A guillotine!
Standing in the middle of the cave, its high framework lifted starkly. It was painted blood-red, and its very simplicity had a horror of its own.
Michael looked, fascinated. The basket, the bright, triangular knife suspended at the top of the frame, the tilted platform with its dangling straps, the black-painted lunette shaped to receive the head of the victim and hold it in position till the knife fell in its oiled groove. He knew the machine bolt by bolt, had seen it in operation on grey mornings before French prisons, with soldiers holding back the crowd, and a little group of officials in the centre of the cleared space. He knew the sound of it, the “clop!” as it fell, sweeping to eternity the man beneath.
“ ‘The Widow’!” said Longvale humorously. He touched the frame lovingly.
“Oh God, I’m not fit to die!” It was Penne’s agonized wail that went echoing through the hollow spaces of the cavern.
“The Widow,” murmured the old man again.
He was without a hat; his bald head shone in the light, yet there was nothing ludicrous in his appearance. His attitude toward this thing he loved was in a sense pathetic.
“Who shall be her first bridegroom?”
“Not me, not me!” squealed Penne, wriggling back against the wall, his face ashen, his mouth working convulsively. “I’m not fit to die——”
Longvale walked slowly over to him, stooped and raised him to his feet.