"Why not return, face my accusers, and know the worst? Why flee from the specter of a crime committed by another? Are my hands stained with human blood? Is not my soul blameless?"
"Yes, return and be hung! Listen to adroitly narrated lies of detectives, caring only for vindication of their theories of guilt! Witness the heartless curiosity of vulgar crowds feasting on rumor and depraved gossip! Meet the cold, relentless gaze of those demanding satisfaction of outraged law! Hear the distorted evidence of witnesses, the impassioned appeal of the public prosecutor, as with hypocritical craft he urges the jury to hang no innocent man, and then pleads with them not to make the law a byword by turning loose a red-handed murderer! Watch the judge with solemn gravity adjust his glasses, preparatory to a dignified summing-up, conclusive of the prisoner's guilt! See the set lips of the 'unbiased twelve' as they retire for consideration of their verdict! Sit crushed under the terrible 'Guilty' and bootless, formal blasphemy, 'May God have mercy on your soul'! With pinioned arms and bandaged eyes hear the suppressed hum of mob—and then—the awful black!"
As these thoughts surged through his mind, Oswald registered a vow never to expiate the crime of another. "I will wander over the earth until old age; will face every danger of desert wilds; will resist to death any efforts for my arrest; but no gallows ever shall be erected for Oswald Langdon."
The injustice of his position confronted him with such force that Oswald felt defiant of all law. He would be an "Ishmaelite," finding "casus belli" in all the purposes of fate.
The instinct of self-defense and gravity of his position precluded sympathetic feeling for friends innocently involved in results of the tragedy. Such sentiments will come when present stress is less imminent.
Emerging from the English Channel, they are in the Bay of Biscay. A storm is raging. Sailors fear wreck, but Oswald feels not a tremor. What are ocean's pending perils to this human castaway, about whose hunted soul seem closing the tentacles of fate?
Roar of tempest, blinding electric flash, rushing wave, descending spray, creaking timbers, with instinctive ravening of ocean's hungry hordes, are luring, friendly greetings compared to merciless clamor of that receding shore.
Spending its spasmodic heat, the storm subsides, and the ship plows on toward destined port.