Blue Lights by Robert Michael Ballantyne (ebook reader with highlighter .txt) 📕

populace as they beheld their Mahdi lying flat and motionless on his back as if dead!

Of course Jack Molloy was instantly seized by an overpowering number of soldiers, bound hand and foot, and carried back to his dungeon, while the Mahdi was tenderly raised and conveyed to the house which he inhabited at that time.

Miles had also been seized and dragged somewhat violently back to his prison. As for the other members of the captive band, none of them were there at the time. They were all separated at the time our hero was taken from them, and each remained for a considerable time in ignorance of the fate of his fellows. We may say at once here that they were all put to severe and menial labour. Each also had his uniform exchanged for a pair of Arabian drawers, and a felt cap or a fez, so that they were little better than naked. This would have mattered little--the weather being very warm--if their skins had been accustomed to the powerful rays of a tropical sun. But the effect on them was so severe that their taskmasters, in an unwonted gush of pity, at last gave them each a loose garment of sacking, which served as a partial protection.

After the incident which has just been related, Miles was permitted to remain during the rest of that day and night in his room. Not so Jack Molloy. The anger of the populace was so powerfully aroused against the impetuous sailor that they clamoured for his instant execution, and at last, unable or unwilling to resist the pressure of public opinion, the officers in charge of him gave in. They put a rope round his neck, and led him to a spot where criminals were wont to be executed.

As he went along and saw only scowling faces whenever he looked round in the hope of meeting some pitying eye, the poor man began to feel convinced that his last hour had in very truth arrived.

"Well, well, who'd ha' thowt it would ever come to this?" he sighed, shaking his head mournfully as he came in sight of the place of execution. "But, after all, ye richly desarve it, John Molloy, for you've bin a bad lot the greater part o' your life!"

Again he looked on either side of him, for hope was strongly enshrined in his broad bosom, but not a friendly or even pitiful face could he see among all the hundreds that surrounded him.

Arrived at the place, he glanced up at the beam over his head, and for one moment thought of trying, like Samson, to burst the bonds that held him; but it was only for a moment. The impossibility of freeing himself was too obvious. He meekly bowed his head. Another instant and the rope tightened round his neck, and he felt himself swinging in the air.

Before his senses had quite left him, however, he felt his feet again touch the ground. The choking sensation passed away, and he found himself supported by two men. A burst of mocking laughter then proved to the wretched man that his tormentors had practised on him the refined cruelty of half-hanging him. If he had had any doubt on this subject, the remark of the interpreter, as he afterwards left him in his cell to recover as best he might, would have dispelled it--

"We will 'ang you _dead_ de nex' time!"


CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.


CRUEL TREATMENT--DESPAIR FOLLOWED BY HOPE AND A JOYFUL DISCOVERY.

After the rough treatment he had received, the Mahdi, as we may well believe, did not feel more amiably disposed towards his prisoners.

Of course he had no reason for blaming Miles for what had occurred, nevertheless he vented his wrath against white men in general on him, by keeping him constantly on the move, and enforcing prolonged and unusual speed while running, besides subjecting him publicly to many insults.

It was a strange school in which to learn self-restraint and humility. But our hero profited by the schooling. Necessity is a stern teacher, and she was the head-mistress of that school. Among other things she taught Miles to reason extensively--not very profoundly, perhaps, nor always correctly, but at all events in a way that he never reasoned before. The best way to convey to the reader the state of his mind will be to let him speak for himself. As he had a habit of thinking aloud-- for sociability, as it were--in the dark cell to which he had been relegated, we have only to bend down our ear and listen.

One night, about a week after the overthrow of his tyrant master, Miles was seated on the hard floor of his cell, leaning against the wall, with his knees drawn up and his face in his hands--his usual attitude when engaged in meditation after a hard day's work.

"I wouldn't mind so much," he murmured, "if I only saw the faintest prospect of its coming to an end, but to go on thus from day to day, perhaps year to year, is terrible. No, that cannot be; if we cannot escape it won't be long till the end comes. (A pause.) The end!--the end of a rope with a noose on it is likely to be _my_ end, unless I burst up and run a-muck. No, no, Miles Milton, don't you think of that! What good would it do to kill half-a-dozen Arabs to accompany you into the next world? The poor wretches are only defending their country after all. (Another pause.) Besides, you deserve what you've got for so meanly forsaking your poor mother; think o' that, Miles, when you feel tempted to stick your lance into the Mahdi's gizzard, as Molloy would have said. Ah! poor Molloy! I fear that I shall never see you again in this life. After giving the Mahdi and his steed such a tremendous heave they would be sure to kill you; perhaps they tortured you to--"

He stopped at this point with an involuntary shudder.

"I hope not," he resumed, after another pause. "I hope we may yet meet and devise some means of escape. God grant it! True, the desert is vast and scorching and almost waterless--I may as well say foodless too! And it swarms with foes, but what then? Have not most of the great deeds of earth, been accomplished in the face of what seemed insurmountable difficulties? Besides--"

He paused again here, and for a longer time, because there came suddenly into his mind words that had been spoken to him long ago by his mother: "With God _all things_ are possible."

"Yes, Miles," he continued, "you must make up your mind to restrain your anger and indignation, because it is useless to give vent to them. That's but a low motive after all. Is it worthy of an intelligent man? I get a slap in the face, and bear it patiently, because I can't help myself. I get the same slap in the face in circumstances where I _can_ help myself, and I resent it fiercely. Humble when I _must_ be so; fierce when I've got the power. Is not this unmanly--childish--humbug? There is no principle here. Principle! I do believe I never had any principle in me worthy of the name. I have been drifting, up to this time, before the winds of caprice and selfish inclination. (A long pause here.) Well, it just comes to this, that whatever happens I must submit with a good grace--at least, as good grace as I can--and hope that an opportunity to escape may occur before long. I have made up my mind to do it--and when I once make up my mind, I--"

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