twice, and then it was riding about at night with that humpbacked scoundrel of a blackmailer.
“You, in fact, weren’t on the island at all, except when you came to spy for the pirates. You used to have long confabulations with that scoundrel Ramon, who kept you posted about the shipping. As for the blackmailer, with the humpback, David Macdonald, you kept him, you... ah... subsidized his filthy print to foment mutiny and murder among the black fellows, and preach separation. You wanted to tie our hands, and prevent our... ah... prosecuting the preventive measures against you. When you found that it was no good you tried to murder the admiral and myself, and that very excellent man Topnambo, coming from a ball. After that you were seen encouraging seven of your... ah... pirate fellows whom we were hanging, and you drove off in haste with your agent, Ramon, before we could lay hands on you, and vanished from the island.â€
I didn’t lose my grip; I went at him again, blindly, as if I were boxing with my eyes full of blood, but my teeth set tight. I said:
“You used to buy things yourself of old Ramon; bought them for the admiral to load his frigates with; things he sold at Key West.â€
“That was one of the lies your scoundrel David Macdonald circulated against us.â€
“You bought things... even whilst you were having his store watched.â€
“Upon my soul!†he said.
“You used to buy things....†I pinned him. He looked suddenly at the King’s Advocate, then dropped his eyes.
“Nevah bought a thing in my life,†he said.
I knew the man had; Ramon had told me of his buying for the admiral more than three hundred barrels of damaged coffee for thirty pounds. I was in a mad temper. I smashed my hand upon the spikes of the rail in front of me, and although I saw hands move impulsively towards me all over the court, I did not know that my arm was impaled and the blood running down.
“Perjurer,†I shouted, “Ramon himself told me.â€
“Ah, you were mighty thick with Ramon...†he said.
I let him stand down. I was done. Someone below said harshly, “That closes our case, m’luds,†and the court rustled all over. Old Lord Stowell in front of me shivered a little, looked at the window, and then said:
“Prisoner at the bar, our procedure has it that if you wish to say anything, you may now address the jury. Afterwards, if you had a counsel, he could call and examine your witnesses, if you have any.â€
It was growing very dark in the court. I began to tell my story; it was so plain, so evident, it shimmered there before me... and yet I knew it was so useless.
I remembered that in my cell I had reasoned out that I must be very constrained; very lucid about the opening. “On such and such a day I landed at Kingston, to become an improver on the estate of my brother-in-law. He is Sir Ralph Rooksby of Horton Priory in Kent.†Ididkeep cool; Iwaslucid; I spoke like that. I had my eyes fixed on the face of the young girl upon the bench. I remember it so well. Her eyes were fixed, fascinated, upon my hand. I tried to move it, and found that it was stuck upon the spike on which I had jammed it. I moved it carelessly away, and only felt a little pain, as if from a pin-prick; but the blood was dripping on to the floor, pat, pat. Later on, a man lit the candles on the judge’s desk, and the court looked different. There were deep shadows everywhere; and the illuminated face of Lord Stowell looked grimmer, less kind, more ancient, more impossible to bring a ray of sympathy to. Down below, the barristers of the prosecution leaned back with their arms all folded, and the air of men resting in an interval of cutting down a large tree. The barristers who were, merely listeners looked at me from time to time. I heard one say, “That man ought to have his hand bound up.†I was telling the story of my life, that was all I could do.
“As for Ramon, how could I know he was in the pay of the pirates, even if he were? I swear I did not know. Everyone on the island had dealings with him, the admiral himself. That is not calumny. On my honour, the admiral did have dealings. Some of you have had dealings with forgers, but that does not make you forgers.â€
I warmed to it; I found words. I was telling the story for that young girl. Suddenly I saw the white face of my father peep at me between the head of an old man with an enormous nose, and a stout lady in a brown cloak that had a number of little watchmen’s capes. He smiled suddenly, and nodded again and again, opened his eyes, shut them; furtively waved a hand. It distracted me, threw me off my balance, my coolness was gone. It was as if something had snapped. After that I remembered very little; I think I may have quoted “The Prisoner of Chillon,†because he put it into my head.
I seemed to be back again in Cuba. Down below me the barristers were talking. The King’s Advocate pulled out a puce-coloured bandanna, and waved it abroad preparatorily to blowing his nose. A cloud of the perfume of a West Indian bean went up from it, sweet and warm. I had smelt it last at Rio, the sensation was so strong that I could not tell where I was.
The candles made a yellow glow on the judge’s desk; but it seemed to be the blaze of light in the cell where Nichols and the Cuban had fenced. I thought I was back in Cuba again. The people in the court disappeared in the deepening shadows. At times I could not speak. Then I would begin again.
If there were to be any possibility of saving my life, I had to tell what I had been through—and to tell it vividly—I had to narrate the story of my life; and my whole life came into my mind. It was Seraphina who was the essence of my life; who spoke with the voice of all Cuba, of all Spain, of all Romance. I began to talk about old Don Balthasar Riego. I began to talk about Manuel-del-Popolo, of his red shirt, his black eyes, his mandolin; I saw again the light of his fires flicker on the other side of the ravine in front of the cave.
And I rammed all that into my story, the story I was telling to that young girl. I knew very well that I was carrying my audience with me; I knew how to do it, I had it in the blood. The old pale, faded, narrow-lidded father who was blinking and nodding at me had been one of the best raconteurs that ever was. I knew how. In the black shadows of the wall of the court I could feel the eyes upon me; I could see the parted lips of the young girl as she leaned further towards me. I knew it because, when one of the barristers below raised his voice, someone hissed “S—sh†from the shadows. And suddenly it came into my head, that even if I did save my life by talking about these things, it would be absolutely useless. I could never go back again; never be the boy again; never hear the true voice of the Ever Faithful Island. What did it matter even if I escaped; even if I could go back? The sea would be there, the sky, the silent dim hills, the listless surge; butIshould never be there, I should be altered for good and all. I should never see the breathless dawn in the pondwater of Havana harbour, never be there with Seraphina close beside me in the littledrogher. All that remained was to see this fight through, and then have done with fighting. I remember the intense bitterness of that feeling and the oddity of it all; of the one “I†that felt like that, of the other that was raving in front of a lot of open-eyed idiots, three old judges, and a young girl. And, in a queer way, the thoughts of the one “I†floated through into the words of the other, that seemed to be waving its hands in its final struggle, a little way in front of me.