"Yes, Sahib," he replied; "but he has not yet finished his breakfast."
"In one minute, Sahib," cried the culprit, who overheard the conversation; and hastily taking into his stomach the few grains of rice that remained upon the dish, and drinking the remainder of his half-gallon of milk, he sprang up, and called out the word "Tyear!" signifying "I am ready." He was then led up to the scaffold, the most primitive affair that I ever beheld. It was only a piece of woodwork resembling a large crock or crate in which a dinner-service is packed for exportation. Upon this crock, which was placed under the beam, he was requested to stand. Having obeyed this order, the rope was adjusted around his neck. The assistant magistrate then called out to him in Hindostanee, "Have you anything to say?"
"Yes, Sahib," was the reply. And he began a long story, false from beginning to end, but every word of which the Bengalee writer took down. He spoke, and with vehemence, for about thirty-five minutes, when, having stopped, either finally, or to take breath, the assistant magistrate gave the signal to the gaoler, by waving his hand. The crock was then pulled from under the culprit by the two policemen, and down dangled the culprit's body, the feet not more than eighteen inches from the ground.
They are not adepts in the art of hanging in India; it took the culprit at least ten minutes to die. At times I feared, so desperate were his struggles, that he would break the beam, snap the rope, or bring down the whole apparatus. In the days of Henry Fielding, the vulgar used to speak of hanging as "dancing on nothing," and this horrible idea the Indian culprit on that morning amply realised. The reader must not, however, sympathize with his sufferings. He had been justly convicted, and was justly put to death for murdering, in that very field where he expiated his offence, a little girl of seven years of age, in order to possess himself of a single bangle she wore—a bangle valued at one rupee four annas—half-a-crown of English money. I cannot accuse myself of a cruel or brutal disposition; but, if the monster whom I saw hanged had had a thousand lives instead of one, I could have witnessed the taking of every one of them without a single atom of a desire to save him.
The cutting down of the culprit, as soon as it was discovered that life was extinct (for as there was no crowd of pickpockets and vendors of cakes and ginger-beer to take a moral lesson, the prescribed hour was unnecessary) was quite as primitive as the foregoing part of the operation. One of the native policemen with his blunt sword, severed the rope by sawing it just above the tie, and down came the corpse. I was tempted to jump out of the buggy in which, sitting between the magistrate and his assistant, I had witnessed the execution, and examine, or rather look attentively at, the deceased. A finer head, in a phrenological point of view, I had never seen, and across the naked chest was suspended the sacred thread, indicating that the culprit was a Brahmin.
"Is it not very odd," said I, on my return to the buggy, "that most of the diabolical crimes committed in this country are committed by Brahmins?"
"Not at all odd," replied my host. "Do you not know that they believe nothing can hurt their pure souls after death; and hence their comparative recklessness in this world? There was a Brahmin hanged here, about a year ago, who, just before he was turned off, made a speech such as that made by Napoleon on paper to Sir Hudson Lowe—'You may convict me of what you please; you may make me a prisoner; you may, if you like, shackle these limbs, and consign me to a dungeon; but you will find that my soul will be just as free, just as proud, as when it awed all Europe!'"
"Ah, but that was the emanation of ——"
"What the deuce is that?" cried the magistrate, who was driving us rapidly towards home. "See! That thing in the road." And coming up to it, he reined in the horse.