Martin Faber-The Story of a Criminal by William Gilmore Simms

The day of retribution--of a fearful trial, is come!--Horrible mockery!--the sunlight streams through the iron grating, and falls upon the straw of this accursed dungeon. How beautifully--how wooingly it looks--lovelier than ever, about to be forever lost! Do I tremble--would I yet live and linger out the years in a life of curses, among those who howl their denunciations forever in my ears? Could I survive this exposure, this infamy, and cherish life on any terms and at all hazards! I would not die--not thus, not thus--on that horrible scaffolding, I shudder but to think on. Yet what hope would I rely upon? I have none to whom in this perilous hour, I would turn in expectation. No fond spirit now labors, unsleepingly, for my relief. I have not lived for such an interest--I have not sought to enlist such affections--none hope--none seek my escape--none would assist in its consummation! I am alone--I must die!--and what, --horrible thought!-- if he should not bring the weapon?--if his shrinking and woman-like conscience should scruple, thus, to interfere with the decree of justice, and I should be led out in the accursed cart, through the jeering multitude, and go through all the trials of that death of shame and muscular agony!--let me not think of it. Let me not think!--

And I closed my eyes as if to shut out thought, and rushed to the extremest corner of my cell, despairing of the appearance of Harding with the dagger he had promised. But a few hours were left, and the sharp and repeated strokes of the hammer, at a little distance, indicated the rapid progress of the executioner in his preparations for the terrible performance of his office. I groaned in my agony of thought, and buried my head still deeper in the meshes of my couch.-- Thanks, thanks--the fates be praised--he comes--the bolts shoot back-- the doors are unbarred--he is here! I live again--I shall not stand then on that fearful fabric. He brings me that which shall enable me to give it my defiance, and disappoint the gaping multitude, already beginning to assemble. I shall defeat them still!