His rôle was played out, and delivered up to the Author of potentates and beggars; of the few who succeed, and the many who fail. Barnabas closed Hopping Jack's eyes gently—having a weak place in his own composition for failures—then stood upright.
"I must preach this evening," he said. "I ha' much to say, an' th' time is short."
The men were not allowed to go into the yard lest there should be more attempts to get out under cover of the yellow fog. Barnabas preached in the ward, therefore; and Dr. Merrill, coming in at five o'clock, found Jack dead, and the others congregated round the preacher.
The red-haired surgeon watched the scene, with the half admiring irritation that Barnabas Thorpe's proceedings were apt to produce in him.
He glanced round at the degraded types of humanity that surrounded Barnabas, and said to himself (as he had often said before) that one might as well try to make sweet bread with salt water as to make a man of an habitual gaol bird. Yet, there was something fine, though irrational, in a faith that saw possibilities even here!
"I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God," cried the man, whose intense conviction held this motley throng of rogues.
And the "life" he had in his mind was the evil life of that hotbed of crime, and the "death" that most inglorious and miserable death on the gallows that awaited many of his hearers. While he listened, Dr. Merrill became convinced that Barnabas believed himself about to die. His keen eyes watched the preacher narrowly, and he noted the exhaustion that followed the sermon. Barnabas dropped wearily on to a bench when he had finished speaking, and rested his head on his hands. The doctor went up to him, and tapped him sharply on the shoulder.
"Have you made up your mind to be hanged? If so, you should be ashamed of yourself!" he said. "You've plenty of pluck when it's a case of risking your life. Why on earth do you throw up the sponge so confoundedly easily, when it is a case of saving it?"
"I've nought to say about it, an' what comes next is out o' my hands," said Barnabas. "Yesterday the chances seemed on th' side of my being acquitted; but som'ut's happened since then, an' I know the verdict 'ull be th' other way now. Ay, I've made up my mind. Jack died an hour ago, sir. I was glad on it."
"He had a piece of luck at the last," said the doctor. "But what has happened since yesterday that you should despair?"