CHAPTER XLVIII.

SENTENCE AND DEATH.

SILENCE, Silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the episodical cause of Burke v. Sharp was speedily hushed.

The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal: for the time everything else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from agitation, wriggled tails in front. The Judge, it was good old Baron Parker, put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause.

But we have forgotten Simon Jennings,what was he about? did that "cynosure of

neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court: he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with external things about him, and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing sleep by counting

“A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by

One after one,"

he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many folks were looking at him. Only see, he is turning his white stareful face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and forty one, a thousand and forty two, a thousand and forty three; he will not hurry it over, by leaving out the thousand:" alas, this holiday of idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know.

And the Judge broke that awful silence, saying:

"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The deliberate repetition of that fearful murder classes you among the worst

of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn; and when to this is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling, too hideous for human contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the judgment; even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be separated, so long as God is merciful, or man may be contrite. The Sacrifice of Him, who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature, [here the good Judge wept for a minute like a child,] for you no less than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty and my comfort to direct your bloodstained but immortal soul eagerly to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your career of wickedness is at an end covetousness has conceived, and generated murder; and murder has even overstept its common bounds, to repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case would be sin.

"The sentence of the Court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from that bar to the County

P

Jail, and thence on this day fortnight be conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck—”

At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the Judge, issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings : was he mad after all,-mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible foe! his eyes start, his face gets bluer and bluer, his hands fixed, like griffin's talons clutch at vacancy-he wrestles, struggles, falls!

All was now confusion: even the grave Judge, who had necessarily stopped at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner: "He is dying! air, there, air! a glass of water, some one !

About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed anything but nitrogen for four hours.

He was dying and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an admiring multitude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets :

apoplexy, oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other confidentially.

Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now he must die in his sins, at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and murder, all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death, had got hold of him and rent him, as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could give him ease; he was going on the dark dull path in the bottom of that awful valley, where Death's cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us all,-pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce extremity!-His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped back, he was dying, dying, dying,

On a sudden he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to heart, and all the doctors were deceived;—again he battled and fought, and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes glared light