The Collected Western Classics & Adventures Novels. William MacLeod RaineЧитать онлайн книгу.
of a grim smile on his face. I noticed with relief that Craven had disappeared from sight.
My relief was temporary. When I turned to leave I found my limbs clogged with impedimenta. To each arm hung a bailiff, and a third clung like a leech to my legs. Some paces distant Sir James Craven stood hulloing them to the sport with malign pleasure.
“To it, fustian breeches! Yoho, yoho! There’s ten guineas in it for each of you and two hundred for me. ’Slife, down with him, you red-haired fellow! Throw him hard. Ecod, I’ll teach you to be rough with Craven, my cockerel Montagu!” And the bully kicked me twice where I lay.
They dragged me to my feet, and Craven began to sharpen his dull wit on me.
“Two hundred guineas I get out of this, you cursed rebel highwayman, besides the pleasure of seeing you wear hemp—and that’s worth a hundred more, sink my soul to hell if it isn’t.”
“Your soul is sunk there long ago, and this blackguard job sends you one circle lower in the Inferno, Catchpoll Craven,” said a sneering voice behind him.
Craven swung on his heel in a fury, but Volney’s easy manner—and perhaps the reputation of his small sword too—damped the mettle of his courage. He drew back with a curse, whispered a word into the ear of the nearest bailiff, and shouldered his way into the crowd, from the midst of which he watched us with a sneer.
“And what mad folly, may I ask, brought you back to London a-courting the gallows?” inquired Volney of me.
“Haven’t you heard that Malcolm Macleod is taken?” I asked.
“And did you come to exchange places with him? On my soul you’re madder than I thought. Couldn’t you trust me to see that my future brother-in-law comes to no harm without ramming your own head down the lion’s throat? Faith, I think Craven has the right of it: the hempen noose is yawning for such fools as you.”
The bailiffs took me to the New Prison and thrust me into an underground cell about the walls of which moisture hung in beads. Like the rest of the prisoners I was heavily ironed by day and fastened down to the floor by a staple at night. One hour in the day we were suffered to go into the yard for exercise and to be inspected and commented upon by the great number of visitors who were allowed access to the prison. On the second day of my arrival I stood blinking in the strong sunlight, having just come up from my dark cell, when two prisoners shuffled across the open to me, their fetters dragging on the ground. Conceive my great joy at finding Creagh and Donald Roy fellow inmates of New Prison with me. Indeed Captain Roy occupied the very next cell to mine.
I shall not weary you with any account of our captivity except to state that the long confinement in my foul cell sapped my health. I fell victim to agues and fevers. Day by day I grew worse until I began to think that ’twas a race between disease and the gallows. Came at last my trial, and prison attendants haled me away to the courts. Poor Leath, white to the lips, was being hustled out of the room just as I entered.
“By Heaven, Montagu, these whigs treat us like dogs,” he cried passionately to me. “They are not content with our lives, but must heap foul names and infamy upon us.”
The guards hurried us apart before I could answer. I asked one of them what the verdict had been in Leath’s case, and the fellow with an evil laugh made a horrid gesture with his hands that confirmed my worst fears.
In the court room I found a frowning judge, a smug-faced yawning jury, and row upon row of eager curious spectators come to see the show. Besides these there were some half-score of my friends attending in the vain hope of lending me countenance. My shifting glance fell on Charles, Cloe, and Aileen, all three with faces like the corpse for colour and despairing eyes which spoke of a hopeless misery. They had fought desperately for my life, but they knew I was doomed. I smiled sadly on them, then turned to shake hands with George Selwyn.
He hoped, in his gentle drawl, that I would win clear. My face lit up at his kindly interest. I was like a drowning man clutching at straws. Even the good-will of a turnkey was of value to me.
“Thanks, Selwyn,” I said, a little brokenly. “I’m afraid there’s no chance for me, but it’s good hearing that you are on my side.”
He appeared embarrassed at my eagerness. Not quite good form he thought it, I dare say. His next words damped the glow at my heart.
“’Gad, yes! Of course. I ought to be; bet five ponies with Craven that you would cheat the gallows yet. He gave me odds of three to one, and I thought it a pretty good risk.”
It occurred to me fantastically that he was looking me over with the eye of an underwriter who has insured at a heavy premium a rotten hulk bound for stormy seas. I laughed bitterly.
“You may win yet,” I said. “This cursed prison fever is eating me up;” and with that I turned my back on him.
I do not intend to go into my trial with any particularity. From first to last I had no chance and everybody in the room understood it. There were a dozen witnesses to prove that I had been in the thick of the rebellion. Among the rest was Volney, in a vile temper at being called on to give testimony. He was one of your reluctant witnesses, showed a decided acrimony toward the prosecution, and had to have the facts drawn out of him as with a forceps. Such a witness, of high social standing and evidently anxious to shield me, was worth to the State more than all the other paltry witnesses combined. The jury voted guilty without leaving the court-room, after which the judge donned his black cap and pronounced the horrible judgment which was the doom of traitors. I was gash with fear, but I looked him in the face and took it smilingly. It was Volney who led the murmur of approval which greeted my audacity, a murmur which broke frankly into applause when Aileen, white to the lips, came fearlessly up to bid me be of good cheer, that she would save me yet if the importunity of a woman would avail aught.
Wearily the days dragged themselves into weeks, and still no word of hope came to cheer me. There was, however, one incident that gave me much pleasure. On the afternoon before the day set for our execution Donald Roy made his escape. Some one had given him a file and he had been tinkering at his irons for days. We were in the yard for our period of exercise, and half a dozen of us, pretending to be in earnest conversation together, surrounded him while he snapped the irons. Some days before this time he had asked permission to wear the English dress, and he now coolly sauntered out of the prison with some of the visitors quite unnoticed by the guard.
The morning dawned on which nine of us were to be executed. Our coffee was served to us in the room off the yard, and we drank it in silence. I noticed gladly that Macdonald was not with us, and from that argued that he had not been recaptured.
“Here’s wishing him a safe escape from the country,” said Creagh.
“Lucky dog!” murmured Leath, “I hope they won’t nail him again.”
Brandy was served. Creagh named the toast and we drank it standing.
“King James!”
The governor of the prison bustled in just as the broken glasses shivered behind us.
“Now gentlemen, if you are quite ready.”
Three sledges waited for us in the yard to draw us to the gallows tree. There was no cowardly feeling, but perhaps a little dilatoriness in getting into the first sledge. Five minutes might bring a reprieve for any of us, and to be in the first sledge might mean the difference between life and death.
“Come, gentlemen! If you please! Let us have no more halting,” said the governor, irritably.
Creagh laughed hardily and vaulted into the sledge. “Egad, you’re right! We’ll try a little haltering for a change.”
Morgan followed him, and I took the third place.
A rider dismounted at the prison gate.
“Is there any news for me?” asked one poor fellow eagerly.
“Yes, the sheriff has just come and is waiting for you,” jeered one of the guards with brutal frankness.
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