"Hasten—hasten! for the love of Heaven!" cried Willard, passionately.
"I'll do my best," said the man. "I want to be in time for the execution, anyway."
On they fled. Mile after mile was passed; but, to the excited mind of Willard, they seemed going at a snail's pace. Did the sun ever rise so rapidly any morning before as it did on that? Eight o'clock, and still ten miles from Westport.
"Faster—faster! A thousand—two thousand—three thousand dollars, if we only reach Westport before nine," shouted Willard, almost maddened. "A human life depends on it—I have a reprieve."
"Hooray!" shouted the boy who drove. "If ever Sultan went, he'll have to go it now. Here's my stick; tie your handkerchief on it, to hoist when we get into the town, and they'll stop the execution."
Lashing his horse until the perspiration stood in great beads on his forehead, away they flew, and ten minutes before nine rushed furiously into the town.
The streets were crowded—blocked up with people—a boundless sea of human beings! And near the jail they beheld the scaffold, and a sight which seemed to paralyze the very life in their hearts. For there, with the sheriff and a group of her immediate friends, stood Sibyl Campbell, whiter than the dead, robed for death, cold, still, and rigid.
A deep, awe-struck silence had fallen over the vast crowd—a silence more terrible than the wildest shouts could have been.
Raising the white handkerchief, the boy waved it in the air, shouting, wildly: "A reprieve—a reprieve!" and drove furiously right through the startled throng, heedless of those he trampled down in his way.
The multitude took up the cry, and "A reprieve! a reprieve! a reprieve!" rang out, gathering force as it went, until, from a low, hoarse shout, it rose to a wild, triumphal song that rang to the very heavens.