nessed.

At length his hands were tied, and they attempted to get him up to the
platform of death, but to their amazement he was once more loose, and,
flying to the priest, he clasped him with the gripe of Hercules.

"Save me, save me!" he shouted. "Let me live! I can't die! You're
puttin' me into hell's fire! How can I face God? No, it's tarrible! it's
tarrible! tarrible! Life, life, life--only life--oh, only life!"

As he spoke he pressed the reverend gentleman to his breast and kissed
him, and shouted with a wildness of entreaty, which far transcended in
terror the most outrageous paroxysms of insanity.

"I will not lave the priest," shrieked he; "so long as I stay with him
so long I'll be out of the punishments of eternity. I will stick to you.
Don't--don't put me away, but have pity on me! No--I'll not go, I'll not
go!"

Again he kissed his lips, cheeks, and forehead, and still clung to him
with terrific violence, until at last his hands were finally secured
beyond the possibility of his again getting them loose. He then threw
himself upon the ground, and still resisted, with a degree of muscular
strength altogether unaccountable in a person, even of his compact and
rather athletic form. His appearance upon the platform will long be
remembered by those who had the questionable gratification of witnessing
it. It was the struggle of strong men dragging a strong man to the most
frightful of all precipices--Death.

[Illustration: PAGE 311-- Most frightful of all precipices--Death]

When he was seen by the people in the act of being forced with such
violence to the drop, they all moved, like a forest agitated by a sudden
breeze, and uttered that strange murmur, composed of many passions,
which can only be heard where a large number of persons are congregated
together under the power of something that is deep and thrilling in its
interest. At length, after a struggle for life, and a horror of death
possibly unprecedented in the annals of crime, he was pushed upon the
drop, the spring was touched, and the unhappy man passed shrieking into
that eternity which he dreaded so much. His death was instantaneous,
and, after hanging the usual time, his body was removed to the goal; the
crowd began to disperse, and in twenty minutes the streets and people
presented nothing more than their ordinary aspect of indifference to
everything but their own affairs.*

* We have only to say, that W--m O--k, Esq., of Jj--sb--e,