I had approached this door very softly, so that, my proximity being wholly unsuspected by the speakers within, the conversation continued without interruption.
Planting myself close to the door, I applied my eye to one of the chinks which separated the boards, and thus obtained a full view of the chamber and its occupants.
It was the very apartment into which I had been first conducted. The outer door, which faced the one at which I stood, was closed, and at a small table were seated the only tenants of the room—two officers, one of whom was Captain Oliver. The latter was reading a paper, which I made no doubt was the document with which I had been entrusted.
“The fellow deserves it, no doubt,” said the junior officer. “But, methinks, considering our orders from headquarters, you deal somewhat too hastily.”
“Nephew, nephew,” said Captain Oliver, “you mistake the tenor of our orders. We were directed to conciliate the peasantry by fair and gentle treatment, but not to suffer spies and traitors to escape. This packet is of some value, though not, in all its parts, intelligible to me. The bearer has made his way hither under a disguise, which, along with the other circumstances of his appearance here, is sufficient to convict him as a spy.”
There was a pause here, and after a few minutes the younger officer said:
“Spy is a hard term, no doubt, uncle; but it is possible—nay, likely, that this poor devil sought merely to carry the parcel with which he was charged in safety to its destination. Pshaw! he is sufficiently punished if you duck him, for ten minutes or so, between the bridge and the milldam.”
“Young man,” said Oliver, somewhat sternly, “do not obtrude your advice where it is not called for; this man, for whom you plead, murdered your own father!”
I could not see how this announcement affected the person to whom it was addressed, for his back was towards me; but I conjectured, easily, that my last poor chance was gone, for a long silence ensued. Captain Oliver at length resumed:
“I know the villain well. I know him capable of any crime; but, by ⸻, his last card is played, and the game is up. He shall not see the moon rise tonight.”
There was here another pause.
Oliver rose, and going to the outer door, called:
“Hewson! Hewson!”
A grim-looking corporal entered.
“Hewson, have your guard ready at eight o’clock, with their carbines clean, and a round of ball-cartridge each. Keep them sober; and, further, plant two upright posts at the near end of the bridge, with a cross one at top, in the manner of a gibbet. See to these matters, Hewson: I shall be with you speedily.”
The corporal made his salutations, and retired.
Oliver deliberately folded up the papers with which I had been commissioned, and placing them in the pocket of his vest, he said:
“Cunning, cunning Master Hardress Fitzgerald hath made a false step; the old fox is in the toils. Hardress Fitzgerald, Hardress Fitzgerald, I will blot you out.”
He repeated these words several times, at the same time rubbing his finger strongly upon the table, as if he sought to erase a stain:
“I will blot you out!”
There was a kind of glee in his manner and expression which chilled my very heart.
“You shall be first shot like a dog, and then hanged like a dog: shot tonight, and hung tomorrow; hung at the bridgehead—hung, until your bones drop asunder!”
It is impossible to describe the exultation with which he seemed to dwell upon, and to particularise the fate which he intended for me.
I observed, however, that his face was deadly pale, and felt assured that his conscience and inward convictions were struggling against his cruel resolve. Without further comment the two officers left the room, I suppose to oversee the preparations which were being made for the deed of which I was to be the victim.
A chill, sick horror crept over me as they retired, and I felt, for the moment, upon the brink of swooning. This feeling, however, speedily gave place to a sensation still more terrible. A state of excitement so intense and tremendous as to border upon literal madness, supervened; my brain reeled and throbbed as if it would burst; thoughts the wildest and the most hideous flashed through my mind with a spontaneous rapidity that scared my very soul; while, all the time, I felt a strange and frightful impulse to burst into uncontrolled laughter.
Gradually this fearful paroxysm passed away. I kneeled and prayed fervently, and felt comforted and assured; but still I could not view the slow approaches of certain death without an agitation little short of agony.
I have stood in battle many a time when the chances of escape were fearfully small. I have confronted foemen in the deadly breach. I have marched, with a constant heart, against the cannon’s mouth. Again and again has the beast which I bestrode been shot under me; again and again have I seen the comrades who walked beside me in an instant laid forever in the dust; again and again have I been in the thick of battle, and of its mortal dangers, and never felt my heart shake, or a single nerve tremble: but now, helpless, manacled, imprisoned, doomed, forced to watch the approaches of an inevitable fate—to wait, silent and moveless, while death as it were crept towards me, human nature was taxed to the uttermost to bear the horrible situation.
I returned again to the closet in which I had found myself upon recovering from the swoon.
The evening sunshine and twilight was fast melting into darkness, when I heard the outer door, that which communicated with the guardroom in which the officers had been amusing themselves, opened and locked again upon the inside.
A
