Down the storm-clouded track the engine flew with throbbing heart of steel and breath of fire like a panting demon. Back and forth over the spongy rails she swayed, her mighty ribs cracking as she lurched and jumped and plunged. But the fireman in his flannel shirt, dripping with perspiration, never paused, as with steady stroke he fed her roaring mouth; and the engineer, with his hand on her pulse, leaned far out of the cab with his eyes fixed on the flying track.
The hour for the condemned man was at hand. He had asked the warden as a special favour to do his duty without delay at the appointed time.
Gordon was ready, dressed with his old fastidious distinction to the last detail of his toilet. He had spent the entire night before writing to Ruth the last chapter in a secret diary he had kept and given to the warden for her.
The warden read the death warrant with halting lips. He had been strangely drawn to this tall young giant with his premature gray hairs. Gordon’s words of lyric fire to him of the mysteries of life and death had thrown a spell over his imagination. He was going to kill him now with the horrible feeling that he was his own brother.
“Come, my friend,” Gordon said to him, cheerfully, “you promised me there should be no delay. I’ve a child’s eagerness now to push the black curtains aside and see what lies beyond. I’ve often dreamed and wondered. In a few minutes I shall know. I hear it calling me, that unknown world of silence, beauty and mystery. Let us make haste.”
But the feet of the jailer were of lead. He would stop and hold his lower lip tightly under his teeth, as though in pain.
At last they were in the dim chamber that is the vestibule of death. The cap had been drawn over his face and the leather straps buckled on his wrists legs,
The warden put his hand on the electric switch.
There was a shout and a stir without, the thump of hurrying feet, and the butt of a guard’s gun thundered against the door.
The warden sprang forward.