CHAPTER CX.
CONTINUATION OF THE BLACK’S VISITS TO HIS PRISONERS.
Having quitted the dungeon in which Josh Pedler was confined, the Blackamoor proceeded to the next cell; but, instead of opening the door, he merely drew back a small sliding-lid that covered a grated trap, and the faint rays of a light streamed from the inside.
“Tidmarsh,” said the Blackamoor, in a feigned tone, “has your mind grown easier?”
“Yes, sir--oh! yes,” replied the prisoner from the interior of his dungeon. “Since you allowed me a light and good books, I have been comparatively a happy man. I know that I deserve punishment--and it seems to do me good to feel that I am atoning for my offences in this manner. I am not afraid of being alone now; and when I put out my light, I am not afraid of being in the dark.”
“You pray with more composure?” said the Black, interrogatively.
“Yes, sir--I can settle my mind to prayer now,” was the answer; “and I am sure that my prayers are heard. But pray believe, sir, that I never was so wicked--so very wicked as that bad man who kept me for years in his employ. I know that I was too willing an instrument in his hands; and I am sorry for it now. The thing that lays heaviest on my mind, is the share I had in sending poor Tom Rain to the scaffold.”
“You are sorry for that deed?” enquired the Black, in a low and slightly tremulous tone.
“Oh! God, forgive me!” exclaimed Tidmarsh, his voice expressing sincere contrition. “I do indeed deeply--deeply deplore my share in that awful business; and the ghost of poor Tom Rain used to haunt me when I was first here. In fact, Tom Rain was ever uppermost in my thoughts; and--strange though it may seem--it is not the less true, sir, that your voice appeared to penetrate to my very soul, as if it was Tom Rain himself that was speaking to me. But I have got over all those ideas now--since I learnt to pray; and when I grow dull, I read the good books you have lent me. Sometimes I study the Bible; and I find that if I pore over it too much, it makes me melancholy. Then I turn to the Travels and Voyages; and I become tranquil again.”
“Should you not rejoice at any opportunity of retrieving your character--even in your old age--and earning an honest livelihood for yourself?” asked the Black.
“Oh! if such a thing could be!” cried the man, in a tone of exultation. “But, no--it is impossible!” he added, after a pause, and speaking in an altered voice. “I have sinned too deeply in respect to poor Tom Rain, to be able to hope for such happiness. God is punishing me in this world, you being his instrument;--and yet I can scarcely call it punishment, since you treat me with such kindness. There are times when I even wish that I was more severely punished here, so that I might expiate all my sins and feel certain about my fate in another world.”
“God is full of forgiveness, Tidmarsh,” said the Black: “I feel that He is,” he added in a somewhat enthusiastic manner. “The prospect I distantly hinted at in respect to yourself, may possibly become practicable. You are old--but you may still have many years to live; and it would be wrong--it would be detestable not to give you a full opportunity, sooner or later, of enabling you to testify your contrition. But I cannot speak farther on this subject at present. I have brought you some more books: one is a tale--‘The Vicar of Wakefield’--the perusal of which will do you no harm. It will show you how virtue, though suffering for a time, was rewarded at last. In a few days I shall myself visit you again.”
The Black closed the trap, and stood away from the door, which Wilton now opened; and the basket furnished the prisoner with his provisions and also with some volumes of good and beneficial reading.
The visiting-party next proceeded to the cell in which Toby Bunce and his wife were confined together; and here, as in the immediately preceding instance, the Black spoke to them through a sliding trap, from which a light also gleamed.
“For three days have you now been together, after dwelling some time apart,” said the Blackamoor, continuing to speak in a feigned tone; “and I now conjure you to tell me truly whether you would rather be thus in each other’s company, or separated as before?”
“Oh! leave us together, sir--leave us together, I implore you!” cried Mrs. Bunce, in a voice of earnest appeal. “We are now the best friends in the world; and I have promised my husband never to say a cross word unnecessarily to him again.”
“She seems quite an altered woman, sir,” observed Toby. “But then----”
“But then what?” demanded the Black, seeing that the man hesitated.
“Well, sir--I will speak my mind free,” continued Bunce; “because I’m no longer afraid to do so. I was going to say that p’rhaps it is this loneliness in which we are placed that makes Betsy talk as she does; and that if we was to be again together out of doors----”
“You would not find me change, Toby,” interrupted the woman, but not in a querulous manner. “I like to hear you read to me from the Bible, and from the other good books that the gentleman has given us. I wish we had passed more of our time in this way before we got into all this trouble. But, pray, sir,” she added, turning towards the door, “do tell me whether you mean to keep us here all our lives!”
“You must ask me no questions, remember,” said the Black, in a mild but firm tone. “I have told you this before. Learn to subdue all impatience, and to become resigned and enduring. You have made others suffer in the world;--you have been the agents and tools of a wicked man;--and you now see that heaven is punishing you through the means of one who has power thus to treat you.”
“Oh! how I wish that I had never known that detestable Bones?” exclaimed the woman, covering her face with her hands.
“And how I wish that I had stuck to my trade in an honest manner!” cried Toby Bunce, in a voice of unfeigned contrition.
“Think of all that--repeat those sentences to each other--as often as you can,” said the Blackamoor. “In the course of a few days I shall visit you again.”
With these words, he stood back from the door, which Wilton opened; and the two inmates of the dungeon received supplies of wholesome food and moral or instructive books.
The party then proceeded farther along the subterranean passage from which the various cells opened.
“Do you mean, sir, to fulfil your intention of this night visiting him?” enquired Cæsar, addressing his master in a low, faint, and tremulous tone, as if he were a prey to some vague terror.
The Blackamoor did not immediately answer the question; but, placing his hand upon his brow, appeared to reflect profoundly for almost the space of a minute.
Wilton--who seemed acquainted, as well as Cæsar, with all his master’s secrets--likewise surveyed the Black with mingled curiosity and apprehension.
“Yes!” at length exclaimed the mysterious personage; “I will now, for the first time since he has been my prisoner here, hold personal communication with Benjamin Bones!”
The party proceeded in silence to a cell near the extremity of the long subterranean passage; and on reaching it, the Black handed the lamp to Cæsar, at the same time making a sign to that youth and the other dependants to stand back so that no gleam of the light should penetrate into the dungeon when the door was opened. They obeyed in profound silence; and their master immediately entered the cell, closing the door behind him with that rapidity which is exercised by a brute-tamer when introducing himself into the cage of a wild beast.
The interior of the dungeon was as dark as pitch,--so dark, that there was not even that greyish appearance which obscurity frequently wears to eyes accustomed to it. It was a darkness that might be felt,--a darkness which seemed to touch and hang upon the visual organs like a dense black mist.
“Who is it?” demanded the sepulchral voice of Old Death, his tone marked with a subdued ferocity and a sort of savage growling which seemed to denote a rancorous hate and pent-up longings for bitter vengeance against the author or authors of his solitary imprisonment.
“I am the person who keeps you here,” answered the Black, studying to adopt a voice even more feigned and unlike his natural tones than when he was ere now addressing Tidmarsh and the Bunces.
Still that voice had in it some peculiarity which appeared to touch a chord that vibrated to the very core of Old Death’s heart; for he evidently made a starting movement, as he said hoarsely and thickly, “But who are you--a spectre or a living being? Tell me who you are!”
“I am a living being like yourself,” was the reply, delivered in a voice disguised in deeper modulations than before. “Are you afraid of being visited by spectres?”
There was a long pause, during which the deep silence was interrupted only by the heavy breathing of Old Death, as if the utter darkness of the place sate oppressively upon him.
“Are you afraid of spectres, I ask?” demanded the Black, who was leaning with folded arms against the door, and with his eyes in the direction where he presumed Old Death to be seated; though not even the faintest outline of his form could he trace amidst that black obscurity.