For a long time that night neither Porter nor I said a word. The whole prison seemed to be pressed down with an abject and sodden misery. The cons missed the Kid from the patch of sunlight in the yard. They knew he had been bumped off.
"Colonel, have you any special hope as regards heaven?" Porter had a glass of Tipo half raised to his lips. The grafters had sent us a new case of costly wines.
"Give me a swallow of that, Bill! it must have a wonderful kick in it—up to heaven in two gulps!" Porter ignored me. It was not a night for jest.
"I am not speaking of a churchly paradise, but what, Al, is your idea of a state of perfect bliss?"
"At present, Bill, a dugout way off in the wilderness, where I would never again see the faces of men. I would want plenty of cattle and horses, but no trace of the human kind except perhaps a few of their books."
"No, the books would spoil it. Don't you realize, colonel, that the serpent who wrecked the first paradisc was Thought? Adam and Eve and all their unfortunate descendants might still be lolling in joyous ignorance on the banks of the Euphrates if Eve hadn't been stung with the desire to know. It's quite a feather in a woman's cap. Mother Eve was the first rebel—the first thinker."
Porter seemed impressed with his own brilliance. He nodded his head to emphasize his conviction. "Yes, colonel," he continued, "thought is the great curse. Often when I was out on the Texas ranges I envied the sheep grazing on the mesa. They are superior to men. They have no meditations, no regrets, no memories."
"You're wrong, Bill, the sheep are more intelligent than men. They mind their own business. They do not take upon themselves the powers which belong to Nature, or Providence, or whatever you wish to call it."
"That's exactly what I finished saying. They do not think; therefore they are happy."
"How stupid you are tonight, Bill. You might just as well go into ecstasy over the joys of non-existence. If thought makes us wretched, it is also thought that gives us our highest delight."
"Certainly, if I did not think, I would be serenely contented tonight. I should not be dragged down with a ton weight of futile anger."
"And if you did not think, you would likewise be incapable of intense pleasures."
"I have yet to find in thought, Al, this beneficent aspect. I persist—Thought is a curse. It is responsible for all the viciousness found in the human family; for depravities that are the monopoly of the lofty human species.
"Colonel—the Kid's execution is but one example of the viciousness of Thought. Men think a thing is and they conclude that it must be so. It is a sort of hypnotism."
Porter was never yet coherent in his philosophical pickings. He would begin with a whimsical absurdity and he would use this as a kind of string for his fancies.
He would pick up a thought here, an oddity there and run them all together. The finished necklace was like those chains of queerly sorted charms made by squaw women.
"Al," he turned to me with indolent deliberation, attempting to conceal the anxiety in his mind, "was he guilty?"
It was the thought tormenting me at that very moment. Neither of us had been thinking of another thing all evening.
"Colonel, the horror of this day has made an old man of me. Every hour I could feel that softy's freckled hand on my arm. I could see his gentle eyes smiling into mine. I believe him. I think he was innocent. Do you?
"You have seen many face death. A man might persist in a lie. But would a boy like that a child keep at it so?"
"Nearly every man who has not pleaded guilty insists on his innocence to his last breath. I don't know about the Kid. He may have been speaking the truth. I felt that he was innocent."
"Good God, Al—What a frightful thing if they have murdered a boy and he was not guilty! The terrible insolence of men to convict on circumstantial evidence! Does it not prove the conceit of Thought?
"There can be no certainty to second-hand evidence—what right have we then to inflict an irrevocable penalty ? The evidence may be disproved ; the charges may be withdrawn, but the condemned may not be summoned back from the grave. It is monstrous. The arrogance of human beings must tempt the patience of God.
"I am right, colonel, for all your opposition, thought not poised with humility, is but a goad lashing man's conceit to madness or at the other extreme we have thought unblended with faith then it is but a bludgeon striking man's yearnings down to despondency."
Abruptly he came over to me. He had picked up another bead for his fantastic chain.
"Was there ever a case in this pen when a man was electrocuted and it was afterward found that he was innocent?"
"Not in my time, Bill. But they tell of several. The old stir bugs could freeze the marrow in your bones with their tales."
"Some of them must be true. It is inconceivable that man's judgment should always be correct. The fact that one man has been cut off from life on evil evidence is sufficient indictment against the whole system of murder on circumstantial proof. How can men sit on a jury and take into their hands such wicked power?"
Several hours before the 9 o'clock gong had sounded there was a thick hush over the sleeping institution. Porter's whispering eloquence had lulled into quiet.
Our uneasy pangs were well diluted inTipo and into our harried minds there had drifted a half -dozing contentment. Suddenly a hoarse, rumbling growl that lifted into a piercing shriek came rasping out from the cell block.
Porter leaped to his feet.
"What was that? I was dreaming. It sounded like the crack of doom to me. This infernal place is haunted. I wonder if the Kid's spirit rests easily tonight ? Colonel, do you believe in spirits, in an after life, in a God?"
"No, I don't—leastwise, I don't think I do."
"Well, I do in a way. I think there is some kind of an all-powerful spirit, but the God of humanity doesn't loiter in this pen. He doesn't seem to be a student of criminology.
"If I thought much about this affair of today I would lose all faith, all happiness. I would never be able to write a hopeful line."
It was well for Porter that his release was due in a short time. The world could not afford to miss the buoyancy of his faith.
He was not in the prison when the shocking truth came out. The Press Post carried the story, bringing out again all the facts in the case. Bob Whitney, the boy whose body was supposed to have been washed up from the Scioto, turned up in Portsmouth. He wrote to his parents. He knew nothing about the Kid's execution.
The State had made a little mistake. It had bumped off a boy of 17 for a murder that was never committed. It had thought the Kid was guilty.
CHAPTER XXV.
Last days of 0. Henry in prison; intimate details; his going away outfit; goodbys; his departure.
The last leaf on the calendar was turned. Porter had but seven days more to serve. Even Billy grew quiet. When Porter came to the post-office, we would wait on him, yielding him the only comfortable chair, kicking a foot-stool under his feet. And once Billy grabbed up a pillow from his cot and stuffed it under
Porter's head. Porter stretched his ample body and turned on Billy a cherubic smile.
"Gee, Bill, I ain't a gonna die, am I? Feel my pulse."
It was like that—funny—but under the burlesque was the disturbing sadness of farewell. We were full of idiotic consideration for Porter as people are when they feel that a friend is leaving them forever.