XVI.
One Friday Klove was hanged.
The public prints of the following day were filled with details of the occurrence, and Mrs. Applegate, mindful of the doctor's injunctions, strove to keep her brother from reading them. A futile effort, though, for Mr. Heath, on finding that the newspapers were not brought to him at the usual time, rang the bell violently, and rated the servant soundly for the omission.
The magnifico was in his chamber, and looked as aged as a man of eighty. His hair and beard had turned white, his eyes were cavernous and feverishly bright. Roused momentarily by the incident just mentioned, he returned to his seat in an arm-chair near the fire, where, wrapped in a dressing-gown, he had probably passed the night, as his couch was undisturbed. He soon relapsed into a gloomy meditation, holding in his hands the folded newspaper, which he apparently hesitated and dreaded to read. Suddenly, with an effort, his fingers spread the sheet open, and he scanned the columns rapidly until his eyes rested on the account of Klove's execution. To an unusually long description of the horrible affair was appended what purported to be the confession of the malefactor, made to the clergyman in attendance, and reported verbatim. It ran thus:
CONFESSION OF KLOVE, THE PIRATE.
When I was a boy I lived in Belton, in this State. My mother was a widow, for my father died the year after we came to this country from Germany. There were two of us children, me and a girl. My mother did washing for a living, and I worked for a man named Cook, who was very hard to get along with, and to him I lay all my troubles. I suppose I must forgive everybody now, as I hope to be forgiven myself, but it's mighty hard to let up on him. Now I ain't a-going to say that I didn't kill the men aboard the smack, and that I am unjustly sentenced to die; but I say this, and I believe, as I hope for mercy hereafter, that if it hadn't been for the unjust way in which I was treated when I was a boy, by that man, I wouldn't be here now. The way of it all was this: One day Cook sent me with some money to pay a bill at the store. I didn't know how much there was, but when the store-keeper counted it he said it ran short ten dollars. When I went back to Cook and told him, he got angry, and said he had given me the right sum, and I must have stolen the difference. Now he had a grudge against me, and I believe he never gave me the money, but wanted to get me into trouble. I knew I couldn't have lost it, and the shop-keeper counted it before my eyes, and he couldn't have taken it. Howsomever, Cook swore I stole the money, and they locked me up. They didn't keep me long, though, for they couldn't bring any proof, and was obliged to let me off. But I couldn't stay in Belton after that, for no one would employ me, and they all shunned me for a thief. So I left the place and went to New York, but as I was a stranger there, and didn't know any one, I couldn't find work. Then I shipped for a three years' cruise, for I thought by that time all would be forgot, and I could go back home. As bad luck would have it, my shipmates found out that I had been locked up for thieving, and when one of the crew had his chest broken open, and some things missing, they laid it to me. I was innocent, but they wouldn't believe it, and the character I had got went against me, and I wasn't spared a bit. The captain abused me, the mate rope's-ended me, and the men kicked me and called me jail-bird, until I was more miserable than a dog. My whole feelings were changed. I got bitter and revengeful, and if it hadn't been that I couldn't get away I would have knived some of my shipmates. When the vessel touched at the Sandwich Islands, I ran away and knocked about with the beach-combers, a wicked set of outcasts, until I became bad as any of them. I lived among the Islands several years. I shipped again, ran down to Valparaiso, and made several voyages up and down the coast. One day I got into a drunken row in a pulqueria, and stabbed a Chilian. This caused me to be sent to work in the mines as a convict. I got away from there after staying three years and shipped in a French ship to Bordeaux, and from there I got to New York. I hadn't been in the States for ten years, and all that time I hadn't heard anything from my folks. I had become so reckless as to have no wish to see any of them. When in New York I went one night to a dance-house in Cherry Street, and there among the women I found my sister. We didn't know each other at first, but I discovered her by a queer scar on her neck, which she got from a burn when a child. After questioning her, I found out that my mother took on so about me that she left Belton soon after I did, and went to New York. There she fell sick, and died in want, and there was my sister a degraded creature. What little good was left in me was turned by this sight into bad, and I swore to be even with a world that had been so unjust to me and mine. The old feeling of vengeance rose up in my breast—the devil got hold of me, and I thought of Cook. That night I started off to find him, and went to Belton. I hung around there till I found out he was dead and gone some years. If he had been living I would have killed him, sure. All that's wrong, I know, but I couldn't help it. Then I felt just like waging war on all the world. I went to California, and kept a drinking shop on what they called the Barbary coast, where I used to rob miners. Finally I shot one that showed fight, and the Vigilance Committee drove me off, and I came back to the States and went to New Orleans, staid awhile, and came north. I knocked around New York for a time, and finally shipped on the smack, where I committed the deed that's brought me here. The world has got the best of me at last, and it was very wrong and sinful for me to kill the men, and it is right that I should suffer for it and be hung; I ain't a-going to deny that; but I know this and repeat it, that if I had been treated right when a boy, if I hadn't been accused of stealing when I was innocent, I wouldn't be here now, and my sister wouldn't have been ruined. We might have been as happy and as good as any, so let Almighty God judge. Before I go I want to say this: that in the trial I was fairly treated, and I want to publicly thank all those people who were so kind to me. One gentleman has been very good to me, did all he could to help me, and I can't be too grateful to him. He happened just to have remembered me when I was a boy and lived in Belton, and to this kind and benevolent man, I say, may God bless him and reward him.
Rufus Heath read those lines with dilated eyes and shortened breath, like one undergoing the rack. When he had finished, he let the paper drop and uttered a deep groan. His head sank back on his chair, and he pressed his hands over his temples and brow as if to smother distracting thoughts. He remained thus for some time, until a light hand was placed on his shoulder, when he started as if it had been a blow.
The intruder was Edna, who, having knocked at the door and receiving no reply, had entered the room with some anxiety. "Father, dear father, how you frighten me! What ails you? Are you in pain?" exclaimed she, alarmed at his wild aspect. "Do tell me, please tell me, what is the matter?"
"Matter—matter," repeated Mr. Heath abstractedly, as he rose and walked towards the window. "No—no—nothing, child, nothing. Why do you—Ring the bell for James and leave me—leave me, I tell you. I have business to occupy me." He was rattling his fingers nervously on the window-panes as he spoke, and looking vacantly out. His daughter strove to draw him aside, and looking in his face asked anxiously if she might be permitted to send for a physician. "I'm sure there's something the matter with you—you look so very, very strange. Do please, father, may I?"
"No, no, no! Leave me, Edna, and do as I bid you." She obeyed, and Mr. Heath made a struggle to regain his self-possession. When the servant came, he directed him to bring a decanter of brandy. As soon as it was brought, with a trembling hand he poured out a tumblerful and gulped it down. It seemed to affect him no more than so much water, and pacing the room, he forced a laugh as he soliloquized: "Idiot, idiot, and threefold fool! What is it to me that this vagabond and ruffian has met his deserts? Nothing, surely nothing. Then why should I worry about it? Why should I be tormented and maddened by it? Those who murder must expect to be hung. A man is responsible only for his own crimes—the crimes he himself commits, and surely none other, none other. What a monstrous, cruel, wicked doctrine it would be that would hold men to account for the remote and indirect consequences of trivial and commonplace acts. Skilful lawyers cheat justice every day; thousands and thousands of villains have been rescued from the clutches of the law by their paid advocates, and set loose on society, to again plunder and kill. As well hold these advocates responsible for the crimes subsequently committed by their clients, as to tax me with—pshaw! it's too absurd to deserve a moment's thought. What a simpleton I am to quake like a puny child because a low ruffian meets his merited fate! How ridiculous—absurd—preposterous! No, no; I am getting old and childish—old and childish," he continued to croon, until interrupted by the entrance of a servant with luncheon, who was quickly bidden to withdraw.