 | CHAPTER XX.
MY SENTENCE AND ITS EXECUTION. Clara Moreland, or, Adventures in the far
South-west |  |
20. CHAPTER XX.
MY SENTENCE AND ITS EXECUTION.
What occurred during the remainder of the night, I
could only conjecture; for from my position I could see
little or nothing that was taking place; and the conversation
between the different parties was carried on in a tone
too low for me to overhear what was said. The ruffians who
had started in pursuit of Walter returned, and I felt the
deepest anxiety to learn if he had escaped or been killed,
but was forced to remain ignorant of his fate. I even
ventured to question one of the fellows who was passing
near me; but growling out a savage oath, he bade me
hold my tongue, and gave me no other answer.
For an hour Harley was left within a few feet of me,
and then he was removed. During the time he remained,
we conversed together in low tones; and I gave him directions
concerning some worldly affairs, and in what manner
to break the news of my fate to my friends in Virginia,
in case he should be so fortunate as to escape from his
captors.
I had never, at any period of my life—not even when
standing at the stake—felt a more oppressive presentiment
that my earthly destiny was drawing to a close, than as I
lay there upon the damp, cold earth, bound hand and foot,
and left alone to my thoughts. On the removal of Harley,
I truly felt that the parting was final, and that I should
never more look upon an earthly friend.
It were vain to attempt to describe my feelings in that
hour of lonely misery; for words may express thought
and sentiment, but they cannot convey to another the
I have them; for Heaven forbid that even my greatest
enemy should ever be doomed to the suffering I then and
there experienced! The words of my tormentor seemed
burning into my inmost soul; and I felt he had truly said
that the pains of the body were nothing in comparison
with the tortures of the mind. I tried to calm myself,
and let my thoughts take a heavenward flight, that my
spirit might depart somewhat purified from the dross of
earth; but the images of Warncliff and Clara—a devil
and an angel—continually rose up before me; and I fancied
I could hear the one hissing into the ear of the other
the awful words:
“He for whom you would have given your life, is a
prey to vultures, dangling between Heaven and earth!”
“Poor Clara!” I murmured; “what a terrible doom is
thine! Far better, a thousand times better, had the
savages slain thee, or forever held thee captive!”
Warncliff and his men remained up the rest of the
night; and just before the break of day, I heard the
trampling of horses, and the preparations making for the
resuming of their journey. For the last two hours no one
had come nigh me, and I could form no idea when the
terrible sentence of my bandit-rival was to be carried into
effect.
At last, just as the dull, leaden hue of morn began to
steal over the landscape, giving to every object a pale,
sickly cast, Warncliff himself made his appearance. Advancing
to my side, he paused, and folding his arms on
his breast, stood for several moments, regarding me with
the same dark, malignant expression of triumph which I
have before described.
“You have felt,” he at length said, speaking the words
slowly, and with emphatic distinctness. “Yes, you have
felt—for the agonies of the soul are visibly impressed on
not been forgotten. In the last few hours you have lived
an age.”
“May God forgive you!” said I, solemnly.
“Pray for yourself!” he replied, quickly and sharply;
“for you have most need, and will soonest stand in His
presence. Henry Walton,” he continued, “your hour
has come, and your minutes are already numbered. I do
not wish to see you die, and have come to take my leave.
Farewell! I wish you a safe and speedy journey to your
destination; which is more than you do me, with all your
pretended piety. I go to join Clara; but I leave you in
the hands of some trusty friends, who will faithfully stand
by you to the last. Au revoir!” and bowing, with mock
deference and politeness, he turned on his heel and strode
away.
I was anxious to see Harley once more, and I called to
Warncliff for this purpose; but he heeded me not; and
the next moment was hid from my view. Presently I
heard the order given to mount; and soon after, the sound
of horses' hoofs departing at a gallop, and gradually
dying away in the distance till all became still.
For a time, notwithstanding Warncliff had told me he
should leave me in the hands of some trusty friends, I was
led, from the deep stillness which prevailed, to believe
myself entirely alone; and I was beginning to speculate
upon the probability of his having changed his design, and
left me thus to starve, or be devoured by wild beasts—a
doom no less horrible than the other—when the sound of
voices reached my ear. At first I could hear nothing but
a sort of low grumble; but presently I could distinguish
what was said, denoting that the parties were either elevating
their tones or approaching from a distance.
“Thar's no use a talking, Jack,” were the first words I
such business, no how you can fix it.”
“Pshaw! baby talk,” replied the other, in a coarse,
gruff tone. “You must be gitting chicken-hearted; for
you've pinked your man afore to-day, and thought no
more on't than I did.”
“Yes, Jack, I'll allow that,” was the rejoinder; “but
that was in fair fight, you know.”
“Gammon!” growled the other: “Stuff! don't talk
to me as knows ye! Didn't I see you go up behind
Dandy Jake—as we used to call him—dirk him in the
back-bone, and pitch him into the drink—hey? Now
d'ye call that a fair fight—hey?”
“But I hated him,” was the reply; “for he was al'ays
crossing me in some way or other; and when I seen him
attempt to come over the affections of Lady Bess, I swore
I'd be the death o' him; and I kept my oath.”
“Well, our Cap'en hates this here feller for the same
reason; he's tried to come it over his gal; so come along,
Bill, and let's make an end of him.”
“Well, if Warncliff hates him, why don't he do the
dirty business himself, and not be setting others about it
that's got nothing again the chap?”
“Oh, botheration! Come along, Bill, or we'll get confoundedly
behindhand. See! our friends is almost out o'
sight; and we'll have to ride right sharp to catch 'em
as it is; and the longer we delay the wuss it'll be.”
“Well, if I must, I must—so here goes; but if ever
I'm cotched on such business agin, unless it's on my own
account, I'll give 'em leave to string up Bill Waterman,
Cap'en's orders or no Capen's orders, by —?”
“We'll have it over in a jiffy,” growled the other; and
as this was said, the speaker and his companion stood
along side of me.
I had heard enough to know that one at least disliked
and a faint hope sprung up in my breast, that perhaps I
might prevail upon my appointed executioners to let me
escape. With this idea in view, I hastened to say:
“Gentlemen, I know your business; but I believe also
that you are men not devoid of pity; and I beseech you
not to injure one who, whatever his faults, has never done
you, at least, any wrong!”
“Come! come! no whining!” growled the one called
Jack; “you've got to be strung up; I promised the
Cap'en to see it done; and — me, I'll keep my word,
though you use a coward's tongue to beg like an angel.”
“Remember,” said I, solemnly, “the mercy you deny
me, you may some time seek in vain yourself!”
“Well, I'll take my chance, any ways; and as for
mercy, when I know I've got to die, nobody won't hear
me whine like a whipped puppy, I can tell ye.”
I now appealed directly to the companion of this ruffian
—for I saw that from him I had nothing to hope.
“Why, I'll tell you what 'tis, young chap,” answered
the one called Bill; “you never did nothing agin me, I
know; and if Jack here was agreed, I'd — soon let
ye off.”
“Now see here, Bill,” interposed Jack, with a savage
oath; “I've heard enough of this chicken-hearted blarney;
and I'll tell you what 'tis, once for all; if you don't shut
your mouth, and help string this feller up right sudden,
I'll report you to head-quarters; and you know powerful
well what'll come on't: you'll ayther die by a knife, or a
rope, right sudden.”
“It's no use a talking,” returned Bill, looking at me;
“you see how I am fixed; and though I'm sorry for ye,
I've got to do my duty.”
“But I will make it for your interest to let me go,” I
rejoined, addressing both. “Only let me escape, and by
pay any ransom you may name, at any place that may be
agreed upon!”
“'Twon't do,” said Jack; “I wouldn't trust ye: and
hark ye! if you open your mouth agin, I'll gag you,
by —!”
I saw my hope vanish—I felt that nothing more I could
say would avail me in the least—and with a mental prayer,
that God would pardon my many sins, I strove to resign
myself to my fate.
Jack now unbound my legs, and, with an oath, bade me
stand upon my feet. I obeyed, without a murmur; and
he then said:
“Now, mister, you can have your choice, to have your
eyes bandaged or not.”
“Then I will not have them bandaged,” I replied, in a
firm, even tone of voice, that almost surprised myself.
“Very good—that'll save me some trouble. Let me
see! thar ought to be a tree hereabouts that'll do. Yes,
yonder's one that's jest the thing. Now, Bill, go and
bring up one of the horses, and I'll make the slip-a-noose.”
And while the other went for one of the animals that
stood hitched to a sapling not far off, he coolly proceeded
to tie a hangman's knot in the rope he had taken from
my limbs, and adjust it to my neck. This completed, and
the horse being brought, I was unceremoniously lifted upon
his back, and the beast led under a tree whose lower
branches were about fifteen feet above the ground.
Jack then ordered Bill to hold the horse by the bit,
while he climbed the tree and made the rope fast to one of
the limbs. This occupied the ruffian but a few minutes;
and on his descent to the ground, he said:
“Now, comrade, as you don't like this business, I'll let
horse yonder, and be ready to travel—as I'll do the
moment it's done; for — me if I want to look upon
this feller's face in the death-struggles. We needn't see
him die, and then his ghost won't haunt us; and it'll be all
the same if we don't; for die he will, in a few minutes,
that's sartin—for his arms is tied, and thar's no possible
chance for him to git away.”
Bill gave me a look, in which pity and a kind of superstitious
terror were blended, and then hastened to do as
Jack directed; while the latter took the horse by the bit,
ready to start him from under me and mount in my
place.
My feelings in that moment were awful, awful, beyond
description. To die thus, the most ignominious of all
deaths, in the very prime of life, afar from the habitations
of my kind, with no friend by to sympathize with me, or
hear my last words, or to gather my mortal remains and
consign them to mother earth! I thought of the words of
Warneliff, ringing in the ear of her I loved, and of the
vultures feeding upon my flesh, and tearing it from my
bones; and the picture became so agonizingly horrible,
that I felt the blood run cold to my heart, while large
drops of perspiration started from every pore, and it was
with difficulty I could restrain myself from shrieking aloud.
I tried to think it some frightful dream, from which I
should yet awake; but I felt, too awfully felt, that the
waking would be in eternity. I tried to pray; but even
“God have mercy on my soul!” seemed glued to my lips;
while my brain was like a seething cauldron, where burning
thoughts leaped out in a wild chaos.
I suppose the contortions of my features, in this moment
of mental agony, must have been frightful—for I heard the
ruffian say, with an oath:
“By —! if I'd a knowed that this was the way he
was going to look, I'd hev kivered his face, sartin. Well,
it's the first hanging business ever I did, and it'll be the
last. Good-bye, mister—hope you'll forgive me;” and
with these words I felt the rope tighten round my neck,
and the beast going from under me.
A moment more, and I was swinging by the neck. All
merciful Heaven! what a sensation! A thousand sparks
of fire seemed starting from my eyes, to be quenched in
blood, and the eyes themselves seemed rolling from their
sockets. My heart felt like bursting; while apparently a
thousand pounds of blood were forced upward to the brain,
and the head seemed on the point of being rent in twain.
Earth disappeared from my vision—darkness came—and
then a red light, in which danced fiery snakes and
scorpions. Strange noises rung in my ear—thundering,
roaring, and shrieking sounds, awfully commingled.
Suddenly the frightful sights vanished—the wild noises
ceased—and methought I beheld a celestial train of bright,
glorious spirits advancing toward me with outstretched
arms. At this my soul felt unutterable joy, and seemed
to be lifting itself from its earthly tenement, and going up
to meet them. And this is death, I thought.
At this moment something seemed to touch me; and I
fell, as in a dream, down, down—far down—and struck
with a shock. And as I struck, sudden night closed
around me, and oblivion sealed my senses.
| CHAPTER XX.
MY SENTENCE AND ITS EXECUTION. Clara Moreland, or, Adventures in the far
South-west | |