第86章

And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own at all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion;it was pure as a religion - the love that takes no account of self, the love that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had marched - or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his lips had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he had left her, he almost came to wish - so pure was his love grown - that he had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed. His death would cause her pain. His death! 0 God!

It is an easy thing to be a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn faded from his tight-pressed lips tight-pressed as though to endure some physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed his brow. Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort, through the murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about them, for all Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.

Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled, volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined in earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through Wilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it gave him little care.

At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned in the eleventh hour.

Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and place. Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and Wentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.

The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey light of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew visible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the little company had reached the end of Weston village and come upon the deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective - a ditch that communicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces so well on that night of Sedgemoor.

Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we know, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he acceded to Wilding's prayer.

He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr. Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was that thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time. This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which had come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live.

Mad thoughts of escape crossed his mind - of a leap across the dyke, and a wild dash through the fog. But the futility of it was too appalling. The musketeers were already blowing their matches. He would suffer the ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he made any such attempt.

And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge of the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over the yoid, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting, and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.

It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers - blurred alike by mist and semi-darkness - some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed eight red fuses.

Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.

"Blow your matches!"

Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the faces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a moment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness at the word, "Cock your matches!""Guard your pans!" came a second later the captain's voice, and then:

"Present!"

There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a little darker than the encompassing dark grey.

"Give fire!"

On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had been sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at the imminent risk - as he afterwards related - of breaking his neck.

At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in the greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.