PAGE 4
Jan, the Unrepentant
by
Jan grinned triumphantly. “I tank I go mit der tent und haf a smoke.”
“Ostensiblee y’r correct, Bill, me son,” spoke up Lawson; “but y’r a dummy, and you can lay to that for another cold frozen fact. Takes a sea farmer to learn you landsmen things. Ever hear of a pair of shears? Then clap y’r eyes to this.”
The sailor worked rapidly. From the pile of dunnage where they had pulled up the boat the preceding fall, he unearthed a pair of long oars. These he lashed together, at nearly right angles, close to the ends of the blades. Where the handles rested he kicked holes through the snow to the sand. At the point of intersection he attached two guy-ropes, making the end of one fast to a cake of beach-ice. The other guy he passed over to Red Bill. “Here, me son, lay holt o’ that and run it out.”
And to his horror, Jan saw his gallows rise in the air. “No! no!” he cried, recoiling and putting up his fists. “It is not goot! I vill not hang! Come, you noddleheads! I vill lick you, all together, von after der odder! I vill blay hell! I vill do eferydings! Und I vill die pefore I hang!”
The sailor permitted the two other men to clinch with the mad creature. They rolled and tossed about furiously, tearing up snow and tundra, their fierce struggle writing a tragedy of human passion on the white sheet spread by nature. And ever and anon a hand or foot of Jan emerged from the tangle, to be gripped by Lawson and lashed fast with rope-yarns. Pawing, clawing, blaspheming, he was conquered and bound, inch by inch, and drawn to where the inexorable shears lay like a pair of gigantic dividers on the snow. Red Bill adjusted the noose, placing the hangman’s knot properly under the left ear. Mr. Taylor and Lawson tailed onto the running-guy, ready at the word to elevate the gallows. Bill lingered, contemplating his work with artistic appreciation.
“Herr Gott! Vood you look at it!”
The horror in Jan’s voice caused the rest to desist. The fallen tent had uprisen, and in the gathering twilight it flapped ghostly arms about and titubated toward them drunkenly. But the next instant John Gordon found the opening and crawled forth.
“What the flaming–!” For the moment his voice died away in his throat as his eyes took in the tableau. “Hold on! I’m not dead!” he cried out, coming up to the group with stormy countenance.
“Allow me, Mistah Gordon, to congratulate you upon youah escape,” Mr. Taylor ventured. “A close shave, suh, a powahful close shave.”
” Congratulate hell! I might have been dead and rotten and no thanks to you, you–!” And thereat John Gordon delivered himself of a vigorous flood of English, terse, intensive, denunciative, and composed solely of expletives and adjectives.
“Simply creased me,” he went on when he had eased himself sufficiently. “Ever crease cattle, Taylor?”
“Yes, suh, many a time down in God’s country.”
“Just so. That’s what happened to me. Bullet just grazed the base of my skull at the top of the neck. Stunned me but no harm done.” He turned to the bound man. “Get up, Jan. I’m going to lick you to a standstill or you’re going to apologize. The rest of you lads stand clear.”
“I tank not. Shust tie me loose und you see,” replied Jan, the Unrepentant, the devil within him still unconquered. “Und after as I lick you, I take der rest of der noddleheads, von after der odder, altogedder!”