"This evening," said Marriott, dreading now the thought of fixity of time. He looked at Archie; and it was almost more than he could endure. Archie's eyes were fastened on him; his gaze seemed to cling to him in final desperation.
"Oh, in the name of God," Archie suddenly whispered, leaning toward him, his face directly in his, "do something, Mr. Marriott! something! something! I can't, I can't die to-night! If it's only a little more time--just another day--but not to-night! Not to-night! Do something, Mr. Marriott; something!"
Marriott seized Archie's hand. It was cold and wet. He wrung it as hard as he could. There were no words for such a moment as this. Words but mocked.
He saw Archie's chest heave, and the cords tighten in his swelling neck. Marriott could only look at him--this boy, for whom he had come to have an affection--so young, so strong, with the great gloom of death prematurely, unnecessarily, in his face!
But the face cleared suddenly,--Archie still could think, and he remembered--he remembered Curly, and Mason and old Dillon, and Gibbs, he recalled the only ideals he knew--like all of us, he could live up only to such ideals as he had--he remembered that he must be game. He straightened, Marriott saw the fine and supple play of the muscles of his chest, its white skin revealed through his open shirt.
"So long, Mr. Marriott," said Archie, and then turned and went back into the death-chamber.
Outside, in the twilight that was filling the quadrangle, Marriott passed along, the gloom of the place he had left filling his soul. The trusty who had conducted him to the death-chamber paced in silence by his side. He passed the great tree, gaunt and bare and black now, the tree under which he had seen that summer day these doomed men take their exercise, with the Sunday-school scholars standing by and gazing on with curious covert glances and perverted thoughts. He wished that time had paused on that day--he had had hope then; this thing as to Archie, it then had seemed, simply could not be; it might, he had felt, very well be as to those other doomed men; indeed, it seemed certain and irrevocable; but as to Archie, no, it could not be. And yet, here it was, the night before the day--and but one more hope between them and the end. He hastened on, anxious to get out of the place. Any moment the whistle might blow and he would have to wait until the men had come from their work; the gates could not be unlocked at that time, or until the men were locked again in their cells. They were passing the chapel, and suddenly he heard music--the playing of a piano. He stopped and listened. He heard the deep bass notes of Grieg's Ode to the Spring, played now with a pathos he had never known before.
"What's that?" he asked the trusty.
"That playing? That's young Ernsthauser. He's a swell piano player."
"May we look in?"