Vain, vain were his efforts to burst forth from his iron coffin; as well might he attempt to move the solid rock! He shrieked aloud for assistance—but no sound could penetrate through those iron walls! He called upon God to pity him in that moment of his awful distress—but that God, whom he had so often blasphemed, now interposed not His power to succor the vile wretch, thus so signally punished.
No friendly crevice admitted one mouthful of air into the safe, and Archer soon began to breathe with difficulty; he became sensible that he must die a terrible death by suffocation. Oh, how he longed for someone to arrive and release him from his dreadful situation, even though the remainder of his days were passed within the gloomy walls of a prison! How he cursed the money, to obtain which he had entered that safe, wherein he was now imprisoned as securely as if buried far down in the bowels of the earth! With the howl of a demon he dashed the banknotes and glittering gold beneath his feet, and trampled on them. Then, sinking down upon the floor of the safe, he abandoned himself to despair.
Already had the air of that small, confined place become fetid and noisome; and the burglar began to pant with agony, while the hot blood swelled his veins almost to bursting. A hundred thousand dollars lay within his grasp—he would have given it all for one breath of fresh air, or one draught of cold water.
As the agonies of his body increased, the horrors of his guilty conscience tortured his soul. The remembrance of the many crimes he had committed arose before him; the spirit of his murdered wife hovered over him, ghastly, pale and bloody. Then he recollected that an innocent man was to be hung on the morrow, for that dreadful deed which he had perpetrated; and the thought added to the mental tortures which he was enduring.
A thought struck the dying wretch; it was perhaps in his power to make some atonement for his crimes—he might save an innocent man from an ignominious death. No sooner had that thought suggested itself to his mind, than he acted upon it, for he knew that his moments were few; already he felt the cold hand of death upon him. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and with a feeble hand traced the following words upon the iron door of the safe:—
'My last hour is come, and I call on God, in whose awful presence I am shortly to appear, to witness the truth of this dying declaration. I do confess myself to be the murderer of Maria Archer. The young man Sydney is innocent of that crime. God have mercy—'
He could write no more; his brain grew dizzy and his senses fled. It seemed as if his iron coffin was red-hot, and he writhed in all the agony of a death by fire. Terrible shapes crowded around him, and the spirit of his murdered wife beckoned him to follow her to perdition. A mighty and crushing weight oppressed him; blood gushed from the pores of his skin; his eyes almost leaped from their sockets, and his brain seemed swimming in molten lead. At length Death came, and snapped asunder the chord of his existence; the soul of the murderer was in the presence of its Maker.
Morning dawned upon the doomed Sydney, in his prison cell; the glad sunbeams penetrated into that gloomy apartment, shedding a glow of ruddy light upon the white walls. That day at the hour of noon, he was to be led forth to die—he, the noble, generous Sydney, whose heart teemed with the most admirable qualities, and who would not wantonly have injured the lowest creature that crawls upon the Creator's footstool—he to die the death of a malefactor, upon the scaffold!
The day wore heavily on; Frank, composed and resigned, was ready to meet his fate like a man. He had heard the deep voice of the Sheriff, in the hall of the prison, commanding his subordinates to put up the scaffold; he had heard them removing that cumbrous engine of death from an unoccupied cell, and his ear had caught the sound of its being erected in the prison yard. Then he knelt down and prayed.