One of Life's Slaves Part 23

When at length it opened, she wanted to go in.

"What do you want?"

"To hear about Nikolai."

"Nikolai? What Nikolai?"

"He who came in here last night."

"You don't mean him, the murderer? Are you his sister?"

"No."

"_That's_ a good thing, for the bad fellow hasn't got long to live." He made an expressive movement with his hand across his throat. "The man he attacked is dead--died at midday, and the murderer is now sitting in chains."

Silla did not know how it was that the door was shut behind her again, and did not feel that it was snowing thickly and silently, while the light from the lamps shone through a veil of snow--did not know how she had reached the bridge again.

That was where she ought to be.

Nikolai was sitting down there with handcuffs on, and stretching up his hands, and crying--crying to her!

The next morning a bit of a dress was seen sticking up out of the loose snow in the dam. Her skull had been broken in the high fall from the bridge against the edge of the ice.

It was proved that young Veyergang's death had been caused directly by the blow that had been dealt him which had penetrated to the brain.

And the impression was not to be softened by Nikolai's behaviour before the court. He stood there with wild sorrow in his heart over Silla's death, and answered that if Veyergang had had seven lives, he would have taken them all.

When questioned as to his parents, he at first declared that he had never known any; but when pressed further, he exclaimed, pointing at a large-boned woman who was sitting, crying on a bench:

"Her name is Barbara. They say she is my mother; but he who took away my happiness in this world got both her affection and her mother's milk."

Barbara wailed.

His father? It might be the whole town!--he looked round on the officials of the court.

This was an answer which fully confirmed the opinion which had been general from the first in this horrible, sensational murder case--that the court had here before it a bold criminal nature, early hardened in the dregs of town life.

The police still had a pretty clear remembrance of this individual from his violent conduct and other doubtful circ.u.mstances under a charge of theft. And it appeared from his past life, which was thoroughly sifted, that from his earliest childhood he had evinced dangerous tendencies, so that there had even been talk of placing him in an asylum for depraved children.

There were repeated facts brought forward from the time of his apprentices.h.i.+p in Haegberg's smithy, which proved that he was an individual given to fighting and violence.

Not longer ago than last year he had threatened Olaves' life, or so the witnesses interpreted it; and it appeared in the examination in court, that on the evening in question he had persistently plotted against the deceased, and had, just before the perpetration of the deed, declared his murderous intention in the threat: "It's the last time in your life that you'll say that!"

There was undeniably an extenuating circ.u.mstance in the fact that there was a love-story connected with the affair, and that the act seemed to be prompted by jealousy. On the other hand, it was clearly shown that it might also be considered as the outcome of an old hatred existing even in the years of their childhood.

The sentence of imprisonment with hard labour for life was pa.s.sed.

There was rifle-practice going on, puff after puff, down in the moat.

Further along, on the green, some soldiers were being drilled, and now and again a trumpet signal sounded out on the still morning air.

Under a guard of overseers a little band of fettered prisoners was being conducted, with a clanking echo at every step, along the ramparts from their work towards the inner building of the convict prison.

At a hole in the wall the last of the prisoners slackened his pace a little. He cast a lingering glance through the opening.

The fjord lay s.h.i.+ning blue beneath, with its many white sails and a steamer leaving a thick trail of smoke behind it on the water.

He drew a deep breath, his nostrils expanded, and there were signs of great agitation in his broad face.

The others were already five or six steps in advance, and the overseer began to roar at Number 66, exclaiming morosely:

"You'd give something to be able to fly out now, Nikolai!"

"I think that's the way we're all made!" he answered quickly.

"Then you should try and behave so as to get a remission."

Nikolai shook his head bitterly; a gleam shot from his grey eyes.

"If I got out, it would only be to come in again. For either the world ought to go to prison or I ought, and I suppose it may as well be the last!"

The clanking went on again.