suspense. Sooner or later this morning, somebody must hang him."
But Jerry only looked back at him with an approving nod. The sheriff had supplied him, all inarticulate that he was, with suitable speech. "Ah, that's just it, don't you see," he made answer promptly, "it's a conscientious scruple. That's why I won't hang him. No man can't be expected to go agin his conscience. I never hanged an innocent man yet—leastways not to my knowledge; and s'help me heaven, I won't hang one now, not for the Queen nor for nobody!"
The sheriff paused. The sheriff deliberated. "What on earth am I to do?" he exclaimed, in despair. "If you won't hang him, how on earth at this hour can I secure a substitute?"
Jerry stared at him stolidly once more, after his wont. "If I don't hang him," he answered, with he air of on who knows his ground well, "it's your business to do it with your own hands. 'Wherein fail not at your peril.' And I give you warning beforehand, sheriff, if you do hang him—why, you'll have to remember all your life long that you helped to get rid of an innocent man, when the common hangman refused to execute him!"
To such a pitch of indignation was he roused by events that he said it plump out, just so, "the common hangman." Rather than let his last appeal lack aught of effectiveness in the cause of justice, he consented so to endorse the public condemnation of his own respectable, useful, and necessary calling!
There was a pause of a few minutes, during which the sheriff once more halted and hesitated; the prisoner looked around with a pale and terrified air; and Jerry kept his eye fixed hard on the gate, like one who really expects a reprieve or a pardon.
"Then you absolutely refuse?" the sheriff asked at last, in a despairing sort of way.
"I absolutely refuse," Jerry answered, in a very decided tone. But it was clear he was beginning to grow anxious and nervous.
"In that case," the sheriff replied, turning round to the jailor, "I must put off this execution for half an hour, till I can get someone else to come in and assist me."
"He was pale and haggard."
Hardly had he spoken the words, however, when a policeman appeared at the door of the courtyard, and in a very hurried voice asked eagerly to be admitted. His manner was that of a man who brings important news. "The execution's not over, sir?" he said, turning to the sheriff with a very scared face. "Well, thank heaven for that! Dr. Wade's outside, and he says, for God's sake, he must speak at once with you."
The sheriff hesitated. He hardly knew what to do. "Bring him in," he said at last, after a solemn pause. "He may have something to tell us that will help us out of this difficulty."
The condemned man, thus momentarily respited on the very brink of the grave, stood by with a terrible look of awed suspense upon his bloodless face. But Jerry Stokes' lips bore an expression of quiet triumph. He had succeeded in his attempt, then. He had brought his man to book. That was something to be proud of. Alone he had done it! He
