“Listen,” he said, “I have influence with the Government. I don’t deny it. Call me an informer, a spy, any name you like, but admit that I have served my masters well. I can claim my reward from them. Let me go, and I swear to obtain pardons for you. I can save you, and I will. I offer you your lives as a ransom for mine.”
“Would you make us what you are?” said Donald, sternly. “Would you buy our honour, you that have sold your own?”
Finlay, who had knelt during his last appeal, fell forward. He grasped Neal with his hands. It was impossible in the dim light to see the faces of the men around him, but some instinct told him that Neal alone felt any pity for him, that from Neal alone he could look for mercy.
“Save me, Neal Ward,” he cried. “For God’s sake, save me. Plead for me. They will listen to you. I am not fit to die. Grant me one day, only one day. I will do anything you wish. I will—— Oh God, Oh Christ, Oh save me, save me now.”
Neal felt drops fall on his hands, sweat from Finlay’s brow or tears from his eyes. He spoke—
“Spare him,” he said. “Who are we to judge and to slay? James Hope said to me last night that we should refrain from taking vengeance. I ask you to respect what he said. Think of it. This man’s case to-day may be your’s to-morrow. Remember you may take life, but you cannot give it back again. Oh, this is too horrible—to kill him now, like this.”
He felt, while he spoke, Finlay’s clasp tighten on him. He felt the wretched man cover his hands with kisses, mumble, and slobber over them. There was silence for a while when Neal ceased speaking. Then Donald Ward said—
“Neal, you had better go outside. This is no work for a boy. It is, as you say, horrible. To inflict death is horrible, but it is sometimes just. If ever it is just for man to shed the blood of his brother man it is just to shed James Finlay’s. He has broken oaths, has brought death on men, has made women widows and children fatherless; has wrecked the happiness of homes. He has done these things for the sake of gain, for money counted out to him as the priests counted money out to Judas.”
It was impossible to plead his cause any more. Moylin pushed open the iron door of the vault. Neal dragged his hands from Finlay’s grasp, and crawled out. He heard the door clang behind him, shut fast again upon the broken, terrified wretch and his judges—relentless men of iron, the northern iron.
No sound reached him from the vault. Save for the occasional belated cawing of some rooks in the trees which shadowed the graveyard, no sound reached him at all. He sat down among the nettles, the brambles, and the rank grass and burst into tears.