"
Here I laughed loud and long, and made a most painful impression, as is
duly recorded in the reports of the trial.
The jury found me guilty quite early in the afternoon of the second day,
without leaving the box; and I, "preserving to the last the callous and
unmoved demeanor I had borne all through the trial," was duly sentenced
to death without any hope of mercy, but with an expression of regret on
the part of the judge--a famous hanging judge--that a man of my
education and promise should be brought by his own evil nature and
uncontrollable passions to so deplorable an end.
Now whether the worst of certainties is better than suspense--whether my
nerves of pain had been so exercised during the period preceding my
trial that I had really become callous, as they say a man's back does
after a certain number of strokes from the "cat"--certain it was that I
knew the worst, and acquiesced in it with a surprised sense of actual
relief, and found it in me to feel it not unbearable.
Such, at least, was my mood that night. I made the most of it. It was
almost happiness by comparison with what I had gone through. I remember
eating with a heartiness that surprised me.
Pages:
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256