imprisonment.And there was nothing he could do.He could only sit idly and take what these lords of life measured out to him.Once, he got in a panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way out of it.He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by remembering and repeating certain passages from the "Yin Chih Wen" ("The Tract of the Quiet Way"); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden of meditation and repose.This bothered him, until he abandoned himself to the dream and sat in his garden listening to the tinkling of the windbells in the several trees.And lo! sitting thus, in the dream, he was able to remember and repeat the passages from "The Tract of the Quiet Way."So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules trotted up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the impatient sergeant.Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold.Beneath him on one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the plantation.Schemmer had decided that the event would be a good object-lesson, and so he called in the coolies from the fields and compelled them to be present.As they caught sight of Ah Cho they gabbled among themselves in low voices.They saw the mistake; but they kept it to themselves.The inexplicable white devils had doubtlessly changed their minds.Instead of taking the life of one innocent man, they were taking the life of another innocent man.Ah Chow or Ah Cho--what did it matter which? They could never understand the white dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them.Ah Cho was going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years of servitude were up, were going back to China.
Schemmer had made the guillotine himself.He was a handy man, and though he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the principle to him.It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete.The scene of the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence upon the half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation.Schemmer had also volunteered to act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold, experimenting with the instrument he had made.A banana tree, of the size and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine.Ah Cho watched with fascinated eyes.The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the blade to the top of the little derrick he had rigged.A jerk on a stout piece of cord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing the banana trunk.
"How does it work?" The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had asked the question.
"Beautifully," was Schemmer's exultant answer."Let me show you."Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and sent the blade crashing down on the soft tree.But this time it went no more than two-thirds of the way through.
The sergeant scowled."That will not serve," he said.
Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead."What it needs is more weight," he announced.Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron.As he stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity.
"The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off," he began.
The sergeant nodded impatiently.He was thinking of the fifteen-mile ride before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and of Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader, who was waiting for him at the end of it.
