There are some who, in such circumstances, give way to abject terror. Others, whose nervous system is not so finely strung and whose sense of justice is strong, are filled with a rush of indignation, and meet their fate with savage ferocity, or with dogged and apparent indifference. Some, rising above sublunary matters, shut their eyes to all around and fix their thoughts on that world with which they may be said to be more immediately connected, namely, the next.
Lancey went through several of these phases. When the truth first really came home to him he quailed like an arrant coward. Then a sense of violated justice supervened. If at that moment Samson’s powers had been his, he would have snapped the ropes that bound him like packthread, and would have cut the throat of every man around him. When he was placed upon the substitute for a “block,” and felt by a motion of his elbows his utter powerlessness, the dogged and indifferent state came on, but it did not last. It could not. His Christian training was adverse to it.
“Come,” he mentally exclaimed, “it is God’s will. Quit you like a man, Jacob—and die!”
There is no doubt that in this frame the brave fellow would have passed away if he had not been roused by the loud clattering of horses’ feet as a cavalcade of glittering Turkish officers dashed through the square. In front of these he observed the red-bearded officer who had acted as interpreter in the cabin of the Turkish monitor.
There came a sudden gush of hope! Lancey knew not his name, but in a voice of thunder he shouted—
“’Elp! ’elp! ’allo! Pasha! Redbeard!—”
The executioner hastened his work, and stopped the outcry by tightening the rope.
But “Redbeard” had heard the cry. He galloped towards the place of execution, recognised the supposed spy, and ordered him to be released, at the same time himself cutting the rope with a sweep of his sword.
The choking sensation which Lancey had begun to feel was instantly relieved. The rope was removed from his neck, and he was gently led from the spot by a soldier of the Pasha’s escort, while the Pasha himself galloped coolly away with his staff.
If Lancey was surprised at the sudden and unexpected nature of his deliverance, he was still more astonished at the treatment which he thereafter experienced from the Turks. He was taken to one of the best hotels in the town, shown into a handsome suite of apartments, and otherwise treated with marked respect, while the best of viands and the choicest of wines were placed before him.