Changeling, and Other Stories 3 – Byrne · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 3Part 1 · Chapter 3
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 3
Part 1 · Chapter 3
ByrneEnglish
Without, the gray January dusk had crept into the cañons of New York and given the narrow streets, the crenelated buildings, the moving trucks, the pedestrians a semblance of unreality, as though they were being seen through a mist raised by some necromancer at the call of a wretched man. Through the windows of the court-room the Tombs were still evident, but the building had become unreal. It was like some ogre's castle in a fairy-tale for children, very terrible, but not really there.
The judge, the jury, the attendants, all the court had somehow lost entity as a court. It was no more a court than a house in a play is a house. It was just a formula embracing a hundred or so human beings. And one felt also that this was not in New York. There was no atmosphere of New York. New York might be a cloak and a disguise, but the minds and personalities of all were on a golden island on shining seas.
And they didn't see McCarthy in the witness-box, nor Janssen in the dock, but by the cove where the water was so translucent that one could see, fathom on fathom deep, the rainbow fish below....
"She gets better day by day, and I 'm so glad I could sing," continued the officer, speaking more easily as practice came after his seven years of silence. "She sits on the beach and health comes to her with the wind, and little by little the flush comes in her cheek, and life ferments, and her hair that has become dank ripples and flows, as a still sea stirs up with a breeze. And soon she 's swimming again. But there 's little of the old Janssen left. All her movements are grave. At times she sits thinking, and her brow is working with thought. At other times she smiles. Just a dignified little smile.
"And soon after she gets well, she saves my life a second time.
"This is how it happens. I 'm fishing one day and my line and hook get caught down in the coral. And I don't want to lose that hook. Hooks are n't easy to make. So I says: 'I 'll go down after that hook.'
"I shoot in and go swimming down through the water, and I hang on to the coral with one hand, and unloose the hook with the other. I 'm about ready to come up when in the water between me and the sun I can see a shadow like a boat. For a moment I think it's a boat, and come up with a rush. But half-way up I know it's no boat. And in the warm water I go cold as ice.
"I 'm more than half-way up, and I have no chance of shouting, splashing, making a noise, the way you frighten them off. And suddenly I know the big fellow sees me. I can feel the vibration of his swirl in the water as he turns off to a point where he can come rushing at me.
"'It's good-by, McCarthy!' I say to myself, and turn to face him. And then I hear a plung-h into the water the moment he's ready to turn over and come at me. And Janssen comes shooting down.
"She has a stone or something in her hand drawn back and lets him have it just on the soft point of the nose, the only place you can hurt those fellows. One crack! And the big coward turns and slinks off just like a dog that's been kicked.
"When we get ashore I 'm just as mad as I can be. The idea of her taking a chance like that!
"'Haven't you got any sense at all?' I bawl her out. 'What do you mean, taking a chance like that? What do you think a shark is? A mackerel? Maybe you think he wouldn't touch you? Maybe you think he's a gentleman? He's not. If brains were money,' I say, 'I don't think you could buy a subway ticket. Never do that, or anything like that again. Mind your own business!'
"But she 's crying and laughing together. She walks off, now sobbing, now laughing. I run after her.
"'Not that from the bottom of my heart I 'm not grateful to you, but you must never again--'
"But she laughs and she sobs:
"'Go away, McCarthy. Go away. Please go away!'
"All this time I know I 'm very fond of Janssen, and something tells me Janssen is of me, though God knows why. But we say nothing. At times it's hard to talk. And I look at her and think. If things were only different, how I could love that girl! But here she is, a prisoner, and I 'm her keeper. It's a pity. It's a pity, even, she's changed. It makes it awful hard for me.
"But I can't keep my eyes off her. She stands on the beach, the wind rustling her green garment, and rippling her hair. Very beautiful. And a little butterfly, from God knows where, is fluttering about her. Now it's in her hair, now about her throat. And curiously it comes to light on her lips.
"'You look awfully pretty, Janssen,' I say, 'with that butterfly.'
"She smiles at me, kind of queerly.
"'You 're a brave man, McCarthy,' she says, 'the bravest man I ever knew. You 're strong. You 're tremendous. Yes, you 're brave. But this little butterfly, that in all its body has n't the strength of one single hair of your head, whose brief life is but a single day, is braver than you, McCarthy, braver far than you.'
"'I don't understand you, Janssen.'
"But I understand her all right.
"And the days roll by, roll by, and nothing changes, nothing comes to us. Once or twice we see sails. Once a full-rigged ship under bare poles runs before a gale. And once in the distance we see a schooner heeling to the breeze.
"We are not speaking much to each other. There is a feeling of strangeness in the air. And at night I 'm worried-like. The trees rustle. The waves lap. There is great darkness. And for all we are the only two people in that island, yet I feel at night somehow we are not alone. Unseen, shadowy people are about us, in the sea, in the air. Once there were millions on these islands and now there are few. Once they were a great strong race, and now they are a timid handful. And I imagine that in the dark of the moon the brown tribes reassemble and put to sea in their war-canoes, and walk on the beaches that are so like Paradise.
"And there are great temples on these islands, but their gods are no more. And may they not too walk in the night-time with terrible, silent stride?
"The Cross of Christ is between me and all harm. I believe that, and I know it, and I am not afraid. But I am unquiet, nevertheless.
"And if I am unquiet, what of Janssen, wide-eyed through the night?
"At last one night I take my courage in both hands. Janssen is sitting in the moonlight by the cove, and for the first time I ever heard her she is singing a little something. Her voice is somehow like a boy's.
"'Janssen!' I stand and look at her.
"'Yes, McCarthy.' She turns and looks at me.
"'Janssen, when we go back,' I say, 'and when what has to be will be done, and when all is over, the morning you are free, I 'll be waiting at the gate for you. I 'll want you to marry me and come to me.'
"'You love me, McCarthy?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'I love you, Janssen.'
"'I love you, too, McCarthy. I suppose you know.'
"All this time she never looks at me, but out on the moonlit cove.
"'But if we never get off this island,' she says after a little while, 'we never get married.'
"'How can we?' I say. 'There is none to marry us.'
"She is speaking slowly, seriously, in the moonlight, and every word she says has the weight of sincerity.
"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that the church and all the people there and the organ and the rice make a marriage? Are all these necessary, McCarthy? Tell me, please.'
"'No.' I think it out. 'The only one necessary is the clergyman.'
"'Because he is the representative of--God?'
"'Yes,' I say in a minute or so, 'because he is there for--God.'
"'And yet God is everywhere? Knows all? Sees everything? Reads the inside of our hearts as easily as the clergyman reads our faces?'
"'That is what they say, Janssen. That is--what--we believe--'
"There is silence. Then she sinks to her knees in the sand in the moonlight.
"'Kneel down, McCarthy, and give me your hands.' I kneel and give her my hands without protest--her voice is so commanding, so sincere. And there is a strange thing between us now. All the time before if I touch her I feel strength flowing from me to her, but to-night when I hold her hands there is an even level.
"'If God wishes to hear us to-night, then we are married.'
"'But,' I say, 'Janssen, how do we know if He hears us, gives His consent?'
"Her eyes wander over the island, over the sea. She points suddenly to the lagoon.
"'See, McCarthy. See, under the moon there, that big turtle. He is uncertain where to go.' I look and I see the little black head like a dot on the water and the widening ripple as he swims around. 'See the boatswain bird's rock.' I saw the flat square surface in the cove. 'If he swims to and mounts that rock, then it will be a sign we have been heard and--He has given His consent.'
"'But he will never come to the rock, dear Janssen,' I say. 'He is going out with the tide.'
"'McCarthy,' she says a little scornfully, 'you are the good man, the untarnished one, the one who was brought up to believe, and you do not. And I, the bad woman, the murderess, the worse than Magdalen because I never loved until now, I believe. I believe and know.'
"And then her belief came to me and I turned to see the great turtle. He swam around and around and the moon shot the little ripples in gleaming silk. And at last I could bear it no longer, and I lowered my head; but Janssen still watched with her head high. And I could feel her hands tremble, and then crisp, and then tremble, and suddenly grow firm and fine and powerful.
"'Look, McCarthy, look!' Her voice rang like a bell. 'He is come to--he is on the rock.'"
"And I raised my head, too, and I saw the Miracle of the Turtle....
"And so we were married, and dwelt as happy as we could be, until the brig Angela Scofield put in for water and rescued us, and I brought Janssen back to the bar of justice, as I was bound under oath to do."
Here McCarthy stopped, and all knew he would say no more. Indeed, it seemed as if he could physically say no more, for the man seemed overcome. All the tenseness of him was gone and the prisoner and he looked at each other in a strange, pathetic, and trusting way, smiling with dry mouths and wet eyes. All in the court-room felt suddenly abashed, as a cynic might feel before the eyes of a child.
And suddenly in every one's mind there were translated his simple words, "And so we were married, and dwelt as happy as we could be," into pictures that were not pictures but chords, harmony and counterpoint, not for the mind's eye but for the heart's feeling. There they had been by a cove on Paradise Island, loving each other not joyously but simply and sincerely and with great strength.
They could see them, strong and fine, by the translucent water of the cove, under the golden sun on the golden sands, in a place as beautiful as the garden the Lord God planted in Eden. And as over that first garden, so over this one did a storm brood like an owl.
What terror she must have gone through, with the prison gate continually before her! What temptations must he have undergone with his wife by him, and the thought in his head that one day he must bring her back to stand trial for the killing of a man!
In God's name, what was the use to them of shining seas and golden sands, trees green as green banners, moons of Paradise and scented tropic winds, while tragedy was in the air, electric as a storm?
"You can step down, McCarthy," the district attorney said. And turning to the court he spread out his hands.
"The case of the people rests."
"The case for Anna Janssen rests," countered Howard Donegan.
For a long time there was a pause, that was accentuated into uncomfortable drama by the ticking of the court clock. It was as though an angel of silence were passing. The jury looked uncomfortable. The district attorney bit his nails. The spectators looked at one another in mental disorientation. It might have been the first bar of justice with no precedent to follow, no set of rules, so suddenly had all the machinery stalled. Only Howard Donegan drowsed an....
The judge was the first to come to himself. He rustled papers. He rapped for order. He turned to the jury.
"Gentlemen," he began, "the case for the people rests and the counsel for the prisoner rests his case also. It has now arrived to make a decision.
"You jurymen have only one duty to perform, and a bounden duty it is. You have got to decide one fact. Did Anna Janssen kill Alastair de Vries?
"Were Anna Janssen before you, the lowest of the low, gutter-soiled, evil, a menace to the community, and did not kill De Vries, then you would have to bring in a verdict of 'not guilty,' no matter how much enmity you felt to her. No matter what she is before you now, no matter what sympathy you feel for her, you must bring in a verdict of 'guilty' if you are certain she killed De Vries.
"Now, gentlemen, there can be no reasonable doubt of this. Even the prisoner herself admits it. So I must instruct you to bring in a verdict of guilty."
The jury looked at one another, amazed, a little scared. They turned to the foreman, a fine, florid personage, with a fan-shaped red beard, a man who ought to be equal to every occasion, so it seemed. They turned to him as a sheep turns to a bellwether. He rose to his feet.
"But this woman is changed," he objected. "She is not the same--"
"That is not germane to your offices," the judge answered severely. "You weigh facts. I weigh justice, Your affair is between Alastair de Vries and Anna Janssen. De Vries is now in the hands of his God. Janssen is in mine. Though I am the arbiter of legal form, yet also I am the personation of Equity. God has judged De Vries; I, with the voice of God, shall judge Anna Janssen. Consider your verdict."
"If we bring in a verdict of 'not guilty--'" the foreman suggested.
"If you do--" the judge was cold as steel--"you have done an unpardonable thing. You have betrayed the people of New York, whose representatives you are. You have brought into disrepute the law of your city. And women will kill men with the hope of obtaining lax verdicts. Moreover, on legal grounds, I shall declare this no trial. And the prisoner will go through the ordeal again."
"Well, if that's the way--" The foreman looked around embarrassedly at the jury. The jury seemed to put implicit faith in him. "We will not have to leave the box!"
"Clerk of the Court," called the judge....
"Prisoner, look on the jury. Jury, look on the prisoner. What say ye, have ye arrived at a verdict?"
"We have."
"What say ye: is the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Well, this woman killed De Vries, but--"
"Guilty or not guilty?" judge demanded.
"Guilty!"
"Prisoner--" the judge turned to Janssen--"you have committed a murder. You have been adjudged guilty of it by a jury of your peers.
"It is now my duty to sentence you to a punishment not fitting the crime of murder but fitting such circumstances before and after as come within the scope of the foresight of Equity. You have taken a life and your life is hostage to the law.
"It now rests with me to decide what I shall do with this life that is in my hands and forfeit to the justice of the community; not only what is the best thing for the community, but what is the best thing for you. Shall I extinguish it, that it shall be no longer a danger to living men, a danger to your own immortal soul? Or shall I dispose of it otherwise, as my inspiration directs?
"Prisoner, I give you back that life, but I sentence you to imprisonment for its natural term."
There was a moment's pregnant silence in the court. Then a quick bourdon hum of anger. Suddenly came riot. The prisoner wilted. The jury stood up in protest. The spectators rose on threatening feet.
The judge raised his hand. He was suddenly clothed in the majesty of Solomon.
"Prisoner, I have made inquiries and there is owing to your husband his salary for ten years, which he will collect. He will then take you and have this marriage made legal. He will then take you from the place where you now are to the place whence you came, to your island down the Pacific, and you will live there, happy ever after, is the wish of this court of justice."
There came suddenly from the throats of all a mighty cheering. For an instant the attendants sought to keep order, but they soon desisted, themselves to join the joyous clamor. The sound bellied from the court-room and into the street. Pedestrians stopped and horses started. All looked at one another in amazement. Out of the court-room of tragedy had issued springtime carnival. One expected at any moment to hear chiming bells.
