Impossible to convey the low ferocity, the bestial drawling insolence of voice and manner. Scott flushed like a schoolgirl and involuntarily recoiled a step. "Hold your mouth, ye foul-tongued, ungratefu' devil; the doctor's the best friend ye have, and better than ye deserve!" cried Mackenzie angrily.
"Hold your own mouth, Sandy Mackenzie, or I'll knock every bloody one of those gold-stopped teeth you're so proud of down your bloody throat—by God, I will!"
Mackenzie turned purple; but before he could get into action Scott intervened.
"Let be, officer," he commanded with authority. "This has gone beyond you and me. The man's not responsible; he doesn't know what he is saying."
"I won't go to your bloody hospital—I won't—I won't," cried Gardiner, his voice rising to a shriek. Scott turned in the doorway: Mackenzie, staunch U.P., was less shocked than he would have believed possible to watch him make the sign of the cross and to catch the muttered Latin of his commendation. If ever he had seen a man possessed with a devil and in need of exorcism, he saw him then.
When they had gone out, Gardiner lay for some moments passive; then with infinite toil, steadying himself with his shaking hand against the wall, he got to his feet. What was he going to do next? He knew that perfectly. He was not going to hospital; not he! He was going to escape. For in the terminology of the jail suicide is only a form of prison-breaking, and the letter "E" is inscribed impartially over the door of the convict who makes a dash for liberty through the fogs of Dartmoor, and of the wretched youth who tries to hang himself by his neckerchief from the ventilator of his cell.
Why should he go on living? Lettice was dead, or would be by the time they let him free to save her; and he absolutely declined to lie here and watch her die. One night of that was enough. Not that at this moment Gardiner cared a straw for Lettice or any one else; he was lower than the lowest criminal in the jail; he was in the mood to join the Germans in their hellish work. Broken with that night of agony, he had clutched like a drowning man at Scott's hand, he had crawled in abject abasement to his feet, imploring mercy, and had been refused. "Hissing hot with burning tears," he had been plunged into the waters of despair. The shock was too great. A flaw started out, running right across his nature, separating him from his former self. Gardiner had gone over to the devil.
Well, if he meant to do it he must do it at once, before he was transferred to hospital, where his bed would be one among a dozen in a ward. The best time would be between dinner at twelve and the resumption of work at one, the interval when the warders went off by relays to their own meal. He had heard through his torpor enough to know that he was safe until then. This settled, he lay down on his bed and took up his book, presenting a disarming picture of tranquillity when the orderlies came round with the tins of food. The flap of his spy-hole was raised just as he finished his meal, and he was glad to see it; now, in all probability, he would have a good twenty minutes to himself before he was disturbed again.
Suicide is common in prisons, and prisoners have their own ways of compassing it. You may hang yourself—a disagreeably slow death where no drop is available. You may, if you are strong and active, throw yourself over the wire-netting that guards the staircase, and be dashed to pieces on the flags below. You may even, if you are very resolute, hack your throat open with the blunt piece of corrugated tin which serves as a dinner knife. Gardiner had his own plan. Some time since his gas globe had got broken, and he had managed to secrete a splinter of glass. Difficult to hide it, since every prisoner is searched twice a day; but, again, they have their own ways of hiding things. It is on record that a sovereign has been found on a man who had been in jail for a year. Gardiner hid his bit of glass under his tongue. It was small enough for that, but it was large enough to sever the artery in his thigh.
He turned his back to the door and drew the bed-clothes round him to hide the flow of blood. Then he leant out to find the splinter in the crack where it lay hid. At that moment he heard the tread of a warder outside. They wear list slippers, and to a free man would be inaudible; but prisoners have cat's ears. Gardiner drew in his hand to let the man go by. Lucky he did so. With the usual tremendous rattle and crash his door was unlocked and flung wide.