d composed in mind for that
painful occasion. At ten the other officers retired, leaving him alone
with us two. What an hour before us? I had never experienced the like
before and hope never to again. It was much like standing on the
crumbling verge of time and looking into eternity's vast abyss.

We had a season of prayer, then conversation for the purpose of learning
his present feelings and convictions. He professed a hope that God had
forgiven his sins and would accept him at last; said that no doubt it
would be better for him to go then than be pardoned and return to the
world once more, for, in that case, his appetite might overpower him
again and he do other horrid deeds. Still, it was hard to die in the way
he must.

Personal conversation over, we continued bringing to his mind fitting
portions of Scripture and appropriate verses from hymns and thus
occupied the moments till eleven slowly arrived.

Our door opens. The sheriff with his attendants enters. We march to the
scaffold in the hall, where are gathered many reporters for the press
and other gentlemen. The address being read and prayer offered, Mr.
Holman at his right and myself at his left lead him upon the fatal drop,
and there support him while the preparation for the last is being made.
During the adjustment of the black cap and noose, I feel a tremor in
his arm. He is taken forward from us and placed under the beam. His legs
are bound, his arms pinioned, the sheriff reads extracts from the doings
of the court, and gives the final sentence. The spring is touched, the
drop falls, the surgeon calls for the rope to be drawn higher, as the
feet touch the floor. This done, life ends in about a quarter of an
hour.

As the drop fell, Mr. Holman settled back in a chair, faint. I led him
to a window where he soon recovered, but serious illness followed,
caused by the excitement and anxiety of his labors here.

Now, if men must be hung, humanity would call for the work to be
performed differently in these respects: That mortal long reading from
the court doings should be dispensed with, that is, long for the place.
It can be of no sort of use. A short formula, consisting of the last two
or three sentences, uttered by the sheriff, would be all sufficient.

Then, again, that black cap should be different. Binding the limbs
consumed a few moments, and the reading, referred to, still more. But
probably after the cap was on and the noose fitted over it, the cri