Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JB ress oO uNnyan | by” Stephen Chalmers Author of “The Bronze Helmet,” etc. - CHAPTER XV. PILGRIM DROPS HIS BURDEN. some apology for having written so -much about myself in these latter pages, when this chronicle was to have been mainly about the doings of my friend, J. Bunyan. But from the time of leaving camp until my return under arrest, I knew nothing of Hobgoblin’s actions; and I did not foresee at this time how great a part he was to play in my affairs. As you shall see, however, the “ great in- strument ” was presently to reappear. In the jail I was left very much to my own reflections, the guard placed’ over me being either a surly fellow or harboring such hard thought against me that he could not bring himself to notice, much less speak to me. I was a disgrace to the Ironsides! Seated in that cell with my head in my hands, I found it difficult to think, not so. much that I was still suffering from the wound in my skull, but events had followed one another so rapidly that I was in a man- ner dazed. I must tell all—or be hanged! The lat- ter was a grim alternative. Yet I could not see that a full confession, did I make it, would be held “ worth the price of my life;” rather would it tend to confirm the justice of my sentence. None but I knew how seriously I had [: behooves me at this point to make offénded against military discipline and our cause. I had had the king in my hands and let him escape. Had I informed the proper authority, Charles would now be under arrest, and the last fires of the still smouldering war extinguished in its own ashes, To tell all would only make matters -worse for me; that is—for they could not be made worse—it would make them no better. The thin chance that it might, if I confessed, did not weigh against the like- lihood of bringing serious trouble upon Mistress Joyce and Ruth Prynne, and per- haps John Bunyan, too. Hobgoblin’s part in the affairs of that garden might—prob- ably would—come out, even if, in a mis- taken effort to help me, he did not blurt out his share in the doings. ‘‘ Probably,” did I say? Nay, they as- suredly would. I thought I knew Jack Bunyan. I could see him—hear him (if I told him what had brought me to this pass) lowering his shaggy head and charging like a bull into the very heart of the matter, roaring out the whole story in his thought to save me, were that at all possible. No! There was nothing I could think to do. Yet the hanging was less than twelve hours off! Late that evening, while I was still brooding in my cell, I heard the guard be- ing changed in the alley of the jail. Presently I became aware that the new This story began in The Argosy for July 10. 639 Digitized by (Go gle Original frot 0 SUITE | | OT DOO (A)