* This mode of execution is well known in the United States.
They settle refractory prisoners with it periodically. But
half an hour is not needed; twenty minutes will do the
trick. “Harper's Weekly,” a year or two ago, contained an
admirable woodcut of a negro's execution by water. In this
remarkable picture you see the poor darkie seated powerless,
howling and panting his life away under the deadly cascade,
and there stands the stolid turnkey, erect, formal, stiff as
a ramrod, pulling the deadly string with a sort of drill
exercise air, and no more compunction nor reflection than if
he himself was a machine constructed to pull strings or
triggers on his own string being pulled by butcher or fool.
A picture well studied, and so worth study.
Mrs. Dodd was terrified, and in spite of Sampson's assurance that this was the asylum of all others they would not settle another patient in until the matter should have blown over, got Eve Dodd to write to Dr. Wolf, and offer L. 300 a year if he would take David at once, and treat him with especial consideration.
He showed this letter triumphantly to Mrs. Archbold, and she, blinded for a moment by feeling, dissuaded him from receiving Captain Dodd. He stared at her. “What, turn away a couple of thousand pounds?”
“But they will come to visit him; and perhaps see him.”
“Oh, that can be managed. You must be on your guard: and I'll warn Rooke. I can't turn away money on a chance.”
One day Alfred found himself locked into his room. This was unusual: for, though they called him a lunatic in words, they called him sane by all their acts. He half suspected that the Commissioners were in the house.
Had he known who really was in the house, he would have beaten himself to pieces against the door.
At dinner there was a new patient, very mild and silent, with a beautiful large brown eye, like some gentle animal's.
Alfred was very much struck with this eye, and contrived to say a kind word to him after dinner. Finding himself addressed by a gentleman, the new comer handled his forelock and made a sea scrape, and announced himself as William Thompson; he added with simple pride, “Able Seaman;” then touching his forelock again, “Just come aboard, your honour.” After this, which came off glibly, he was anything but communicative. However, Alfred contrived to extract from him that he was rather glad to leave his last ship, on account of having been constantly impeded there in his duties by a set of lubbers, that clung round him and kept him on deck whenever the first lieutenant ordered him into the top.
The very next day, pacing sadly the dull gravel of his prison yard, Alfred heard a row; and there was the able seaman struggling with the Robin and two other keepers. He wanted to go to his duties in the foretop: to wit, the fork of a high elm-tree in the court-yard. Alfred had half a mind not to interfere. “Who cares for my misery?” he said. But his better nature prevailed, and he told the Robin he was sure going up imaginary rigging would do Thompson more good than harm.