THE HANGING.
On the night preceding the day set for John Wysong's execution, Erma did
not retire to rest. She paced to-and-fro, wringing her hands in despair.
She accused herself of having needlessly murdered her own brother, of
having cast him into the midst of ravenous beasts, destitute of
conscience and of feeling. She felt that Lanier had treated her
shamefully to hold out to her a ray of hope, only to snatch it away and
make the darkness all the more dark. She had not seen him nor heard from
him since the day he made her such a faithful promise at Mrs. Turner's
residence, whither she had gone concerning Margaret. This brought
Margaret to her mind. She accused herself of being responsible for that
poor child's ruin, in that she had allowed herself to be drawn into
those social fetes in the hope of saving her brother. Instead of saving
him, she had lost him, and destroyed that girl as well, she thought. As
the night wore on, her agony became more and more intense.
Despair! despair! despair! Night of the soul. At the bottom of the pit
of sorrow, millions and millions, deep, Erma crawled about, bitten by
vipers put there, eyeless, to bite all the children of men whom God, for
any cause, sends to them. Upward from the bottom of this pit Erma lifted
her eyes, but the darkness was so intense that even night would have
been swallowed up and lost therein. Yes, though in her room, Erma was
nevertheless in this pit.
Eventually, and without apparent cause, a calm stole over Erma, her
burden rolled away. As to why this was the case, she could not tell and
did not know. All that she knew was, the burden had gone, and a calm had
settled down upon her soul. She opened her front door and let the night
air sweep down and kiss her fevered brow.
The moon, one-quarter full, was now half-way between the zenith and the
horizon. The morning star was near at hand, evidently endeavoring to
outshine its queen. The moon, not fearful of her throne, shone on in
unprovoked beauty, and the stars were watching the contest, forgetful of
the fact that the sun was soon to come forth. At length the sun burst
upon the scene; the unfinished battle was deferred until the coming
night, as more tragic scenes were to be enacted.
If you wish, gentle reader, you may stay in Erma's company on the day of
the execution, but we prefer to hasten away. Early in the morning, the
newspaper reporters gathered at the jail in great numbers. They were
allowed inside, and stationed themselves where they could see through
the bars of John Wysong's cell. At length Horace Christian awoke from
his drunken stupor, and gazed blankly around him. At first he did not
know what to make of his surroundings. Glancing at his hands, he noticed
that they were black. Then it all came to him, how that he was playing
"darky" on the night previous. In all likelihood he had gotten into a
drunken brawl, and had been arrested, he thought. He decided to play
"darky" all the way through. He looked through the bars and saw the
group of reporters gathered there, but he did not know how to account
for their presence. Happening to rub his hand over his head, it came in
contact with hair, and he remembered distinctly of having cut his off.
He now felt that Lanier had put that hair on his head while he was
drunk, as a joke, and having escaped himself, had sent the reporters
down in order to play a prank of some sort on him. He decided that
nothing should induce him to betray his identity, preferring to take a
somewhat severe penalty first. The joke of sending the reporters was not
exactly to his liking, but he was in it, and would stick. He chuckled to
himself as he thought of the antics he was going to play, and the witty
sayings that he would throw out in the police court at his trial that
morning.
"Have you any message to give to the world through our paper?" asked a
reporter.
"Yes, tell 'em dat you saw me, but you didunt see me saw."
"Can you talk with such levity on an occasion like this?" asked another.
"Boss, I don't know nuthin' 'bout yer levity. But I knows erbout dese
erkasions mos' much. De police court air my headquarters."
Breakfast was brought in, and it was such a splendid repast that
Christian now knew that Lanier was playing him a joke. The jailer _pro
tem._, acting in the place of the real jailer, gone to his mother,
brought in a new suit of clothes. Knowing that ordinary prisoners were
not treated thus, Christian feared that his identity had been disclosed,
and that they were treating him with such marked courtesy on account of
his distinction. One thing puzzled him. He could not tell where he got
that suit which he had just pulled off to put on the new one brought by
the jailer. After a while he was handcuffed and marched out of the jail,
the reading of the death warrant having been dispensed with. Here he met
a throng, numbering well up in the thousands. He began to curse Lanier
inwardly, thinking he had put an account of the episode in the papers,
and that, as a consequence, all Richmond was out to see the Hon. Horace
Christian. He bit his lip and inwardly defied any man to make him
acknowledge that he was white. He would defy Lanier himself. They
started on their march, and when they got to the corner where, turning
one way, they could go to the Police Court, much to Christian's
surprise, they turned in an opposite direction, the crowd following
them.
Christian said, "Say, boss, you air gwine to de police coat by a
roundabout way." The jailer looked at him contemptuously. They soon came
in sight of an open field, in the center of which there was erected a
large gallows. People stood about it on every side as far out as the eye
could reach. A clearing had been kept open so that the jailer and his
ward might go through to the gallows uninterrupted. Christian now felt
an uneasy sensation in his bosom, that mysterious monitor that wafts to
our ears the notes of the death knell even before they are struck.
Christian walked in the direction of the gallows hesitatingly.
"Come along, John, come along. You must die game, you know," said the
jailer, urging him along.
"Hold on, jailer," said Christian; "what does this mean?"
"There is where you are going to be hanged, John. Cheer up. Don't be
uneasy. Die game."
"Hanged! hanged! what in the name of God are you going to hang me for?
Do you hang a fellow for a little midnight fun?" asked Christian,
thoroughly aroused and terrified.
"John, that is why you are going to be hanged. You looked upon murder as
a matter of fun."
The picture of the Negro tramp whose murder he had caused for political
purposes, crowded before his gaze. He shook tremblingly and began to
stagger. "Say," he gasped, "who told on me?"
"Why, you told on yourself, John."
"I was a blamed fool for telling it. I must have been drunk. But say,"
he continued, "are they going to mob a white man for killing a nigger
tramp?"
"You mean, are they going to mob a nigger tramp for killing a white
man."
"I am no Negro; I am a white man" exclaimed Christian.
"That's enough. Come on." They were now at the foot of the gallows, and
Christian was the very embodiment of abject terror. He attempted to
cling to the railing on the steps leading up to the platform of the
gallows. He was whining piteously, saying, "I am a white man, I killed a
nigger; I am a white man, I killed a nigger."
His complete breakdown filled the people with disgust, and they howled
in derision.
"It took a cowardly wretch to commit a crime like his," said a member of
the throng. The trembling man was hurried to the trapdoor, the noose was
adjusted, the black cap put on, the trap sprung, all as quickly as
possible, the victim kicking, scratching, clawing, the little that he
could, and bellowing, "I killed a nigger! I killed a nigger!" As his
body shot down, his last words were "O God, I killed a--." The
sentence was finished in the other world. A few convulsive jerks, and
the murderer of an innocent fellow being and the despoiler of virtue had
gone to his reward.