Then a bell began to boom, a deep-toned bell, whose tolling was inexpressibly solemn, and poured into his heart a sadness too deep for sorrow. As though there dwelt an enchantment in the very sound itself, the dark prairies shifted like a scene, and in their stead he saw, in a cold gray twilight, a high doorway built of a cold gray stone, rough-hewed and heavy. Through its arch passed then a file of gray-cowled monks, their faces concealed. Each carried a torch, whose flickering, wavering light cast weird cowled figures on the gray stone, and in their midst was borne a bier, covered with white. And as the deep bell boomed on through all the vision, like a subtle thrilling presence, Bennington seemed to himself to stand, finger on lip, the eternal custodian of the Secret of it all—the secret that each of these cowled figures was a Man—a divine soul and a body, with ears, and eyes, and a brain; that he had thoughts, and his life that is and is to come was of these thoughts; that there beat hearts beneath that gray, and that their voices must not be heeded; that in the morning these wearied eyes awaited but the eve, and that the evening brought no hope for a new day; that these silent, awesome beings lived within the heavy stones alone with monotony, until the bell tolled, as now, and they were carried through the arched doorway into the night; and, above all, that to each there were sixty minutes in the hour, and twenty-four hours in the day, and years and years of these days. This was the Secret, and he was its custodian. None of the others knew of it; but its awfulness made him sad and stern. He checked the days, he numbered the hours, he counted the minutes rigorously lest one escape. One did escape, and he turned back to catch it, and pursued it far away from the stone doorway and the dull twilight, and even the sound of the bell, off into a land where there were many hills and valleys, among which the fugitive Minute hid elusively. And he pursued the Minute, calling upon it to come to him, and the name by which he called it was Mary. Then he saw that the square of the window had become yellow with the sun, and that through it he could hear plainly the voices of the Leslies talking in high tones.
His brain was very clear, more so than usual, and he not only received many impressions, and ordered them with ease and despatch, but his very senses seemed more than ordinarily acute. He could distinguish even by day, when the night stillness had withdrawn its favouring conditions, the borings of the sawdust insects in the logs of the cabin. Only he was very tired. His hands seemed a long distance away, as though it would require an extraordinary effort of the will to lift them. So he lay quiet and listened.
The conversation, of which he was the eavesdropper, was carried on by fits and starts. First a sentence would be delivered by one of the Leslies; then would ensue a pause as though for a reply, inaudible to any but the interlocutors themselves; then another sentence; and so on, like a man at a telephone. After a moment's puzzling over it, Bennington understood that Jim Leslie was talking to one of the prisoners down the shaft.
"You have the true sporting spirit, sir," cried the voice of Jeems. "I honour you for it. But so philosophical a resignation, while it inclines our souls to know more of you personally, nevertheless renders you much less interesting in such a juncture as the present. I would like to hear from Mr. Davidson."
Pause.
"That was a performance, Mr. Davidson, which I can not entirely commend. It is fluent, to be sure, but it lacks variety. A true artist would have interspersed those finer shades and gradations of meaning which go to express the numerous and clashing emotions which must necessarily agitate your venerable bosom. You surely mean more than damn. Damn is expressive and forceful, because capable of being enunciated at one explosive effort of the breath, but it is monotonous when too freely employed. To be sure, you might with some justice reply that you had qualified said adjective strongly—but the qualification was trite though blasphemous. And you limited it very nicely—but the limitation to myself is unjust, as it overlooks my brother's equitable claims to notice."
Pause.
"I beg pardon! Kindly repeat!"
Pause.
"Delicious! Mr. Davidson, you have redeemed yourself. Bertie, did you hear Mr. Davidson's last remark?"