Women begged for
signatures, and got them. Every man and woman signed them. All except
one; and even he was urged to sign by a tearful lady, who asked him to
remember that vengeance was the Lord's.

"But the Lord has his instruments," said Bowen, grimly; "and I swear to
you, madam, that if you succeed in getting that murderer reprieved, I
will be the instrument of the Lord's vengeance."

"Oh, don't say that," pleaded the lady. "Your signature would have
_such_ an effect. You were noble once and saved him from lynching;
be noble again and save him from the gallows."

"I shall certainly not sign. It is, if you will pardon me, an insult to
ask me. If you reprieve him you will make a murderer of me, for I will
kill him when he comes out, if it is twenty years from now. You talk of
lynching; it is such work as you are doing that makes lynching
possible. The people seem all with you now, more shame to them, but the
next murder that is committed will be followed by a lynching just
because you are successful to-day."

The lady left Bowen with a sigh, depressed because of the depravity of
human nature; as indeed she had every right to be.

The Prior family was a rich and influential one. The person who is
alive has many to help; the one in the grave has few to cry for
justice. Petitions calling for mercy poured in on the governor from all
parts of the State. The good man, whose eye was entirely on his own re-
election, did not know what to do. If any one could have shown him
mathematically that this action or the other would gain or lose him
exactly so many votes, his course would have been clear, but his own
advisers were uncertain about the matter. A mistake in a little thing
like this might easily lose him the election. Sometimes it was rumoured
that the governor was going to commute the sentence to imprisonment for
life; then the rumour was contradicted.

People claimed, apparently with justice, that surely imprisonment for
life was a sufficient punishment for a young man; but every one knew in
his own heart that the commutation was only the beginning of the fight,
and that a future governor would have sufficient pressure brought to
bear upon him to let the young man go.

Up to September 20 the governor made no sign. When Bowen went to his
duties on the night of the 20th he met the sheriff.

"Has any reprieve arrived yet?" asked Bowen. The sheriff shook his head
sadly. He had never yet hanged a man, and did not wis