by M. P. Shiel
XVI
THE ROPE
Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching atColmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his smallbony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light ofeyes.
Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurredto the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another "graft":from quarrying was set to trenching.
Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; thesea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched andquarried.
And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates.
One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, sawthat Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.
"What, Fred, not giving in?" He went quickly and pressed his palm onBates' brow, saying: "Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slipinto it!"
"Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man".
"So am I."
"Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, sixmonths; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touchesthe nerve, don't it? Ah!"
"And how did you expect to be out?"
"I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment wasordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning afterthe missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--toa stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear togive a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, andto nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look forso-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--"
"But I don't understand a word of what you are saying", interruptedHogarth.
"I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on myhand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here,you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowedup by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walkinghome through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm overafter you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to seeanywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'apiece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'llput a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'.Well--I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' thepay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer thatafternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying ofher--dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardlygone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we wasjust like--well--two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin'drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here'sBlack--"
They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.
Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, ofwhich one paragraph was as follows: "The fifteen pounds which you leftin Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority ofyour aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth", and at once he scented a cypher, havingno fifteen pounds, and no aunt.
When he had unravelled it as before, he had: "Why you failed?Expect--Balloon--Rope".
He was astounded: and could only conclude that O'Hara had not deliveredhis message.
And as the image of O'Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of thecopse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon.
It was partly through _his_ evidence that Bates was here...!
On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed hisstory:
"You know Seely's, the general shop, at Priddlestone", said he; "it wasthere we always did our Wednesday-night marketin'--nobody would believewhat high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great Easternblokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart of four-aledown us, let alone what we'd had before, and, as the saying is, oneglass leads to another. By now we was feeling just nicely, thank you,and instead of going to Seely's, we took a short cut to 'The Broom', andit was going on for past eleven when we found ourselves in--you know thebeechwood between Priddlestone and Thring--she singing all the time withher head thrown back, at the top of her voice.
"Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as ifthe whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with streamers,I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a whishin' and arushin' among the trees, like steam--and I saw my Kit drop smack. In twoticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I staggered sideways uponmy left hand, and I let such a _yell_ out of me--had put my hand uponsomething flamin' hot.
"The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and Idropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was quitetwo hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the affairwhat struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the firstthing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. 'This should mean a coolthou', says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested first thing inthe morning, except I told plain out what had happened: and that, youbet, I didn't mean to do, for if once I mentioned that there piece ofiron before I had it safe off the lord-o'-the-manor's land, I knew it'ud be taken from me. But to take it off before another day or two wasout of the question--it was too hot. So says I to myself: 'I'll _get_convicted; and to-night I'll write a letter to Bob, telling him whereto find the affair, how to get the thou, and _after_ he's got it, how toset about gettin' the case retried '.
"Well, so said, so done. You know that old elm in the beech-wood? I duga grave at the foot of it, and managed to kick and roll the affair intothe grave, then I took up my Kit, carried her home, and by the time Ipegged out the letter to Bob, I saw day breakin'. So I made paces forBeccles, knocked up old Harris, and gave him the letter for Bob. Byeight o'clock I was arrested--"
At this point the 5.15 recall-bell rang out, and there was falling intoline.
The next time that they had speech together, Hogarth said: "And were yousuch a clown, Fred Bates, as to imperil your life for a paltry thousandpounds?"
"_Paltry_ thousand pounds?" answered Bates, surprised: "Hark at this!Didn't I peril my life ten times more in Egypt for a bob a day? I tellyou I was certain in my own mind of getting out in a few weeks!"
"Well, what happened to prevent you?"
"Only this: Bob died on the troop-ship coming home; that's all".
"But you could write old Harris to open your letter to Bob, and act onit, or else hand it over to your father".
"My word, but haven't I wrote? Old 'Arris is either dead and buried, orgorn away, or somethin'. I've waited a year and nine months--good God!and no answer yet".
"Poor Fred! I could weep blood for you. Believe in God!"
"More Devil than God about Colmoor, it strikes me".
"As though _you_ knew! Suppose I strike you blind--_now_--with a flashof Him?"
"I don't take your meaning, sir", said Bates, with a strange heart-boundand sense of awe.
"Do you remember 33 of the quarry-gang, Fred?"
"Yes".
Hogarth whispered: "It was _I_ who got him off".
Bates whitened to the lips. "I--I thought as much".
"There is yet another chance, which _you_, if you like, may take".
Bates saw heaven opening; but with this vague hope was left two days.
On the third, Hogarth explained what he assumed to be the new plan ofLoveday.
"I take it", he said, "that he will pass over the moor in a balloontrailing a rope, which will have a loop to be slipped under the arms. Itell you, there are dangers in this scheme: you may be shot. Are you fortrying it?"
"Trying it, aye", said Bates, with fifty times the boldness of O'Hara.
And now began for these two a painfulness of waiting days, the sleep ofboth, meanwhile, being one nightmare of confused affrights, balloons anddeliriums.
Ten times they re-discussed every possibility of the scheme, Hogarthgiving messages for Loveday, heaping counsels upon B
ates. Nothingremained to be said, and still the days passed over the time-wornhearts, till a month went by.
At last something was observed in the sky--afar to the N.W.--in theafternoon turn, about two o'clock, a mist on the moor, but the skyalmost cloudless.
Whereupon Hogarth, who first saw the object, stepped, as if lookingfor something, close to Bates, hissing: "_Goodbye!_ Keep cool--choosewell--"
Bates shovelled on steadily, as though this was a day like others; buttwice his knees gave and bent beneath him; and there was a twitching ofthe livid under-lip, piteous to see.
It drew nearer, that silent needle, while Bates worked, delving,barrowing, making little trips; plenty of time; and no one noted his lipwhich pulled and twitched.
Without visible motion it came, wafted on the breaths of high heaven:half an hour--and still it was remote, fifteen hundred feet up. Batesand Hogarth peered to see a rope, but could none.
After fifty minutes it was actually over the moor, all now conscious ofit; but the rope was indistinguishable from the air.
Yet it was there, walking the ground, at its end a horizontalstaff....Hogarth, with wiser forethought than Loveday's, had predicted,not a staff, but a loop.
It passed twenty yards from the quarry, Loveday no doubt imagining thatHogarth still worked there; but the quarry was some hundred and fiftyyards from the trench.
Its course, nevertheless was toward the trench: and on walkeddeliberately the fluctuating rope, the staff now travelling the gorseyground, now bounding like a kangaroo yards high, to come down once moreyonder.
A moment came when Hogarth, with intense hiss, was whispering tohimself: "If I were he, I should dash _now_".
But Fred Bates did not move.
Hogarth suffered agonies not less excruciating than the rack.
"Oh, whyever does he wait?" he groaned.
But now--all suddenly--it was known, it was felt, deep in five hundredecstatic hearts, that a convict was gone--a man overboard--a soul in theagony--battling between life and death.
Like tempests the whistles split the air.
Where is he? Who is he? What mother bare him? It is 57! And he is_there!_--on high--caught, to the skies.
The tumbling of four ballast bags from the balloon was marked: theballoon darted high, wildly high; and with her, seated on the bar, thecord between his thighs, darted high Fred Bates.
Exultant! the five hundred faces wax fire-eyed, each heart a flame ofmadness. But yonder is Warder Black taking trembling, yet careful, aim:now the report is echoing from the two Tors, the granite-works; andthat smoke no sooner thins than a whole volley of crackling musketry iswinging toward that dot under the clouds.
And it was hideous--pitiful--the quailing heart waited and was still tosee the dot dissever itself from its rod: he had been hit: was in themiddle of the vast and vacant air: and wheeling he came.
A shockingly protracted interval did that fall fill up: the fivehundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not,breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. Wouldit _never_ end, that somersault? Wheeling he came.
In reality it occupied much less than a minute: and now he is no moreethereal, but has grown, is grossly near, attended by the raving windsof his travelling: is arrived. And the thump of his coming was heard. Ashe touched the earth he jerked out circular....
Here was a tragedy remembered many a year at Colmoor, and always withfeelings of the deepest awe.
