Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan by R. M. Ballantyne (best novels of all time TXT) 📕

He paused once more at this point, and the pause was so long that he turned it into a full stop by laying his head on the block of wood which formed his pillow and going to sleep.

It will be seen from the above candid remarks that our hero was not quite as confident of his power of will as he used to be,—also, that he was learning a few useful facts in the school of adversity.

One evening, after a harder day than usual, Miles was conducted to the prison in which he and his companions had been confined on the day of their arrival.

Looking round the cell, he observed, on becoming accustomed to the dim light, that only one other prisoner was there. He was lying on the bare ground in a corner, coiled up like a dog, and with his face to the wall. Relieved to find that he was not to be altogether alone, Miles sat down with his back against the opposite wall, and awaited the waking of his companion with some interest, for although his face was not visible, and his body was clothed in a sort of sacking, his neck and lower limbs showed that he was a white man. But the sleeper did not seem inclined to waken just then. On the contrary, he began, ere long, to snore heavily.

Miles gradually fell into a train of thought that seemed to bring back reminiscences of a vague, indefinable sort. Then he suddenly became aware that the snore of the snorer was not unfamiliar. He was on the point of rising to investigate this when the sleeper awoke with a start, sat bolt upright with a look of owlish gravity, and presented the features of Jack Molloy.

“Miles, my lad!” cried Jack, springing up to greet his friend warmly, “I thought you was dead.”

“And, Jack, my dear friend,” returned Miles, “I thought—at least I feared—that you must have been tortured to death.”

“An’ you wasn’t far wrong, my boy. Stand close to me, and look me straight in the eyes. D’ee think I’m any taller?”

“Not much—at least, not to my perception. Why?”

“I wonder at that, now,” said Molloy, “for I’ve bin hanged three times, an’ should have bin pulled out a bit by this time, considering my weight.”

His friend smiled incredulously.

“You may laugh, lad, but it’s no laughin’ matter,” said Molloy, feeling his neck tenderly. “The last time, I really thought it was all up wi’ me, for the knot somehow got agin my windpipe an’ I was all but choked. If they had kep’ me up half a minute longer it would have bin all over: I a’most wished they had, for though I never was much troubled wi’ the narves, I’m beginnin’ now to have a little fellow-feelin’ for the sufferin’s o’ the narvish.”

“Do you really mean, my dear fellow, that the monsters have been torturing you in this way?” asked Miles, with looks of sympathy.

“Ay, John Miles, that’s just what I does mean,” returned the seaman, with an anxious and startled look at the door, on the other side of which a slight noise was heard at the moment. “They’ve half-hanged me three times already. The last time was only yesterday, an’ at any moment they may come to give me another turn. It’s the uncertainty o’ the thing that tries my narves. I used to boast that I hadn’t got none once, but the Arabs know how to take the boastin’ out of a fellow. If they’d only take me out to be hanged right off an’ done with it, I wouldn’t mind it so much, but it’s the constant tenter-hooks of uncertainty that floors me. Hows’ever, I ain’t quite floored yet. But let’s hear about yourself, Miles. Come, sit down. I gets tired sooner than I used to do since they took to hangin’ me. How have they bin sarvin’ you out since I last saw ye?”

“Not near so badly as they have been serving you, old boy,” said Miles, as he sat down and began to detail his own experiences.

“But tell me,” he added, “have you heard anything of our unfortunate comrades since we parted?”

“Nothing—at least nothing that I can trust to. I did hear that poor Moses Pyne is dead; that they had treated him the same as me, and that his narves couldn’t stand it; that he broke down under the strain an’ died. But I don’t believe it. Not that these Arabs wouldn’t kill him that way, but the interpreter who told me has got falsehood so plainly writ in his ugly face that I would fain hope our kind-hearted friend is yet alive.”

“God grant it may be so!” said Miles fervently. “And I scarcely think that even the cruellest of men would persevere in torturing such a gentle fellow as Moses.”

“May-hap you’re right,” returned Molloy; “anyhow, we’ll take what comfort we can out o’ the hope. Talkin’ o’ comfort, what d’ee think has bin comfortin’ me in a most wonderful way? You’ll never guess.”

“What is it, then?”

“One o’ them little books as Miss Robinson writes, and gives to soldiers and sailors—‘The Victory’ it’s called, havin’ a good deal in it about Nelson’s flagship and Nelson himself; but there’s a deal more than that in it—words that has gone straight to my heart, and made me see God’s love in Christ as I never saw it before. Our comrade Stevenson gave it to me before we was nabbed by the Arabs, an’ I’ve kep’ it in the linin’ o’ my straw hat ever since. You see it’s a thin little thing—though there’s oceans o’ truth in it—an’ it’s easy stowed away.

“I forgot all about it till I was left alone in this place, and then I got it out, an’ God in his marcy made it like a light in the dark to me.

“Stevenson came by it in a strange way. He told me he was goin’ over a battle-field after a scrimmage near Suakim, lookin’ out for the wounded, when he noticed somethin’ clasped in a dead man’s hand. The hand gripped it tight, as if unwillin’ to part with it, an’ when Stevenson got it he found that it was this little book, ‘The Victory.’ Here it is. I wouldn’t change it for a golden sov, to every page.”

As he spoke, footsteps were heard approaching the door. With a startled air Molloy thrust the book into its place and sprang up.

“See there, now!” he said remonstratively, “who’d ever ha’ thowt that I’d come to jerk about like that?”

Before the door opened, however, the momentary weakness had passed away, and our seaman stood upright, with stern brow and compressed lips, presenting to those who entered as firm and self-possessed a man of courage as one could wish to see.

“I knowed it!” he said in a quiet voice to his friend, as two strong armed men advanced and seized him, while two with drawn swords stood behind him. At the same time, two others stood guard over Miles. “They’re goin’ to give me another turn. God grant that it may be the last!”

“Yes—de last. You be surely dead dis time,” said the interpreter, with a malignant smile.

“If you hadn’t said it, I would have had some hope that the end was come!” said Molloy, as they put a rope round his neck and led him away.

“Good-bye, Miles,” he added, looking over his shoulder; “if I never come back, an’ you ever gets home again, give my kind regards to Miss Robinson—God bless her!”

Next moment the door closed, and Miles was left alone.

It is impossible to describe the state of mind in which our hero paced his cell during the next hour. The intense pity, mingled with anxiety and fierce indignation, that burned in his bosom were almost unbearable. “Oh!” he thought, “if I were only once more free, for one moment, with a weapon in my hand, I’d—”

He wisely checked himself in the train of useless thought at this point. Then he sat down on the floor, covered his face with his hands, and tried to pray, but could not. Starting up, he again paced wildly about the cell like a caged tiger. After what seemed to him an age he heard footsteps in the outer court. The door opened, and the sailor was thrust in. Staggering forward a step or two, he was on the point of falling when Miles caught him in his arms, and let him sink gently on the ground, and, sitting down beside him, laid his head upon his knee. From the inflamed red mark which encircled the seaman’s powerful neck, it was obvious enough that the cruel monsters had again put him to the tremendous mental agony of supposing that his last hour had come.

“Help me up, lad, and set my back agin the wall,” he said, in a low voice.

As Miles complied, one or two tears that would not be repressed fell from his eyes on the sailor’s cheek.

“You’re a good fellow,” said Molloy, looking up. “I thank the Lord for sendin’ you to comfort me, and I do need comfort a bit just now, d’ee know. There—I’m better a’ready, an’ I’ll be upside wi’ them next time, for I feels, somehow, that I couldn’t stand another turn. Poor Moses! I do hope that the interpreter is the liar he looks, and that they haven’t treated the poor fellow to this sort o’ thing.”

Even while he spoke, the door of the cell again opened and armed men entered.

“Ay, here you are,” cried the sailor, rising quickly and attempting to draw himself up and show a bold front. “Come away an’ welcome. I’m ready for ’ee.”

But the men had not come for Molloy. They wanted Miles, over whom there came a sudden and dreadful feeling of horror, as he thought they were perhaps going to subject him to the same ordeal as his friend.

“Keep up heart, lad, and trust in the Lord,” said the sailor, in an encouraging tone as they led our hero away.

The words were fitly spoken, and went far to restore to the poor youth the courage that for a moment had forsaken him. As he emerged into the bright light, which dazzled him after the darkness of his prison-house, he thought of the Sun of Righteousness, and of the dear mother who had sought so earnestly to lead him to God in his boyhood.

One thing that greatly encouraged him was the fact that no rope had been put round his neck, as had been done to Molloy, and he also observed that his guards did not treat him roughly. Moreover, they led him in quite a different direction from the open place where he well knew that criminals were executed. He glanced at the interpreter who marched beside him, and thought for a moment of asking him what might be his impending fate, but the man’s look was so forbidding that he forbore to speak.

Presently they stopped before a door, which was opened by a negro slave, and the guards remained outside while Miles and the interpreter entered. The court into which they were ushered was open to the sky, and contained a fountain in the centre, with boxes of flowers and shrubs around it. At the inner end of it stood a tall powerful Arab, leaning on a curved sword.

Miles saw at a glance that he was the same man whose life he had saved, and who had come so opportunely to the rescue of his friend Molloy. But the Arab gave him no sign of recognition. On the contrary, the glance which he bestowed on him was one of calm, stern indifference.

“Ask him,” he said at once to the interpreter, “where are the Christian dogs who were captured with him?”

“Tell him,” replied Miles, when this was translated, “that I know nothing about the fate of any of them except one.”

“Which one is that?”

“The sailor,” answered Miles.

“Where is he?”

“In the prison I