previous day; but his description of this person was confused and contradictory, and he could show neither bill nor receipt as evidence of the transaction. Neither could he give any satisfactory explanation of whence he came, nor of the nature of his business in that part of the country. His answers, indeed, were given with a dogged sullenness which seemed to imply that he regarded his fate as already sealed, and his trial as a mere form.
When his examination was concluded, I addressed the jury on his behalf, and endeavoured to convince them that as there was a possibility of his tale being true, it was their duty to give him the benefit of the doubt by acquitting him. I touched upon the danger of convicting on purely circumstantial evidence; I urged upon them the well-known legal maxim, that it is better that a hundred guilty persons should escape a merited punishment, than that one innocent individual should suffer, &c., &c. In fact, I brought forward that series of arguments which, time out of mind, has formed in capital cases the staple of the speeches for the defence when the case was desperate against the prisoner. And, on the whole, considering that it was the effort of an amateur, I think that my oration was a very creditable one.
When I concluded my address, I believed, for one moment, from the expression of their faces, that I had made some impression on the rugged natures of my hearers, and had the offence of the culprit been almost any other than it was, it is possible that they might have been disposed to take a more lenient view of the case. But slave and horse-stealing are the unpardonable sins throughout the South-west, and it is no exaggeration to assert that a homicide, or even a murderer, would stand a better chance before a jury in that section of the country than a man charged with either of the above offences.
After a few minutes’ deliberation the jury rendered their verdict. It was guilty—and the punishment—death.
The prisoner received the announcement with the same air of apparent indifference he had displayed throughout. Indeed, so far as the external manifestation of emotion was concerned, I appeared the more agitated of the two. After a brief pause I collected myself, and made a very urgent appeal to his judges to inflict a less cruel penalty than death—a punishment the severity of which, I reminded them, found no warrant in the laws of any one of the States. When I found that a deaf ear was turned to my petition, and that my solicitations irritated rather than softened those to whom they were addressed, I desisted from any further attempt to intercede for the life of the criminal. But I begged them, at least, not to hurry the unfortunate wretch into eternity without affording him some brief space in which to make his peace with Heaven, and prepare himself for the awful fate that awaited him.
“We’ll gie him time enough, Mister, never fear, to say all the prayers he’s a mind to,” retorted one of the band, with a sneer.
I was at a loss to comprehend the latent meaning which evidently lay concealed in his words, but the proceedings of those around me soon enlightened me.
In the mean time I approached the doomed man, and endeavoured to utter such words of sympathy and consolation as were appropriate to his condition. But he interrupted me, saying:
“You’ve dun yer best for me, Strainger, and I’m thankful; but ’twarn’t no use, no how. I knew it was all up with me when they cotched me on the hoss, for, between you an’ me, I did take the critter. The fact is I war dead broke; I lost my pile comin’ down the river—hadn’t a red cent—and was bound to make a raise somehow. But I’ll die like a man: it sha’n’t ever be said that a fellar raised in old Kentuck was afeard to face death in any shape.”
And as he spoke he raised himself as erect as the nature of his bonds would permit, and looked boldly around him with that air of indomitable resolution so characteristic of his people. For the inhabitants of the “dark and bloody ground,” as at one time Kentucky was called, from the terrible wars between the Indians and settlers by which it was desolated, have always maintained pre-eminent throughout the West their reputation for personal courage and daring.
As it was evident that I could be of no further service to the unhappy man, I should now have resumed my journey, had it not been that there was a species of peculiar and terrible fascination about the preparations which were being made for his execution that rivetted me, against my inclinations, to the spot.
One of the party ascended a tree, and attached a rope firmly to a projecting branch; the stolen horse was then brought forward and placed beneath it. The prisoner was partially released from his bonds, his feet were set at liberty, and he walked firmly to the place of execution. His arms having been strongly pinioned behind him, he was lifted on to the back of the animal for which he had paid so dearly, and the rope adjusted round his neck. The whole of these proceedings were conducted in almost perfect silence, even the rude natures of the men around me being to a certain degree awed by the terrible solemnity of the act they were performing. The “Regulators” then shouldered their rifles, mounted their horses, and were prepared to leave the spot, when the judge thus addressed the condemned man:
“Now, Tom Meyers, we’re a goin’ to leave. The hoss has had a good feed, and he’ll stand quiet enough for the next half hour, I calkilate. If you want to pray a bit you kin do so, and you kin start the critter when you’re ready.”
It was to my intense surprise and disgust that I now discovered it was the intention of his judges to make the poor wretch his own executioner, as it were.
“Good God!” I exclaimed, “you cannot mean to aggravate the sufferings of this unhappy man by delaying his death in this manner?”
“See here, Mister,” said one of the party, savagely, “we’ve had too much jaw ’bout this bis’ness already. You had best shut up, or some on us will git riled, and no mistake.”
“Come, Mr. Scudder,” added the individual