spirit of immolation. The words of his mother, wrung from the
agony of a parent's love, rang in my ears; the look of the father--that of
imbecile despair--was imprinted on my mind; the hour was fast on the wing;
all hope had perished; and before me was the unfortunate youth, handsome,
elegant, and interesting, even in the writhings of the master-fiend,
suffering a death which was to be, in effect, repeated in another and a
crueller form. I had seen him under circumstances of friendship, and the
ebullitions of his generous spirit; and I was become, as I pictured to
myself, his enemy, who would not allow him to die, to escape from shame and
an increased agony of dissolving nature. Will I admit it? For a moment or
two I hesitated; and, indeed, had half-resolved to tell the men to
stop--the time might yet have sufficed for finishing what he had begun. If
he was not dead before two, he would, at least be beyond feeling; and, if
the officials chose to take the last step of getting him carried to the
gallows, they would in effect be immolating a corpse.

My better and calmer thoughts of duty, however, prevailed; and, in the
meantime, I saw the prudence of preventing any meeting between Eugene and
his parents, which could tend to nothing but an increase of pain on the
side of those who were still able to feel--for, as regarded the young man
himself, he was beyond the impulse of the feelings that might otherwise
have been called up, even by such a scene. I was not even ill pleased to
hear from the under turnkey, that the magistrates had given orders for the
departure of the friends; though, for my own satisfaction, I wished that
the father, who had still some command of himself, might visit his son for
a few minutes, and sanction my proceedings with his approbation. I was
informed also by the turnkey, that the father was resisting to the utmost
of his power the efforts of the mother to get into the cell. He probably
saw too clearly that in the excited condition in which she still remained,
the scene might prove disastrous, as affecting either life or reason; and,
if I could judge from what I myself felt in spite of the blunting effects
of a long acquaintanceship with misery in its various phases, there was
good reason for his fears. The scene presented features

"Direr than incubus's haggard train."

I had just looked my watch--it wanted now only twenty minutes of the last
hour. The order for the friends to quit the jail was