The old man nodded.
“Benn, come out! I give you my word of honour that I will postpone the execution until to-morrow. You can’t stay there.”
John Bennett looked round at the grating, then up to the cut rope. The execution could not proceed. Such was the routine of death that the rope must be expressly issued from the headquarter gaol. No other rope would serve. All the paraphernalia of execution, down to the piece of chalk that marks the “T” on the trap where a man must put his feet, must be punctiliously forwarded from prison headquarters, and as punctiliously returned.
John shot back the bolts, opened the door and stepped out.
The faces of the men in the condemned cell were ghastly. The Governor’s was white and drawn, the prison doctor seemed to have shrunk, and the Sheriff sat on the bed, his face hidden in his hands.
“I will telegraph to London and tell them the circumstances,” said the Governor. “I’m not condemning you for what you’re doing, Benn. It would be monstrous to expect you to have done—this thing.”
A warder came along the corridor and through the door of the cell. And behind him, entering the prison by virtue of his authority, a dishevelled, dust-stained, limping figure, his face scratched, streaks of dried blood on his face, his eyes red with weariness. For a second John Bennett did not recognize him, and then:
“A reprieve, by the King’s own hand,” said Dick Gordon unsteadily, and handed the stained envelope to the Governor.