SENTENCED

Like the majority of Englishmen, Cartoner had that fever of the horizon which makes a man desire to get out of a place as soon as he is in it.  The average Englishman is not content to see a city; he must walk out of it, through its suburbs and beyond them, just to see how the city lies.

Before he had been long in Warsaw, Cartoner hired a horse and took leisurely rides out of the town in all directions.  He found suburbs more or less depressing, and dusty roads innocent of all art, half-paved, growing wider with the lapse of years, as in self-defence the foot-passengers encroached on the fields on either side in search of a cleaner thoroughfare.  To the north he found that the great fort which a Russian emperor built for Warsaw’s good, and which in case of emergency could batter the city down in a few hours, but could not defend it from any foe whatever.  Across the river he rode through Praga, of grimmest memory, into closely cultivated plains.  But mostly he rode by the riverbanks, where there are more trees and where the country is less uniform.  He rode more often than elsewhere southward by the Vistula, and knew the various roads and paths that led to Wilanow.

One evening, when clouds had been gathering all day and the twilight was shorter than usual, he was benighted in the low lands that lie parallel with the Saska Island.  He knew his whereabouts, however, and soon struck that long and lonely river-side road, the Czerniakowska, which leads into the manufacturing districts where the sugar-refineries and the iron-foundries are.  It was inches deep in dust, and he rode in silence on the silent way.  Before him loomed the chimney of the large iron-works, which clang and rattle all day in the ears of the idlers in the Lazienki Park.

Before he reached the high wall that surrounds these works on the land side he got out of the saddle and carefully tried the four shoes of his horse.  One of them was loose.  He loosened it further, working at it patiently with the handle of his whip.  Then he led the horse forward and found that it limped, which seemed to satisfy him.  As he walked on, with the bridle over his arm, he consulted his watch.  There was just light enough to show him that it was nearly six.

The iron-foundries were quiet now.  They had been closed at five.  From the distant streets the sound of the traffic came to his ears in a long, low roar, like the breaking of surf upon shingle far away.

Cartoner led his horse to the high double door that gave access to the iron-foundry.  He turned the horse very exactly and carefully, so that the animal’s shoulder pressed against that half of the door which opened first.  Then he rang the bell, of which the chain swung gently in the wind.  It gave a solitary clang inside the deserted works.  After a few moments there was the sound of rusted bolts being slowly withdrawn, and at the right moment Cartoner touched the horse with his whip, so that it started forward against the door and thrust it open, despite the efforts of the gate-keeper, who staggered back into the dimly lighted yard.