The King's Men: A Tale of To-morrow by Nathan Schachner
CHAPTER XIII.
AN UNFINISHED TASK.
Immediately after the sentence was pronounced the prisoners were ledback to the Tower. They were chained together by twos, and Sir Johnwalked with Geoffrey. During the entire walk from St. Stephen's, alongthe river embankment, neither of them spoke to the other. For Geoffrey,at least, it was a subject of life-long regret that he had not done so.
It was part of the policy of Bagshaw's government thus to march themthrough the streets, a spectacle, like a caravan of caged beasts, forthe populace. Geoffrey thought to himself, curiously, of the oldtriumphs of the Roman emperors he had read about as a schoolboy. Then,as now, the people needed bread and loved a show. But the people, eventhen, had caught something of the dignity of power. Silently theypressed upon the sidewalks and thronged the gardens by the river. Not avoice was raised in mockery of these few men; there is something in thelast extremity of misfortune which commands respect, even from themultitude. And, perhaps, even then the first-fruits of freedom mighthave been marked in their manner, and magnanimity, the first virtue ofliberty, kept the London rabble hushed.
Geoffrey's eyes were turned within as he walked, as if he were thinking,but of thoughts far distant, far back in the past. Dacre held his glancestill high and forward, fixed and straight upon the road before him.Only once, when they passed the Temple gardens, did Geoffrey's eyesstray outward; it was when he marked the windows of his old study in theInner Temple, where he had studied to be a barrister in days gone by;then his look grew introspective as before.
When they came to the gate of the Tower the soldiers divided and drewapart in two lines, between which the prisoners passed into the greatcourtyard. A squad of the Tower garrison--no longer in the gay livery ofthe King, but in the plain black coat and helmet of policemen--stoodbefore the door. The banner of the British Republic--the red and whitestripes, with the green union and the harp--floated over the loftiesttower of all. The prisoners were then separated, and each was led to adifferent cell. Then for the first time Geoffrey thought of Dacre; buthe was already under a special escort and being led away; it was toolate. The last that Geoffrey saw of him he was walking erect, with hissilent lips still closed, steady like the course of some strong streamabove the fall. As he watched him, Geoffrey heard the distant murmur ofthe people beyond the gates.
Geoffrey well remembered the room that was his prison. He had been takenthere as a sightseer when a child. It was in the Beauchamp Tower;and--strange coincidence--there was the bear and ragged staff ofWarwick, still visible, cut deep into the old stone walls.
So, thought he, it had all ended. History repeats itself, but in strangenew forms that seem as if they half mock, half follow, the old. Then,the King was wrong; was now the people in the right? They brought himsome food; and after eating he threw himself on the ground and tried tosleep. But his sleep was troubled with his dreams of waking: now heheard Margaret Windsor's broken words again; now he was in the greathall of St. Stephen's speaking; then he heard again the echo of the gunthat shot down the royal flag, and then the silence of the people,forever estranged, more dread, more terrible than any words of enemiesor noise of battle. Again he thought of Dacre and his look when all waslost: a look unchanged, unmoved; a look less of despair than the majestyof certain fate--a fate not new nor sudden, but chosen of his own calmwill. A man of stone, thought Geoffrey; the incarnation of one thought;hardly human in his conscious strength. And yet, as Geoffrey saw him inthe darkness of the night, his heart went out to him, and he felt thathe loved this man as he had never loved a friend before.
The dawn came, and its gray damp breath broke through the iron bars. Itseemed all unreal in the daylight. Old stones of escape passed throughhis mind: how men, in childish stories of history or romance, with somerude instrument of iron, had carved their will and way through walls asthick as these. But how idle they seemed! How futile, how vain to makewith his two hands a way through stone, or burrow like a mole into theearth! And yet those legends seemed no less a dream than this of his.
There was a strange silence as the morning grew on; he wondered if theworld outside were all asleep. He had foreseen it; and yet he had notquite foreseen this; some glorious end, in a battle, perhaps, fightingout in the free country, beneath the sun. Again his thoughts turned tohis friend, and he felt a strange assurance that Dacre had foreseen itall along, but not held back his steps one whit for that. And there wasMaggie--in America--could she, and her life, be in the same world withthis? Yet it was natural enough, and such things had always been, onlyhe had never truly pictured them. The day seemed endless. If he couldonly hear something of the others, and not be so terribly alone. If hecould but learn where they were--where Dacre was. He heard a dull soundlike the noise of distant firing, but more like thunder, coming heavilythrough the ground. Geoffrey ran to the window, drew himself up, andlooked out through the bars. There was a sea of upturned faces, all paleand with one fixed look, a myriad times repeated, pointed to the base ofthe Tower below his window where he could not see. Then he fell backupon the ground, burying his face in his hands.
Dacre himself had slept that night a dreamless sleep, as he had sleptany night before in the years since he had seen his path and chosen it.At noon the people came to his cell and led him out. Numbers of men werestanding in the corridor and on the stairs; he looked on between thelines and walked to the door. Then he begged that his handcuffs might beremoved. As he paused a moment, Richard Lincoln stepped forward andordered that it should be done. Then he fell back, bowing once to Dacre.Richard Lincoln had come there from the death-bed of his daughter to dothis last service to the man that she loved. Then Dacre passed on, outof the great door into the full light of the noon. There in front of himwas a great concourse of people, the multitude Geoffrey had seen fromhis window. Dacre looked out from the prison gate with his fixed, cleareyes, but the road was growing very short before him now, and still hisglance went on beyond--beyond the company of soldiers standing thirtyyards in front, the butts of their rifles resting on the ground.
"John Dacre, you are found guilty of high treason to the people. Haveyou anything to say?" It was Bagshaw, the President, who spoke, in hiscapacity as general of the army.
Dacre made no reply. He was thinking of the treason of his King, and notof his own. And there in front of him were the people--the people, inmight of numbers, in the majesty of strength, ten thousand to his one.But as he looked upon them their ten thousand faces were turned on his,their hearts within their eyes; and Dacre might have noted that in allof them there was not one but spoke pity--pity, in their silence, forhimself. Then he turned aside from the door, with his back to the prisonwall. "I am ready."
"John Dacre--you have nothing to say?" said the President again. "Youmay yet save yourself. Where is the King?" Dacre turned his glance uponhim, slowly.
"I am ready," said he again. He seemed to overlook the President as hespoke, and he never looked at him again.
"Give the order to make ready!" said Bagshaw, angrily, to the officer incommand, and the slight click of the rifles followed his words.
The narrow courtyard was as still as if deserted, though it seemed youcould almost hear the breathing of the multitude that thronged thestreets. But to die thus, penned in a narrow courtyard, passively,vainly, shot like a dog. A low murmur began to come from the people,indeterminate, inarticulate; it came to Dacre's ears like the hum ofdistant battle, and perhaps he saw the battle, and the royal standard,and that last unworthy King for whom this thing was done. Then cameBagshaw's voice again: "Where is the King?"
"Silence, sir!" thundered Richard Lincoln, and Bagshaw slunk back a paceor two, like a chidden dog.
"The King is dead," said Dacre, so clearly that all the people in thestreet heard him, but no one made a sound. Then he threw back his coat,as if to bare his breast to the levelled muskets; and as he did so thewithered rose dropped out and fell into his hand. It was Mary Lincoln'srose that he had thrust there on the day before. And as he looked at itthe
"Fire!" came the word, and the sheet of flame leaped out toward him, andhe fell; and the rose-leaves, scattered by a bullet, lay about him onthe stones.