In Caverns Below by Stanton A. Coblentz — Read

Had I been a condemned criminal sentenced to the electric chair, my torments would have been less hard to bear. For then, at least, I would have known that I was suffering justly; I would have been surrounded by people of my own kind and race; I would have had time in which to prepare myself, and I would have had to face no such diabolical instrument as the violet-ray. Oh, how I loathed the sight of that machine. Even today I cannot think of it without an involuntary start of fright! Yet, apparently, there was no power on Heaven or Earth to save me from it. Coolly, deliberately, with the most matter-of-fact manner, my oppressors dragged me out of prison, pulled me at the end of a wire to the stone column that had witnessed the six executions, and, still not approaching me, hurled some heavy iron strands around the column in such a way as to hold me tightly against it.

Now it seemed to me that I was living through some horrible nightmare, persecuted by devils. I saw the ghastly black-and-white figures of the spectators crowded at a safe distance, their salmon eyes glittering with pitiless curiosity; I saw the ten soldiers with their hatchet helmets looking on like the creatures of some delirious vision; I saw the death-machine being moved into place and watched the operator as he peered through the little glass tube as if to make sure of his aim. Then, while I gave a convulsive shudder and grew limp with fright, the executioner lifted his hand to signify that all was ready.