It was feared that because he had made the desperate attempt to jump out of the express train that he would commit suicide, if he had a chance, in his cell.
The governor, however, whilst enforcing every precaution to prevent the convict succeeding in any attempt upon his life, considered that the criminal had not sufficient courage to do that, and certainly his conduct on the gallows corroborated that view.
He professed resignation and submissiveness, but these were not to be relied upon. His whole life had been a lie.
Often as he had been in prison (from 1854 to 1858, from 1859 to 1864, and from 1866 to 1872), he had conducted himself with such propriety as to earn the rewards of docility to gaol discipline, and the consequent shortening of his sentence.
But the moment he was freed confinement he plunged again into the desperate courses of a criminal career, stopping at nothing, not even at murder, to achieve his purpose of robbery.
He appeared cheerful and resolute, not in the demeanour of bravado, but in that of absolute submission to what he had felt, from the moment the death sentence was passed, could not be averted by any accident of fortune or intercession of clemency.
The chaplain (the Rev. Mr. Oswald Cookson, M.A.) prayed with Peace daily, and gradually the culprit appeared to follow the prayers, for within the last few days of his life he had parted with his relations, his reputed wife, and step-son, and he had confessed the rascalities and atrocities of years of crime—from boasting of his deeds he pretended to have become penitent.
He was anxious to show that he had been pierced with contrition to such a depth as to give advice of a moral character to those who visited him. He stoutly maintained what he had said all along, that there was a struggle between him and Dyson, and that the revolver went off accidentally. The wretched man slept perfectly sound and calm on his last morning till a quarter to six, when the chaplain entered, and Peace woke up.
Devotional exercises were then engaged in for about an hour. He appeared to betray, by the fervour of his utterance to his responses to the prayers, that he feared the doom awaiting him within an hour.
This, however, did not prevent his partaking heartily of breakfast, which was now brought, consisting of eggs, slice of bacon, toast, and tea.