Changeling, and Other Stories
"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.
THE BARNACLE GOOSE
I
He might have been a hundred years away, he thought, as he sped along
the road on the jaunting-car; he might have been a hundred years away
instead of a meager dozen, so strange did everything appear to him.
Every turn of the way, every stone, every smoking farm-house, every
green field, was new. Even the sea to the right of him, beside which
he had played for nineteen years, was dramatically unexpected. Faintly
the whole landscape came back to him; hazily, as though he were seeing
for the first time a scene that had been inadequately described in a
book.
First, there was the road itself, broad, undulating, rising and
falling, like an artist's fancy. Then, right and left, fields of
delicate blue-green corn, soft as no carpet could be; and great meadows
of hay, sprinkled with white and red clover; long stretches of potatoes
with delicate pink and mauve flowers; and here and there a gnarled