The people went into the country, into the woods, searching for dynamite. And children playing in the snow found the dynamite, and by now even the children had their instructions. They opened the packages and ate the chocolate, and then they buried the dynamite in the snow and told their parents where it was.
Far out in the country a man picked up a tube and read the instructions and he said to himself, “I wonder if this works.” He stood the tube up in the snow and lighted the fuse, and he ran back from it and counted, but his count was fast. It was sixty-eight before the dynamite exploded. He said, “It does work,” and he went hurriedly about looking for more tubes.
Almost as though at a signal the people went into their houses and the doors were closed, the streets were quiet. At the mine the soldiers carefully searched every miner who went into the shaft, searched and researched, and the soldiers were nervous and rough and they spoke harshly to the miners. The miners looked coldly at them, and behind their eyes was a little fierce jubilance.
In the drawing-room of the palace of the Mayor the table had been cleaned up, and a soldier stood guard at Mayor Orden’s bedroom door. Annie was on her knees in front of the coal grate, putting little pieces of coal on the fire. She looked up at the sentry standing in front of Mayor Orden’s door and she said truculently, “Well, what are you doing to do to him?” The soldier did not answer.
The outside door opened and another soldier came in, holding Doctor Winter by the arm. He closed the door behind Doctor Winter and stood against the door inside the room. Doctor Winter said, “Hello, Annie, how’s His Excellency?”
And Annie pointed at the bedroom and said, “He’s in there.”
“He isn’t ill?” Doctor Winter said.
“No, he didn’t seem to be,” said Annie. “I’ll see if I can tell him you’re here.” She went to the sentry and spoke imperiously. “Tell His Excellency that Doctor Winter is here, do you hear me?’
The sentry did not answer and did not move, but behind him the door opened and Mayor Orden stood in the doorway. He ignored the sentry and brushed past him and stepped into the room. For a moment the sentry considered taking him back, and then he returned to his place beside the door. Orden said, “Thank you, Annie. Don’t go too far away, will you? I might need you.”
Annie said, “No, sir, I won’t. Is Madame all right?”
“She’s doing her hair. Do you want to see her, Annie?”
“Yes, sir,” said Annie, and she brushed past the sentry, too, and went into the bedroom and shut the door. Orden said, “Is there something you want, Doctor?”
Winter grinned sardonically and pointed over his shoulder to his guard. “Well, I guess I’m under arrest. My friend here brought me.”
Orden said, “I suppose it was bound to come. What will they do now, I wonder?” And the two men looked at each other for a long time and each one knew what the other was thinking.
And then Orden continued as though he had been talking. “You know, I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.”
“I know,” said Winter, “but they don’t know.” And he went on with a thought he had been having. “A time-minded people,” he said, “and the time is nearly up. They think that just because they have only one leader and one head, we are all like that. They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.”
Orden put his hand on Winter’s shoulder and he said, “Thank you, I knew it, but it’s good to hear you say it. The little people won’t go under, will they?” He searched Winters face anxiously.
And the doctor reassured him, “Why, no, they won’t. As a matter of fact, they will grow stronger with outside help.”
The room was silent for a moment. The sentry shifted his position a little and his rifle clinked on a button.
Orden said, “I can talk to you, Doctor, and I probably won’t be able to talk again. There are little shameful things in my mind.” He coughed and glanced at the rigid soldier, but the soldier gave no sign of having heard. “I have been thinking of my own death. If they follow the usual course, they must kill me, and then they must kill you.” And when Winter was silent, he said, “Mustn’t they?’
“Yes, I guess so.” Winter walked to one of the gilt chairs, and as he was about to sit down he noticed that its tapestry was torn, and he petted the seat with his fingers as though that would mend it. And he sat down gently because it was torn.
And Orden went on, “You know, I’m afraid, I have been thinking of ways to escape, to get out of it. I have been thinking of running away. I have been thinking of pleading for my life, and it makes me ashamed.”
And Winter, looking up, said, “But you haven’t done it.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“And you won’t do it.”
Orden hesitated. “No, I won’t. But I have thought of it.”
And Winter said, gently, “How do you know everyone doesn’t think of it? How do you know I haven’t thought of it?”
“I wonder why they arrested you, too,” Orden said. “I guess they will have to kill you, too.”
“I guess so,” said Winter. He rolled his thumbs and watched them tumble over and over.
“You know so.” Orden was silent for a moment and then he said, “You know, Doctor, I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame. I am afraid, I am terribly afraid, and I thought of all the things I might do to save my own life, and then that went away, and sometimes now I feel a kind of exultation, as though I were bigger and better than I am, and do you know what I have been thinking, Doctor?” He smiled, remembering. “Do you remember in school, in the Apology? Do you remember Socrates says, ‘Someone will say, “And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?” To him I may fairly answer, “There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.” ’ ” Orden paused, trying to remember.
Doctor Winter sat tensely forward now, and he went on with it, “ ‘Acting the part of a good man or of a bad.’ I don’t think you have it quite right. You never were a good scholar. You were wrong in the denunciation, too.”
Orden chuckled. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” said Winter, eagerly, “I remember it well. You forgot a line or a word. It was graduation, and you were so excited you forgot to tuck in your shirttail and your shirttail was out. You wondered why they laughed.”
Orden smiled to himself, and his hand went secretly behind him and patrolled for a loose shirttail. “I was Socrates,” he said, “and I denounced the School Board. How I denounced them! I bellowed it, and I could see them grow red.”
Winter said, “They were holding their breaths to keep from laughing. Your shirttail was out.”
Mayor Orden laughed. “How long ago? Forty years.”
“Forty-six.”
The sentry by the bedroom door moved quietly over to the sentry by the outside door. They spoke softly out of the corners of their mouths like children whispering in school. “How long you been on duty?”
“All night. Can’t hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Me too. Hear from your wife on the boat yesterday?”
“Yes! She said say hello to you. Said she heard you was wounded. She don’t write much.”
“Tell her I’m all right.”
“Sure—when I write.”
The Mayor raised his head and looked at the ceiling and he muttered, “Um—um—um. I wonder if I can remember—how does it go?”
And Winter prompted him, “ ‘And now, O men—’ ”
And Orden said softly, “ ‘And now, O men who have condemned me—’ ”
Colonel Lanser came quietly into the room; the sentries stiffened. Hearing the words, the colonel stopped and listened.
Orden looked at the ceiling, lost in trying to remember the old words. “ ‘And now, O men who have condemned me,’ ” he said, “ ‘I would fain prophesy to you—for I am about to die—and—in the hour of death—men are gifted with prophetic power. And I— prophesy to you who are my murderers—that immediately after my—my death—’ ”