The situation appears grim for Henry as he ponders his fate.
Henry Morgan didn't know what he had done to deserve this. It wasn't as though he had done anything terribly wrong. He had just been neglectful. That was it. He had just forgotten; an oversight. But now he was going to have to pay. Just as the Bible says; if you know what is right and you fail to do what is right then it is a sin for you; the sin of omission his Sunday school teacher called it and now he was going to be punished for it.
He leaned back in the chair in which he was sitting, he tried to be philosophical about the whole affair as if it could bring him comfort but it wasn't any good. His palms were sweaty and his pulse had quickened considerably. He glanced at the clock on the wall, each tick bought him closer to his time.
He tried to remember the good times in his life to take his mind off the impending doom that was soon to befall him. The long summers when he was a boy, summers that seem to last for years. The long walks through the buttercup fields. The yellow flowers would tower above him as he thrashed his way through them towards the blackthorn hedge with the little stream that ran alongside it.
They were such happy times. He wished he could recapture those times. The age of innocence, when you didn't decide for yourself the difference between right and wrong it was decided for you. But it was gone. Gone forever! And now what. His future was decided for him.
He was warned. So many times he was warned but he didn't listen. He turned a deaf ear the all the exhortations. He wouldn't be told, and now the people would no longer be able to alert him to the dangers because the fruit of his errors were now upon him.
He watched with nervous eyes as the door opened and a person clad in white stood in the doorway looking at him. His execution had arrived. The hangman's advocate had come to lead him to his destiny.
There was no escaping now. Once beyond that door there was no return. He thought about begging, pleading for clemency. He thought about throwing himself at the person’s mercy, offering anything if only he would show him a way out, any slim chance of escape, anything. What ever was demanded, he would do it. Whatever sum extorted from him he would gladly pay, just let him evade what was behind that door.
Too late! The person gripped him under his arm and helped him to his feet. He looked into the face. It wasn't quite what he expected. There was no malice there, no sneers of distain. More of pity. No, more of empathy and understanding.
He suddenly felt at ease with the situation and with passive resignation let himself be led away to have his sentence carried out.
He was led into a small brightly lit room, a single chair in its center and about it were all the instruments of torture. His heartbeat quickened at the sight of it all. A lone figure stood by the apparatus and with an almost casual wave of the arm beckoned him forward.
Can something so perfect really be poisonous?
When Rachel and her husband Adam move to Maple Cottage in remote Cheshire, it should be the fulfilment of their dream to start a family.
Haunted by her past and challenged by events around he
Book eight in my Belinda Lawrence Classic Mysteries. Mysteries confront amateur sleuths, Belinda Lawrence and Hazel Whitby in the Somerset village of Milford.
Among the eccentrics is the shadowy Madam Malefic.
In this Silver Sisters Mystery it's trouble at sea when Goldie and Godiva's eighty year old mother and uncle are invied on a relaxing cruise. Magic turns to mayhem for these former vaudeville magicians when a star magician is murdered on board.
