“He is my son,” he said, and with a quick pull loosed the strap.
“You must go on with this, Bennett.” The Governor’s voice was stern and terrible.
“Go on with it?” repeated John Bennett mechanically. “Go on with this? Kill my own son? Are you mad? Do you think I am mad?” He took the boy in his arms, his cheek against the hairy face. “My boy! Oh, my boy!” he said, and smoothed his hair as he had done in the days when Ray was a child. Then, recovering himself instantly, he thrust the boy through the open door into the death chamber, followed him and slammed the door, bolting it.
There was no other doorway except that, to which he had the key, and this he thrust into the lock that it might not be opened from the other side. Ray looked at the bare chamber, the dangling yellow rope, the marks of the trap, and fell back against the wall, his eyes shut, shivering. Then, standing in the middle of the trap, John Bennett hacked the rope until it was severed, hacked it in pieces as it lay on the floor. Then:
Crack, crash!
The two traps dropped, and into the yawning gap he flung the cut rope.
“Father!”
Ray was staring at him; oblivious to the thunderous blows which were being rained on the door, the old man came towards him, took the boy’s face between his hands and kissed him.
“Will you forgive me, Ray?” he asked brokenly. “I had to do this. I was forced to do it. I starved before I did it. I came once . . . out of curiosity to help the executioner—a broken-down doctor, who had taken on the work. And he was ill . . . I hanged the murderer. I had just come from the medical school. It didn’t seem so dreadful to me then. I tried to find some other way of making money, and lived in dread all my life that somebody would point his finger at me, and say: ‘There goes Benn, the executioner.’ ”
“Benn, the executioner!” said Ray wonderingly. “Are you Benn?”