Glassford paused again, sighed faintly, and settled in his chair with some relief, as if he had succeeded in detaching himself personally from the situation, and remained now only in his representative judicial capacity.
"Still," he went on, speaking in an apologetic tone that betokened a lingering of his personal identity, "that duty, while clear, is none the less painful. I would that it had not fallen to my lot." He paused again, still looking away. "It is a sad and melancholy spectacle--a young man of your strength and native ability, with your opportunities for living a good and useful life, standing here to hear the extreme penalty of the law pronounced upon you. You might have been an honorable, upright man; you seem, so far as I am able to ascertain, to have come from a good home, and to have had honest, frugal, industrious parents. You have had the opportunity of serving your country, you have had the benefit of the training and discipline of the regular army. You might have put to some good use the lessons you learned in those places. And yet, you seem to have wilfully abandoned yourself to a life of crime. You have shown an utter disregard for the sacred right of property; you have been ready to steal, to live on the usufruct of the labor of others; and now, as is inevitable"--Glassford shook his head emphatically as he pronounced the word "inevitable"--"you have gone on until nothing is sacred in your eyes--not even human life itself."
Glassford, who found it easy to talk in this moral strain, especially when reporters were present to take down his words, went on repeating phrases he employed on the occasions when he pronounced sentence, until, as it seemed to him, having worked himself up to the proper pitch, he said, with one last tone of regret:
"It is a painful duty," and then feeling there was no way out of the duty, unless he resigned his position, which, of course, was out of the question, he straightened in his seat, turned, looked up at the ceiling and said, speaking more rapidly, "and yet I can not shirk a duty because it is disagreeable."
He clasped the desk before him tightly with his hands; his lips were pale. Then he said:
"The sentence of the court is that you be taken by the sheriff to the penitentiary, and there delivered over into the custody of the warden of the said penitentiary, by him to be guarded and safely kept until the fourteenth day of May next ensuing, on which day the said warden of the said penitentiary shall cause a current of electricity to be passed through your body, and to cause the said current to continue to be passed through your body--until you are dead."
Glassford paused; no one in the court-room moved. Archie still kept his eyes on Glassford, and Glassford kept his eyes on the wall. Glassford had remembered that in olden days the judge, when he donned the black cap, at some such time as this used to pray that God would have mercy on the soul of the man for whom he himself could find no mercy; but Glassford did not like to say this; it seemed too old-fashioned and he would have felt silly and self-conscious in it. And yet, he felt that the proprieties demanded that something be said in the tone of piety, and, thinking a moment, he added:
"And I hope, Koerner, that you will employ the few remaining days of life left to you in preparing your soul to meet its Maker."
With an air of relief, Glassford turned, and wrote in his docket. On his broad, shining forehead drops of perspiration were glistening.
"The prisoner will be remanded," he said.