No one else seemed to care about the matter, until a circumstance occurred which painfully aroused their interest.
This was the fact that the Governor, through the solicitation of certain ministers of the gospel who represented the condemned as utterly unprepared to meet his fate, had respited him until the first of August, at which time he wished the prisoner to be made to understand that his sentence would certainly, without further delay, be carried into effect.
This carried a sort of consternation into the heart of every member of the Hurricane Hall household!
The idea of Black Donald being hanged in their immediate neighborhood upon their wedding day was appalling!
Yet there was no help for it, unless their wedding was postponed to another occasion than that upon which Old Hurricane had set his heart. No one knew what to do.
Cap fretted herself almost sick. She had cudgeled her brains to no purpose. She had not been able to think of any plan by which she could deliver Black Donald. Meantime the last days of July were rapidly passing away.
Black Donald in the condemned cell maintained his firmness, resolutely asserting his innocence of any capital crime, and persistently refusing to give up his band. As a last motive of confession, the paper written by Gabriel Le Noir upon his death-bed was shown him. He laughed a loud, crackling laugh, and said that was all true, but that he, for his part, never had intended to harm a hair of Capitola's head; that he had taken a fancy to the girl when he had first seen her, and had only wanted to carry her off and force her into a marriage with himself; that he had pretended to consent to her death only for the purpose of saving her life.
When Cap heard this she burst into tears and said she believed it was true.
The night before the wedding of Capitola and Herbert, and Clara and Traverse, and of the execution of Black Donald, came.
At Hurricane Hall the two prospective bridegrooms were busy with Old Hurricane over some papers that had to be prepared in the library.