Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, and may I follow fearlessly. But, if in an evil mind I be unwilling, still must I follow.

—Epictetus.

But honest men's words are Stygian oaths, and promises inviolable.

—Sir Thomas Browne.

George Sauls was enjoying himself in Newgate. Not that he had either fallen foul of the law, or been seized with the prevailing fashionable craze that made the old prison a sensational sight for fine ladies and gentlemen just then. He was playing cards in the infirmary, where the political prisoners, whom justice treated tenderly and with great respect of person, were making as merry as circumstances and the easy politeness of the governor allowed. That official's own servants waited on them, and the governor himself had taken a hand at whist.

It was Sunday, and George wondered lazily whether Barnabas Thorpe was preaching on eternal flames to those "unfortunate devils" who had been sentenced to death during the preceding week. He wondered a good deal about his enemy, finding it a puzzle, perhaps, to piece together the preacher's actions, so as to make them form one consistent whole of hypocrisy. George very naturally preferred to believe the man thoroughly bad; it "simplified matters," as old Mr. Russelthorpe had remarked to him years before. But he was not in the habit of letting himself be hoodwinked by a personal feeling, even in this case; and his reason gave him some trouble.

He wondered how Barnabas would look when the diamonds were produced; and, in spite of himself, failed when he tried to picture shame or guilt on the preacher's face. He was to have a chance of satisfying his curiosity sooner than he expected.

That particular Sunday was marked by an attempted escape, which caused some amusement to the governor and the prison officials, and the end of which George witnessed.

One of the prisoners belonging to the middle yard had mysteriously disappeared—vanished into thin air, as it seemed; not from the yard, which would have been comparatively comprehensible, but from the inside of the ward itself.

The governor threw down his cards and proceeded to the ward, Mr. Sauls and another guest accompanying him. The turnkey explained eagerly how utterly impossible it was for any one not gifted with the power of sliding through keyholes to get out of the room, and yet how equally impossible it was to find a hiding-place in it.

The governor stood stroking his beard, and looking at ceiling, floor and walls consecutively, till suddenly an idea struck him, and he gave the order to pile up wood as high as possible, and light a big fire—with brilliant results.

The refugee bore being smoked so long that the circle round the fire, which was blazing merrily, began to think their quarry was not there; but down he came at last, falling so heavily that they were only just in time to prevent his being badly burnt.

The chimneys had just been grated at the top, but he had nearly filed through the grating, when the smoke, blinding and suffocating him, had loosened his hold, and brought him to earth, giddy and bruised and half unconscious, amid a roar of laughter.

The joke was of a rather brutal order possibly, and entirely one-sided; but the man's blackened face and cut hands appealed to a sense of humour which was coarser then than it is in these "softer" days; and even the governor smiled.

Only one man, one of the prisoners, remarked: "Jack is more nor a little hurt; there ain't no need for that" (as they brought out handcuffs). "He'll no' be able to try again anyway. Eh, take care! his back's injured and that arm's broke."

"He is right. The fellow has fainted," said the governor, bending down to examine him. Every one else was pressing round the sooty figure on the floor; but George turned at the sound of the voice raised on Jack's behalf, and his eyes met the preacher's.

He saw, more clearly than on the Saturday in court, how grey and worn and bowed Barnabas was. A sort of exasperation came over George. It had always made him angry, that, used as he was to rogues, this man's direct glance impressed him against his will. He had not come to Newgate to triumph over the preacher; for all his bitter words, George would hardly have descended to that; but, as they stood face to face, the honesty, he read in spite of himself, acted on him like a challenge. This man had no right to look so good!

"I've found the locket!" George Sauls said suddenly, in a tone so low that, in the general hubbub, only Barnabas heard him; at the same time he watched narrowly to see whether the mask would drop, even for a second. He had meant to startle, and he had succeeded so far; Barnabas started visibly, and was first intensely surprised, then glad.

That Timothy must have confessed was his first thought; then it occurred to him that Mr. Sauls would hardly have been the bringer of good news; and he looked at him searchingly.

George resented the keen, grave question in those blue eyes, that had overawed and compelled so many a culprit to confession. He was not going to be overawed. "They were found where, I conclude, you put them," he said drily, answering the inquiry that had not been put into words. "In the lining of your grey cloth cap. No doubt you had excellent reasons for hiding them there, which you will explain to-morrow." And, for a second, he saw in the preacher's face that sudden blaze of passion that he had seen once before, when he had told him that "no doubt it was convenient to turn the other cheek".

It died away almost immediately, and Barnabas said sternly, with that accent of undoubting certainty that was his especial characteristic:—

"When you say I put them there, you lie; but, if you've found them there, that's evidence against me that I'll never be able to disprove. I'll not explain."

It was the same tone as that which had said, "I'll not fight with ye"; and George felt, as he had felt before, when, under the spell of Barnabas Thorpe's fanatical earnestness, he had half believed him honest.

"That, of course, is as you choose," he said. "I've given you fair warning. Not that I told you in order to do that."

"No," said Barnabas, with the sharp instinctive intuition of motive, that combined curiously with the direct simplicity of his own character, and was sometimes somewhat disconcerting. "Ye told me because ye wanted to see how I'd take it, sir. I take it that it means I'll be convicted," he added quietly. And George felt momentarily ashamed.

"You've 'taken it' very well," he said. "You're no coward. I'd give something to know, out of pure curiosity, what you are. It is the judge's business, not mine; but—as man to man—did you do it?"

He laughed at himself, even while he asked the question; it was a foolish one enough; but the preacher made no protestations.

"Do you believe I did?" said he. "Ay—I see you do half believe it. Then I've done ye a wrong; I thought ye didn't. There's been a deal between us, and, happen, not much to choose from, i' the way o' hating. It's the judge's business, as ye say. To his own master a man stands or falls. It's to Him I'll answer."

And George turned away. Barnabas was too proud to protest his innocence to his enemy. If he would condescend to exonerate himself before no judge but One—so be it.

The conversation had been short. It had lasted a bare three minutes. It is odd how much of hope and fear and passion can be crowded into three minutes!

The blazing fire the governor had ordered flung flickering lights over the faces of the men gathered round Hopping Jack, whose slight, usually agile form lay still enough now.

It is an ill wind that blows no good; and, this bitter day, the fire was comfortable.

Some one had thrown water on Jack, which, trickling over his face, left livid streaks and channels through the soot.

Dr. Merrill's red head was bent over him. "He's very seriously hurt; his back's broken," he said, as he knelt in the middle of the circle. Jack opened his one eye, and said, "Am I dying?"

The governor muttered that it was deucedly awkward. How was he to know that the fellow would fall like that? And no one laughed any more; the joke had ceased to be funny.

"Come here, Thorpe," said the doctor. "You can help." And the preacher, who had also heard a death warrant, came and knelt by the man's side.

"Ay—I thought as much!" he said. "He's about done for." And the gentlemen went away rather silently.

"That big grey-haired chap with the very blue eyes is the one you want to see hang, isn't he?" said the governor, when they got outside. "I saw you watching him while he was helping the doctor."

"I was admiring the steadiness of his hand," said George. "I own mine might have shaken a little in the circumstances."

It was very dark. A black fog wrapt the city in gloom, and the cheerless cold was intense. Barnabas Thorpe sat on the floor in a corner of the ward, with Jack's head resting against him.

The preacher had seen Death often enough in one guise or another. He believed him to be coming close,—not only to the poor soul he, Barnabas, was doing his best to support, but to himself.

Now he knew what his presentiment had meant; his horror of London was justified.

He sat facing the situation, with his lips set hard. He had always held his life lightly, and had risked it oftener than most men; but, all the same, he had a good healthy love of it, and would have liked to fight hard for it; and the disgrace touched him. The Thorpes had always held their heads high. Poor Tom!—and Margaret! A short sharp sound broke from his lips at that last thought. Could he let Margaret go?

"I say, do you think I'll cheat the hangman?" said Jack.

"I do," said Barnabas. "Do you want some water? How dark it is!"

He could hardly see Jack's face. The man was sinking fast, and the preacher was glad of it! For once, he had no desire to cure. Better that the poor fellow should die in comparative peace here, than watched by a mob outside; and on the gallows. After all, a man can die but once! He held the cup to Jack's lips; lifted him as tenderly as a woman might have, then laid him down again.

After all, a man can only die once! Yes,—and he can live on earth only once, to hold the woman he has chosen in his arms, and to win the sweetness of her love.

In heaven he might, maybe, hear the songs of the just made perfect; but, sinful man that he was, surely his heart would still ache through all their celestial music for what he had never heard,—the sound of his name on her lips with the accent of earthly love in it! Ah, and he had never once so much as kissed her!

His life was worth more than that crime-stained idiot's. If he betrayed him for Margaret's sake! For Margaret's sake! the words shamed him.

If he sinned for her, then he would give the lie to all his life. He would prove his enemy right; he would surely show that it had been for selfish desire, not for the saving of her fair soul, that he had taken her. For Margaret's sake! how durst the devil tempt him with her name?

"Good Lord, deliver me!" he cried. But it seemed to him that the very bitterness of death was upon him. To let her go! before ever he had won her! never more to have part or lot in anything that might befall her!

He had trusted in his God, and his God had mocked him; filling his heart with this unsatisfied love. Other men got their desires and——

"Preacher, shall you preach to-day in the yard?" said Jack.

"No; I've no call to preach to-day. I can't," said Barnabas.

Perhaps he had never had a call; perhaps everything was a mistake from beginning to end. If so, then indeed he had been a fool; he might, at least, have eaten and drunk, for to-morrow——

"Then you won't leave me," said Jack. "I say, I can't feel anything below my waist, ain't that queer? The governor did me a good turn; for I hadn't much chance of getting clear off, anyhow, even if there 'adn't been them cursed gratings; and now I've cheated them." And he laughed weakly. "I'd like you to stick close by me at the end; but don't preach too much, 'cos I mean to die game. I meant to do that anyhow. If it 'adn't been for you, I'd have finished myself; but I owed you one. How cold it is!"

Barnabas slipped off his jersey to wrap round the man. He knew well enough that no amount of warm clothing would affect that creeping cold; but, at least, it was a way of expressing human sympathy.

Then the fight in his own soul went on again. The preacher's face looked grey in the darkness—the darkness was dark enough.

Was it all a mistake? The waters were going over him.

"I wish you'd light a match. There's one hidden under the rug," said Jack; "and put it between your teeth and lift me a bit; I want to see you."

"That 'ull do ye no good," said Barnabas; but he did as he was asked. The match flickered up between the dying man's face and his own; the loneliness that pressed on his soul, as the thick darkness on his eyeballs, seemed momentarily lightened; then the flame went out.

"Thank 'ee—that will do," said Jack. "It makes a man feel queer to know he's going out, and lonesome like."

"Are you in much pain?" asked Barnabas; he had grown fond of Hopping Jack.

"No; it's the first time it's held off me for weeks," he said. "I say, preacher—I ain't going to whine about my sins, they're past praying for; but I wish I hadn't gone in for that work in the yard when we set on you. When one's always got a kind of grinding pain going on inside one, it kind of drives one to play the fool badly. Dr. Merrill says it's something with a queer name that begins with a 'K' was the matter with me, and it sarved me right. I wish he'd got it! Preaching always riled me, and that day it was bad, and you looked so strong. It were partly that that aggravated me."

"I see. I was very strong," said the preacher, a good deal touched by this odd confession. "Happen it made ye envious. Never mind, Jack, that's past."

"No, it ain't," said Jack. "You're a different sort to me, and don't bear malice; but it's made you another man. It hurt you to lift me with two hands just now; you could have lifted me with one finger before we did that. If the Lord you're so sure about is there, He oughtn't to forget; but without that (for it ain't any good thinking of what's coming), I wish I hadn't had a hand in it."

He paused for breath, looking up wistfully at the preacher, whose face he could no longer make out, and finding it difficult to express penitence without showing the white feather. "Mind you, it ain't nothing to do with heaven or hell," he said confusedly. "I'm only sorry 'cos it was you."

"Ye've made it up to me, Jack," said the preacher. "Ye told me just now ye wouldn't kill yourself for my sake. I ain't much, God knows; but my preaching would ha' meant just nothing at all, if I didn't hold that worth some bruises."

He was feeling his feet again; after all, that was worth something.

"It's a precious odd making up," said Jack. "And I can't see why the devil it's any odds to you whether I did or not; but I know it is! I say, when you get to heaven, you might say that, eh?"

"Say what?" said Barnabas.

His brain was confused between the strong love of life, or rather of Margaret, that he was trying to fight down in his own soul (it was like fighting an inflowing tide), and the other strong impulse to help, that had been a ruling habit of years.

"Why, that I had a try to make up. No one else will speak for me, you may bet on that! And even you won't be able to make it amount to much, but—come—say you'll remember me, if there is anything the other side. Swear you'll not forget. I shouldn't believe any one else, if they swore till they burst; but you'd stick to anything you'd said. I won't funk. I won't have that fat parson pray for me. If God's alive, He ain't such a soft one as to be squared by a few snivellin' prayers at the end; but I'd like you to remember me. Whatever comes, it seems as if you'd be something to hold to."

And the preacher bowed his grey head on his hands. He had been preached to, to some purpose.

In the midst of the darkness he saw again the figure of his Master crucified, with a thief on the right hand and on the left.

"It's not to me you must say that!" he cried. "Not to me, who am a most cowardly and unprofitable servant. But, oh, my Lord, remember us—when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!" And, with that, the darkness in his soul cleared.

Jack's mind wandered after that; he kept spouting bits out of some play that Barnabas had never heard of, and aping feebly all sorts of characters, chiefly kings and princes (the fellow had evidently been a reader at one time). Then the feeble voice grew fainter, and presently he slept. During his sleep he effectually escaped, neither grating nor gaolers having power to stay him this time.

His rÔle was played out, and delivered up to the Author of potentates and beggars; of the few who succeed, and the many who fail. Barnabas closed Hopping Jack's eyes gently—having a weak place in his own composition for failures—then stood upright.

"I must preach this evening," he said. "I ha' much to say, an' th' time is short."

The men were not allowed to go into the yard lest there should be more attempts to get out under cover of the yellow fog. Barnabas preached in the ward, therefore; and Dr. Merrill, coming in at five o'clock, found Jack dead, and the others congregated round the preacher.

The red-haired surgeon watched the scene, with the half admiring irritation that Barnabas Thorpe's proceedings were apt to produce in him.

He glanced round at the degraded types of humanity that surrounded Barnabas, and said to himself (as he had often said before) that one might as well try to make sweet bread with salt water as to make a man of an habitual gaol bird. Yet, there was something fine, though irrational, in a faith that saw possibilities even here!

"I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God," cried the man, whose intense conviction held this motley throng of rogues.

And the "life" he had in his mind was the evil life of that hotbed of crime, and the "death" that most inglorious and miserable death on the gallows that awaited many of his hearers. While he listened, Dr. Merrill became convinced that Barnabas believed himself about to die. His keen eyes watched the preacher narrowly, and he noted the exhaustion that followed the sermon. Barnabas dropped wearily on to a bench when he had finished speaking, and rested his head on his hands. The doctor went up to him, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder.

"Have you made up your mind to be hanged? If so, you should be ashamed of yourself!" he said. "You've plenty of pluck when it's a case of risking your life. Why on earth do you throw up the sponge so confoundedly easily, when it is a case of saving it?"

"I've nought to say about it, an' what comes next is out o' my hands," said Barnabas. "Yesterday the chances seemed on th' side of my being acquitted; but som'ut's happened since then, an' I know the verdict 'ull be th' other way now. Ay, I've made up my mind. Jack died an hour ago, sir. I was glad on it."

"He had a piece of luck at the last," said the doctor. "But what has happened since yesterday that you should despair?"

"I doan't despair, nor for Jack, nor for myself," answered the preacher.

And Dr. Merrill grunted impatiently. Barnabas never had much inclination to confide in his own sex.

"You were never in the same boat with Jack. He was guilty, and the gallows tree was his natural goal. You come of an honest stock, and, if you're convicted, it will be through your own stupidity," said the doctor. "Come, Thorpe, of course you have an inalienable right to be a fool, if you choose; but, does it never strike you that it will be hard on your friends if you are sentenced?"

"Do ye suppose I've not thought o' all that?" said Barnabas doggedly. "I doan't knaw that I want to talk to 'ee about it, sir."

"No; you are mighty impatient of other people's sermons, but you'll listen to me before I've done with you," said the doctor. "You made a precious bad defence! Can you swear to me that you know nothing beyond what you've said in court? Aha! I thought you couldn't!"

"Why should I swear aught to 'ee?" said Barnabas. "I'm not asking advice, nor needing it. All the same," he added, after a moment, "I ought to thank ye for believing in me."

"Believe in you! I believe on my soul that you've got some crack-brained, pernicious notion that will lead you to slip your neck into a noose that was made for some one else, and that you'll find a bit too tight; now, for the sake of that unfortunate wife of yours——Hallo, you are attending to me now!"

"What ha' ye had to do wi' her? Is she ill? For God's sake, go on an' tell me about her, an' I'll listen to th' rest after," said the preacher. And the anxiety in his voice was so sharp that the doctor with a shrug of his shoulders complied.

"She had been knocked down by a cart, and she sent her brother-in-law to fetch me to bind up a scratch on her wrist. At least, that was the ostensible reason for my visit. As a matter of fact, she wanted to wheedle me into letting her see the inside of Newgate. No; she wasn't hurt; but it must be a nice state of things for her when her natural protector has to ask me whether she's ill or well! If I had a wife—which, thank Heaven, I have been preserved from—I should not sacrifice her to any skulking sneak. Poor woman! she nearly went on her knees to me, to persuade me to smuggle her in."

Barnabas winced. He hated to think that Margaret had pleaded to any man. Margaret, who, for all her gentleness, was so proud! It touched him to the quick too; did she want to see him so much?

As for the doctor, he was somewhat of the opinion of Meg's old friend, Sir Thomas Browne, who "cast no true affection on a woman," but "loved his friend as he loved his virtue or his God". There were plenty of pretty women in the world; and his indignation on Mrs. Thorpe's behalf was perhaps not very deep; but he knew what he was about. This fanatic held his wife ridiculously dear, and her misery might break his stubbornness.

"Doctor," said Barnabas hoarsely, "can't ye do it? I'd give moast anything (but I've naught to give) to ha' my lass once more wi' no bars between us. I've that to tell her which is hard to say wi'out I have her close to me! If ye'll do that for us——"

He stammered, and broke off his sentence, from very powerlessness to express the full strength of his desire. Dr. Merrill, looking critically at him, saw that the man's face was working with the earnestness of his passion—he was not one who could entreat easily.

"I'll do it somehow," the doctor said slowly, "if—if you'll cease being such a mad idiot. Who is guilty?"

"Ye must e'en answer your own riddles; an' if that's the 'if' I must do wi'out her," said Barnabas; and the doctor shrugged his shoulders again.

"I give up! Your obstinacy beats mine, preacher." He got up from the bench where he had seated himself beside Barnabas, but still lingered a moment.

"There's a poor creature in the condemned cell who wants to see you. It's against rules, but I have got leave to take you there. Will you come?"

"Of course," said Barnabas.

They walked together through the long passages. Barnabas shivered; it was cold, and Jack was still wrapped in his jersey.

The doctor eyed him inquiringly. "What on earth shall you find to say to some one in a condemned cell?" he asked.

"That God's mercy is greater than man's. That we can kill, but He can make alive," said Barnabas. The doctor slid something into the gaoler's hand as the key turned. "Now, good luck to the sermon; but it mustn't be long," said he.

But the preacher, with a cry, held out his arms.

A woman! no terrified criminal driven to a so-called "repentance" by the approach of death—a woman, with love, not fear, in her eyes, turned quickly to him!

"Margaret! Margaret!" he cried. Then he put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face that had been hidden against his arm. "Margaret!"

He had told her once that he, who had never taken her liking for love, would know when he saw the difference. He knew now. Here, in the condemned cell, in the ante-chamber of death, he saw that, at last, which he believed deathless; that for which his soul had hungered.

"Have I found ye?" he said. And she, putting her arms around him, lifted her lips to his, and kissed him,—a kiss solemn as a sacrament.

"Yes! You have found me!" she said.

The doctor shut the door gently from the outside.

"If it's to be done, she'll do it."