CONDEMNED.
| And in that deep and utter agony, |
| Though then, than ever, most unfit to die, |
| I fell upon my knees and prayed for death.—Maturin. |
"Guilty!"
The word tolled like a knell through the air.
Silence like death followed.
Some one passed to the judge a glass of water. His hand shook so that he spilled it.
Then he arose, trembling so much that he leaned for support on the stand before him. Yet he did his duty—the last duty he was ever to do on that bench.
"Prisoner at the bar, stand up."
She was raised to her feet, and supported in the arms of her husband.
"Sybil Berners! What have you to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against you?"
Nothing. She had not understood the question. She did not answer it. There is a point in suffering at which the soul becomes insensible of it. While waiting for the verdict, Sybil had gradually passed into an abnormal state, which, without being a dream, resembled one. Her spirit was snatched away from the present scene. She was in the village church, and not in the court-room. The Judge on the bench was her old pastor in his pulpit. He was preaching, she thought; but something ailed her head, for she could not understand the drift of his discourse. And the church was so crowded, that she felt half-suffocated in it.
Amid the breathless, pulseless silence, the doom of death was spoken.
Not one word of it all did Sybil comprehend. But she felt as if the evening service was over, and the people were rising to leave the church.
"Come, Lyon," she breathed, with a deep sigh, "it is over at last, and oh! I am so tired! Take me home."
Take her home! Alas for the heart-broken husband! He would have given his own body to be burned to death, if by doing so he could have taken her home. But he knew that, in all human probability, she could never go home again.
"One moment, darling," he whispered, and sat her down again to await the action of the sheriff.
Mr. Fortescue soon came up.
"Mr. Berners," he said, in a broken voice, "I am an old man, and I had rather die than do my present duty."
"Oh, do what must be done, do it at once, do it yourself, for no one else would do it so kindly," answered Lyon Berners.
"You know where I must take her?"
"Certainly."
"Then draw her arm through your own and follow me. She will go more quietly with you than with me," said the sheriff.
They had spoken in a very low tone, in order to spare Sybil, though they scarcely needed to have taken the precaution; for she was paying no attention to anything that was passing around her. She sat leaning back, with a look of utter weariness and stupor on her beautiful, pale face.
He raised her up, drew her hand through his arm, and whispered:
"Come, my darling, we are going now."
This roused her a little. She looked around for her party, and saw Beatrix Pendleton sitting with her face buried in her handkerchief, as she had sat since the rendering of the verdict.
"Look, she is asleep. I don't wonder; it is very tiresome, and I'm almost asleep myself," murmured Sybil, wearily gazing on her friend.
At that moment Captain Pendleton came up.
"Wake her, Clement, and bring her after us. You will both come home and take supper with me," said Sybil, as she was about to be led away.
Captain Pendleton did not answer her, but gazed on her as if his heart was about to break.
"Don't look at me so, Clement. You must think I am sick; but I am not—only tired and stupid. I hope Tabby will have supper ready when we get home," said Sybil, with a faint smile, as they led her off.
Captain Pendleton followed quickly, and touched Lyon Berners on the shoulder.
They exchanged glances.
"Oh, Heaven! Is this so?" whispered the captain, with a glance towards Sybil.
"It is so," answered Lyon Berners.
"This affliction added to all the rest!"
"It is better, much better thus. She does not suffer now. Thank Heaven for this veil of insanity drawn between her and the horrors to come! Pray heaven that she may never come to her senses while she lives in this world," muttered Lyon Berners.
Captain Pendleton stepped back and gave his sister his arm.
"You will go with her to the prison?" he inquired.
"Yes, and stay with her there, if I may be permitted," answered Beatrix, who was weeping bitterly.
"My dear, my noble sister! how I admire and thank you!" fervently exclaimed Clement Pendleton, as he led her after Sybil.
A storm had been gathering all the afternoon. It had not been noticed by the people, whose attention had been swallowed up in the absorbing interest of the trial. But now, as they reached the open doors, the storm burst in thunder on the air, and the rain fell in torrents.
Many of the people retreated into the court-room to wait until the weather should be clear, or they should be able to procure umbrellas.
But our unhappy party went boldly out into the rain.
Sybil's carriage had been waiting, as on the preceding evening, to take her home. It was to be employed now to take her somewhere else.
"I am glad of this storm," said Mr. Berners, after he had put his wife into her seat, and while he was holding the door open for Beatrix, whom her brother had just led up. "I am very glad of this storm."
"Why?" inquired Captain Pendleton.
"Because it will enable me to humor the delusion of my poor Sybil."
"How?"
"By persuading her that the storm makes it necessary for us to stop at the house of an acquaintance," hastily explained Lyon Berners, as he put Beatrix into the seat next Sybil.
Then he took the third seat and Mr. Fortescue, as the custodian of Sybil, took the fourth.
Captain Pendleton mounted the box beside the coachman, who had received his directions where to drive, but who could scarcely see his way, for weeping.
The storm came down in fury. The lightning glared, the thunder rolled; the rain swept the mountain sides like a flood.
"We shall never be able to reach Black Hall to-night, my darling. We must stop at some house," said Lyon Berners, artfully.
"Yes? that's bad," answered his wife, who with an evident effort roused herself to reply, and then sank back into her seat, in an attitude of weariness, and began slowly to pick at the fringe of her parasol, in an absent-minded, quiet manner.
The county prison was at the lower end of the village, at the junction of the Black river and Bird creek. It was a plain, rude structure, built of the iron-gray stone dug from the quarries of the Black mountain. It did not look like a prison. But for the grated windows it might have been taken for a commodious country house. And but for its well-cultivated grounds and stone fence, it might have been taken for a store-house. It comprised within its four walls the home of the warden and his family, as well as the lodgings for the turnkeys, and the cells of the prisoners.
Old Father Martin, the warden, found his office almost a sinecure. There were never many inmates of the prison, at any period. And sometimes for months together it would be quite vacant, so that in rainy weather its corridors and cells would be the play-ground of the warden's grandchildren.
Now however, there were some ten or twelve petty offenders confined there, who were waiting trial for such comparatively small offences as disorderly conduct, assault, etc.
Sybil had never in her life seen even the outside of this prison.
So when the carriage drew up before the outer gate, and Mr. Berners alighted and handed her out, and said that they would be obliged to stop here at Mr. Martin's until the storm should be over, she silently acquiesced, and permitted herself to be led, under the shelter of the sheriff's umbrella, up to the door of the building.
At the sheriff's ring, it was opened by the turnkey in attendance.
The sheriff immediately led his prisoner into the warden's office.
They were followed by Mr. Berners and the two Pendletons.
"I was expecting of this here," said the warden, as he drew forward a chair for the lady.
Sybil sank into it, weary, stupefied, apathetic, and utterly unconscious of her real situation.
Beatrix Pendleton sat down by her side and took her hand. Lyon Berners hung over the back of her chair. The little Skye terrier, who had followed the party, jumped upon her lap and coiled itself up there. Sybil noticed no one, but sat curiously contemplating the tips of her gloved fingers.
Meanwhile the sheriff and the warden went off to a writing desk that stood in one corner of the office, and where the sheriff formally delivered up his charge into the keeping of the warden.
"You will find some decent place to put her in, I hope, Martin. You will extend to her every indulgence consistent with her safe custody," said the sheriff, when the business was concluded.
The old warden scratched his gray head, reflected for a minute, and then said:
"The cells is miserable, which I have represented the same to their worships time and again, to no purpose. But if you'll take the responsibility, and back me up into doing of it, I can lock her up in my daughter's bedroom, where she will be safe enough for one night; and to-morrow we can have a cell fixed up, if her friends will go to the expense."
"Certainly, do all that; and if you should be as kind and considerate of her as may be consistent with your duty, her friends will be sure to reward you handsomely," answered Mr. Fortescue.
"Well, I'd do that any way, I think, for any poor woman in such a depth of trouble, reward or no reward," replied the kind-hearted warden.
The two men then went up to the young prisoner.
"I will take you up to your room now, ma'am, if you please," said the warden.
This aroused Sybil. She looked up suddenly and said:
"I am afraid we are putting you to much inconvenience Mr.—Mr.—"
"Martin," added the sheriff.
"—Mr. Martin; but the suddenness of this thunder-*storm, you know. And we were all at church, and—"
She lost the connection of her ideas, ceased to speak, put her hand to her forehead in perplexity for a moment, and then relapsed into apathetic reverie.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the old warden, in dismay. "Why, she's a losing of her mind, an't she?"
"Yes, thank Heaven!" answered Sybil's husband earnestly.
"But—but—in such a case they will never carry the sentence out?" inquired the warden, in an eager whisper.
"Yes, they will; but she will never know what hurts her," grimly replied Captain Pendleton.
The old warden sighed. And then he warned the visitors that it was time for them to go, as he wanted to lock up the prison for the night.
"Is it not possible that I remain with my wife to-night? You see her condition," said Lyon Berners, appealing to the sheriff and the warden, and pointing to poor Sybil, whose wildly dilated eyes were fixed upon vacancy, while her fingers idly played with the gray curls of the little Skye terrier on her lap.
"Mr. Berners, my heart bleeds at refusing you anything in this hour of bitter sorrow; but—" began the sheriff.
"I see! I see! You cannot grant my request! I should have known it and refrained from asking," interrupted Lyon Berners.
At this point Beatrix Pendleton, who had been sitting beside Sybil, deliberately took off her gloves, bonnet, and lace shawl, and laid them on a table near, saying quietly,
"I shall stay with my friend. Mr. Martin, I don't think you will turn me out in the storm to-night. And, Mr. Sheriff, I know that women-friends are often permitted to be in the cell with women prisoners."
"Miss Pendleton," said the sheriff, before the warden could speak, "there is not the slightest objection to your remaining with your friend, if you please to do so. Women in her sad position are always allowed a female companion in the cell. It is usually, however, a female warder."
"Thank you, Mr. Fortescue! I will be Sybil's warder, or her fellow-prisoner, as you please, that is, with Mr. Martin's consent. He has not spoken yet," said Beatrix, appealing to the warden.
"My dear young lady, I would no more turn you out in the storm, as you call it, then I would turn my own daughter out. Of course you will stay if you please, though, bless my heart, the trouble is usually to keep people here, not to send them away. They come unwillingly enough. They go away gladly," said the old man.
"My dear Beatrix, you do well! you do nobly!" whispered her brother, pressing her hand.
"Miss Pendleton, how shall I thank you? May the Lord, who makes up all our shortcomings, reward you infinitely!" said Lyon Berners, fervently pressing her hand.
"I think we had better end this interview now," whispered the sheriff.
Lyon Berners turned to look at his wife. She was still sitting in the same dreamy, abstracted, unconscious manner.
"Sybil, my darling, good-night," he said, stooping and kissing her.
"Why," she exclaimed, with a nervous start, "where are you going?"
"Listen, dear," said Lyon, gently. "Mr. Martin has got but one spare room, and that must be appropriated to you and Beatrix. Clement and myself will have to find accommodations somewhere in the village."
"Oh," she said. And then, "Yes." And so she relapsed into apathy.
Lyon Berners kissed her, and turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to his eyes.
Captain Pendleton pressed her hand in silence. And then they both took leave of Miss Pendleton, and went away with the sheriff.
Sybil and Beatrix were left alone with a warden in the office.
Mr. Martin had been the overseer of Pendleton Park in old Mr. Pendleton's time; and he owed his present position as warden of the county prison mainly to the influence of Captain Pendleton. So that he was well acquainted with Miss Pendleton, whom he had every grateful reason for serving.
He came to her now, saying apologetically:
"I am sorry I can't offer my old employer's daughter better accommodation; but I will give her the best room in the house."
"Thank you, Mr. Martin; but I wish to stay in the cell with my friend," answered Beatrix.
"My dear young lady, I thought you understood that you were to stay with her, but not in a cell; I thought you knew that you were to occupy a room together. But oh! now I recollect, it was only with the sheriff that I talked of it," explained the old man; and as he spoke the door opened, and a middle-aged woman appeared, and said:
"Father, the room is ready."
"Come, then, Miss Pendleton, follow us," said the warden, as he took Sybil's hand, drew it under his arm, and walked on before.
He led them up a flight of stairs to a good-sized and neatly furnished bed-chamber, with nothing about it to remind its inmates that they were in a prison.
Here the warden, after seeing that the windows were carefully secured, left the friends together, taking the precaution to double lock and bolt the door upon them.
Beatrix turned to look at her companion. Sybil was sitting twirling her fingers, and gazing down on the little dog that lay upon her lap.
"Come, darling!" said Beatrix, tenderly, "let me help you to undress. That bed looks clean and comfortable. You must lie down on it and go to sleep."
Sybil made no answer, and no resistance. Beatrix undressed her, and then remembered that they had no personal conveniences for the night whatever, neither bed-gowns nor combs nor brushes; but the weather was warm, and so some of these necessaries might well be dispensed with until the morning.
She led Sybil to the bed, and urged her to lie down. But the force of habit was omnipotent; and in spite of her waning sanity, Sybil suddenly recollected a duty never omitted, and said:
"Let me say my prayers first."
So she knelt down.
Beatrix Pendleton waited and watched for some time, for so long a time, at last, that she suspected Sybil had fallen asleep. She went and looked at her attentively, and then called her by name, and touched her, and so finally discovered that she had, in the midst of her prayers, relapsed into that fearful lethargy that was undermining her reason.
"Come, Sybil, dear, get into bed," said Beatrix, taking her hand and lifting her up.
"Yes," said the docile creature, and immediately did as her friend directed her.
There was no surer or sadder symptoms in Sybil's insanity, than the perfect docility of her who had once been so difficult to manage.
She went quietly to bed.
Beatrix prepared to follow her.
But Miss Pendleton was faint from long fasting. Neither she nor Sybil had tasted anything since their luncheon at two o'clock that day, when the court had taken a recess. They had reached the prison sometime after supper had been served; and in the awful crisis of Sybil's fate, no one had thought of food. Sybil did not seem to require it; she lay in a quiet lethargy, like death. But Beatrix was half-famished when she went to bed.
Her hunger, however, was soon forgotten in the great anxiety of her mind; and the sharpest point of it was this:
What effect would the night's repose have on Sybil's state? Would it bring back her lost senses, and with them the consciousness of her awful condition? Beatrix prayed that it might not—prayed that the shield of insanity might still cover her from the surrounding and impending horrors of her position.
At length both the friends fell asleep, and slept until nearly nine o'clock the next morning.