"It is Death," they replied, with one voice.
"It is Death," I repeated, pointing to the Arch Physician.
At such a moment, when nothing short of annihilation appeared in view, one would have expected from the guilty pair an appearance of the greatest consternation and dismay. On the contrary, the Arch Physician, with an insensibility—or a bravado—which one would not have expected of him, stood before us all, his arms folded, his eyes steady, his lips even smiling. Beside him stood the girl, dressed in the ridiculous mummery of the nineteenth century, bowed down, her face in her hands.
"It is I," she murmured—"it is I, Harry, who have brought you to this. Oh, forgive me! Let us die together. Since I have awakened out of the stupid torpor of the Present—since we remembered the Past—and Love—let us die together; for I could not live without you." She knelt at his feet, and laid her head upon his arm. "My love," she said, "my Lord and Love! let me die with you."
At this extraordinary spectacle I laughed aloud. Love? I thought the old wives' tales of Love and Lordship were long, long since dead and forgotten. Yet here was a man for the sake of a woman—actually because she wanted to go away and begin again the old pernicious life—breaking his most sacred vows; and here was a woman—for the sake of this man—actually and truly for his sake—asking for death—death with him! Since, when they were both dead, there could be no more any feeling one for the other, why ask for death? What good could that do for either?
"Your wish," I said to this foolish woman, "shall be gratified, in case the Judges of your case decide that your crime can be expiated by no less a penalty. Fellows of the College, let this guilty pair be confined for the night, and to-morrow we will try them solemnly in the College Court according to ancient custom."
I know not how many years had elapsed since that Court was held. The offences of the old time were for the most part against property—since there had been no property, there had been no crimes of this kind. Another class of old offences consisted of violence rising out of quarrels; since almost all these quarrels originated in disputes about property—every man in the old time who had property was either a thief or the son of a thief, so that disputes were naturally incessant—there could be no longer any such quarrels or any such violence. A third class of crimes were caused by love, jealousy, and the like; these two had happily, as we believed, disappeared forever.
The last class of crimes to vanish were those of mutiny. When the People grew gradually to understand that the welfare of all was the only rule of the governing body, and that selfishness, individualism, property, privilege, would no longer be permitted, they left off murmuring, and mutiny ceased. You have seen how orderly, how docile, how tranquil, is the life of the People as it has been ordered by the Sacred College. Alas! I thought that this order, this sheep-like freedom from Thought, was going to be henceforth universal and undisturbed.
Our prisoners made no opposition. John Lax, the Porter, bearing his halberd of office, marched beside them. We closed in behind them, and in this order we led them to the strong room over the South Porch, which is provided with bars and a lock. It is the sleeping-chamber of John Lax, but for this night he was to remain on the watch below.
Then, as Suffragan, I called a Council of Emergency in the Inner House, taking the Presidency in the absence of the Arch Physician.