He then went back to his lodging, and
set to work to find the position of Melbury Gardens upon his map. This done
the man marked his road to that region, outlining with a red chalk pencil
the streets through which he would have to walk before reaching it.
Throughout the afternoon he continued his preparations, acting very
methodically, and setting his house in order with the deliberation of one
who knows that he is going to die, but not immediately. Sometimes he rested
from the labor of letter-writing to think and rehearse again the scene
which was to close that day. A thousand times he had already done so; a
thousand times the imaginary interview had been the last thought in his
waking brain; but now the approach of reality swept away those unreal
dialogues, dramatic entrances, exits and events of the great scene as he
had pictured it. The present moment found Noy's brain blank as to
everything but the issue; and he surprised himself by discovering that his
mind now continually recurred to those events which would follow the
climax, while yet the death of John Barron was unaccomplished. His active
thoughts, under conditions of such excitation as the day had brought upon
the top of his discovery, traveled with astounding speed, and it was not
John Barron's end but his own which filled the imagination of the sailor as
he wrote. The shadow of the gallows was on the paper, though the event
which was to bring this consummation still lay some hours deep in
unrecorded time.
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