XIII
The waiting guards laid hold of us in a twinkling, and others camecrowding the doors. They shackled our hands behind us, and coveredour eyes again. Dark misgivings of what was to come filled me, butI bore all in silence. They shoved us roughly out of doors, andthere I could tell they were up to no child's play. A loud jeerburst from the mouths of many as we came staggering out. I couldhear the voices of a crowd. They hurried us into a carriage.
"We demand the prisoners!" a man shouted near me.
Then I could hear them scuffling with the guards, who, I doubt not,were doing their best to hold them back. In a moment I knew themob had possession of us and the soldiers were being hustled away.D'ri sat shoulder to shoulder with me. I could feel his musclestighten; I could hear the cracking of his joints and the grindingof the shackle-chain. "Judas Pr-r-i-e-st!" he grunted, strainingat the iron. Two men leaped into the carriage. There was a crackof the whip, and the horses went off bounding. We could hearhorsemen all about us and wagons following. I had a stout heart inme those days, but in all my life I had never taken a ride solittle to my liking. We went over rough roads, up hill and down,for an hour or more.
I could see in prospect no better destination than our graves, and,indeed, I was not far wrong. Well, by and by we came to a townsomewhere--God knows where. I have never seen it, or known thename of it, or even that of the prison where we were first immured.I could tell it was a town by the rumble of the wheels and eachechoing hoof-beat. The cavalcade was all about us, and now andthen we could hear the sound of voices far behind. The processionslowed up, horsemen jammed to the left of us, the carriage halted.I could hear footsteps on a stone pavement.
"You're late," said a low voice at the carriage door. "It's neareleven."
"Lot o' fooling with the candidates," said one of the horsemen,quietly. "Everything ready?"
"Everything ready," was the answer.
The carriage door swung open.
"We get out here," said one of the men who sat with us.
I alighted. On each side of me somebody put his hand to myshoulder. I could see the glow of a lantern-light close to myface. I knew there was a crowd of men around, but I could hearnothing save now and then a whisper.
"Wall, Ray," said D'ri, who stood by my side, "hol' stiddy 'n'don't be scairt."
"Do as they tell ye," a stranger whispered in my ear. "No matterwhat 't is, do as they tell ye."
They led us into a long passage and up a steep flight of woodenstairs. I have learned since then it was a building equipped by awell-known secret society for its initiations.[1] We went onthrough a narrow hall and up a winding night that seemed to meinterminable. Above it, as we stopped, the man who was leading merapped thrice upon a rattling wooden door. It broke the silencewith a loud echoing noise. I could hear then the sliding of apanel and a faint whispering and the sound of many feet ascendingthe stairs below. The door swung open presently, and we were ledin where I could see no sign of any light. They took me aloneacross a wide bare floor, where they set me down upon some sort ofplatform and left me, as I thought. Then I could hear thewhispered challenge at the door and one after another entering andcrossing the bare floor on tiptoe. Hundreds were coming in, itseemed to me. Suddenly a deep silence fell in that dark place ofevil. The blindfold went whisking off my head as if a ghostly handhad taken it. But all around me was the darkness of the pit. Icould see and I could hear nothing but a faint whisper, high aboveme, like that of pine boughs moving softly in a light breeze. Icould feel the air upon my face. I thought I must have been movedout of doors by some magic. It seemed as if I were sitting undertrees alone. Out of the black silence an icy hand fell suddenlyupon my brow. I flinched, feeling it move slowly downward over myshoulder. I could hear no breathing, no rustle of garments nearme. In that dead silence I got a feeling that the hand touching mehad no body behind it. I was beyond the reach of fear--I was in away prepared for anything but the deep, heart-shaking horror thatsank under the cold, damp touch of those fingers. They laid holdof my elbow firmly, lifting as if to indicate that I was to rise.I did so, moving forward passively as it drew me on. To myastonishment I was unable to hear my own footfall or that of myconductor. I thought we were walking upon soft earth. Crossingour path in front of me I could see, in the darkness, a gleamingline. We moved slowly, standing still as our toes covered it.Then suddenly a light flashed from before and below us. A coldsweat came out upon me; I staggered back to strong hands that werelaid upon my shoulders, forcing me to the line again. By thatflash of light I could see that I was standing on the very brink ofsome black abyss--indeed, my toes had crossed the edge of it. Thelight came again, flickering and then settling into a steady glow.The opening seemed to have a grassy bottom some ten feet below. Infront of me the soil bristled, on that lower level, with some blackand pointed plant: there was at least a score of them. As Ilooked, I saw they were not plants, but a square of bayonetsthrust, points up, in the ground. A curse came out of my hotmouth, and then a dozen voices mocked it, going fainter, like adying echo. I heard a whisper in my ear. A tall figure in awinding-sheet, its face covered, was leaning over me.
"To hesitate is to die," it whispered. "Courage may save you."
Then a skeleton hand came out of the winding-sheet, pointing downat the square of bristling bayonets. The figure put its mouth tomy ear.
"Jump!" it whispered, and the bare bones of the dead fingersstirred impatiently.
Some seconds of a brief silence followed. I could hear them slowlydripping out of eternity in the tick of a watch near me. I feltthe stare of many eyes invisible to me. A broad beam of brightlight shot through the gloom, resting full upon my face. I startedback upon the strong hands behind me. Then I felt my musclestighten as I began to measure the fall and to wonder if I couldclear the bayonets. I had no doubt I was to die shortly, and itmattered not to me how, bound as I was, so that it came soon. Fora breath of silence my soul went up to the feet of God for help andhope. Then I bent my knees and leaped, I saw much as my body wentrushing through the air--an empty grave its heap of earth besideit, an island of light, walled with candles, in a sea of gloom,faces showing dimly in the edge of the darkness, "Thank God! Ishall clear the bayonets," I thought, and struck heavily upon asoft mat, covered over with green turf, a little beyond thatbristling bed. I staggered backward, falling upon it. To mysurprise, it bent beneath me. They were no bayonets, but onlyshells of painted paper. I got to my feet none the worse forjumping, and as dumfounded as ever a man could be. I stood on alot of broken turf with which a wide floor had been overlaid.Boards and timbers were cut away, and the grave dug beneath them.I saw one face among others in the gloom beyond the candlerows--that of his Lordship. He was coming up a little flight ofstairs to where I stood. He moved the candles, making a smallpassage, and came up to me.
"You're a brave man," said he, in that low, careless tone of his.
"And you a coward," was my answer, for the sight of him had made meburn with anger.
"Don't commit yourself on a point like that," said he, quickly,"for, you know, we are not well acquainted. I like your pluck, andI offer you what is given to few here--an explanation."
He paused, lighting a cigarette. I stood looking at him. The coldpoliteness of manner with which he had taken my taunt, his perfectself-mastery, filled me with wonder. He was no callow youth, thatman, whoever he might be. He was boring at the floor with the endof a limber cane as he continued to address me.
"Now, look here," he went on, with a little gesture of his lefthand, between the fingers of which a cigarette was burning. "Youare now in the temple of a patriotic society acting with no letterspatent, but in the good cause of his Most Excellent Majesty KingGeorge III, to whom be health and happiness."
As he spoke the name he raised his hat, and a cheer came from allsides of us.
"It is gathered this night," he continued, "to avenge the death ofLord Ronley, a friend of his Majesty, and
of many here present, andan honored member of this order. For his death you, and you alone,are responsible, and, we suspect, under circumstances of no creditto your sword. Many of our people have been cut off from theircomrades and slain by cowardly stealth, have been led into ambushand cruelly cut to pieces by an overwhelming number, have been shutin prison and done to death by starvation or by stabs of a knifethere in your country. Not content with the weapons of a soldier,you have even resorted to the barbarity of the poison-wasp. Pardonme, but you Yankees do not seem to have any mercy or fairness for afoe. We shall give you better treatment. You shall not be killedlike a rat in a trap. You shall have a chance for your life. Hadyou halted, had you been a coward, you would not have been worthyto fight in this arena. You would not have come where you arestanding, and possibly even now your grave would have been filled.If you survive the ordeal that is to come, I hope it will prove anexample to you of the honor that is due to bravery, of the fairnessdue a foe."
Many voices spoke the word "Amen" as he stopped, turning to beckoninto the gloom about us. I was now quite over my confusion. Ibegan to look about me and get my bearings. I could hear a stir inthe crowd beyond the lights, and a murmur of voices. Reflectinglanterns from many pillars near by shot their rays upon me. Istood on a platform, some thirty feet square, in the middle of alarge room. Its floor was on a level with the faces of the manywho stood pressing to the row of lights, Here, I took it, I was tofight for my life, I was looking at the yawning grave in the cornerof this arena, when four men ascended with swords and pistols. Oneof them removed the shackles, letting my hands free. I thanked himas he tossed them aside. I was thinking of D'ri, and, shading myeyes, looked off in the gloom to see if I could discover him. Icalled his name, but heard no answer. His Lordship came over tome, bringing a new sword. He held the glittering blade before me,its hilt in his right hand, its point resting on the fingers of hisleft. "It's good," said he, quietly; "try it."
It was a beautiful weapon, its guard and pommel and quillonssparkling with wrought-silver, its grip of yellow leather lacedwith blue silk. The glow and the feel of it filled me with a joy Ihad not known since my father gave me the sword of my childhood.It drove the despair out of me, and I was a new man. I tried theblade, its point upon my toe. It was good metal, and the gripfitted me.
"Well, how do you find it?" said he, impatiently.
"I am satisfied," was my reply.
He helped me take off my blouse and waistcoat, and then I rolled mysleeves to the elbow. The hum of voices had grown louder. I couldhear men offering to bet and others bantering for odds.
"We'll know soon," said a voice near me, "whether he could havekilled Ronley in a fair fight."
I turned to look at those few in the arena. There were half adozen of them now, surrounding my adversary, a man taller than therest, with a heavy neck and brawny arms and shoulders. He had comeout of the crowd unobserved by me. He also was stripped to theshirt, and had rolled up his sleeves, and was trying the steel. Hehad a red, bristling mustache and overhanging brows and a vulgarface--not that of a man who settles his quarrel with the sword. Ijudged a club or a dagger would have been better suited to hisgenius. But, among fighters, it is easy to be fooled by a face.In a moment the others had gone save his Lordship and that portlybald-headed man I had heard him rebuke as "Sir Charles." Myadversary met me at the centre of the arena, where we shook hands.I could see, or thought I could, that he was entering upon abusiness new to him, for there was in his manner an indication ofunsteady nerves.
"Gentlemen, are you ready?" said his Lordship.
But there are reasons why the story of what came after should benone of my telling. I leave it to other and better eyes that werenot looking between flashes of steel, as mine were. And then onehas never a fair view of his own fights.
[1] The intrepid Fitzgibbon, the most daring leader on the Canadianfrontier those days, told me long afterward that he knew thebuilding--a tall frame structure on the high shore of a tributaryof the St. Lawrence. It was built on a side of the bluff and usedoriginally as a depot for corn, oats, rye, and potatoes, that camedown the river in bateaux. The slide was a slanting box throughwhich the sacks of grain were conveyed to sloops and schoonersbelow. It did not pay and was soon abandoned, whereupon it wasrented by the secret order referred to above. The slide bottom wascoated with lard and used for the hazing of candidates. A prizefight on the platform was generally a feature of the entertainment.A man was severely injured in a leap on the bayonets, after whichthat feature of the initiation was said to have been abandoned.