xt
morning was led out to execution.

Poor Lancey could scarcely credit his senses. He had often read of such
things, but had never fully realised that they were true. That he, an
innocent man, should be hung off-hand, without trial by jury or
otherwise, in the middle of the nineteenth century, was incredible!
There was something terribly real, however, in the galling tightness of
the rope that confined his arms, in the troop of stern horsemen that
rode on each side of him, and in the cart with ropes, and the material
for a scaffold, which was driven in front towards the square of the
town. There was no sign of pity in the people or of mercy in the
guards.

The contrivance for effecting the deadly operation was simple in the
extreme,--two large triangles with a pole resting on them, and a strong
rope attached thereto. There was no "drop." An empty box sufficed, and
this was to be kicked away when the rope was round his neck.

Even up to the point of putting the rope on, Lancey would not believe.

Reader, have you ever been led out to be hanged? If not, be thankful!
The conditions of mind consequent on that state of things is appalling.
It is also various.

Men take it differently, according to their particular natures; and as
the nature of man is remarkably complex, so the variation in his feeling
is exceedingly diverse.

There are some who, in such circumstances, give way to abject terror.
Others, whose nervous system is not so finely strung and whose sense of
justice is strong, are filled with a rush of indignation, and meet their
fate with savage ferocity, or with dogged and apparent indifference.
Some, rising above sublunary matters, shut their eyes to all around and
fix their thoughts on that world with which they may be said to be more
immediately connected, namely, the next.

Lancey went through several of these phases. When the truth first
really came home to him he quailed like an arrant coward. Then a sense
of violated justice supervened. If at that moment Samson's powers had
been his, he would have snapped the ropes that bound him like
packthread, and would have cut the throat of every man around him. When
he was placed upon the substitute for a "block," and felt by a motion of
his elbows his utter powerlessness, the dogged and indifferent state
came on, but it did not last. It could not. His Christian training was
adverse to it.

"Come," he mentally exclaimed, "it is God's will. Quit y