After the incident which has just been related, Miles was permitted to remain during the rest of that day and night in his room. Not so Jack Molloy. The anger of the populace was so powerfully aroused against the impetuous sailor that they clamoured for his instant execution, and at last, unable or unwilling to resist the pressure of public opinion, the officers in charge of him gave in. They put a rope round his neck, and led him to a spot where criminals were wont to be executed.
As he went along and saw only scowling faces whenever he looked round in the hope of meeting some pitying eye, the poor man began to feel convinced that his last hour had in very truth arrived.
“Well, well, who’d ha’ thowt it would ever come to this?” he sighed, shaking his head mournfully as he came in sight of the place of execution. “But, after all, ye richly desarve it, John Molloy, for you’ve bin a bad lot the greater part o’ your life!”
Again he looked on either side of him, for hope was strongly enshrined in his broad bosom, but not a friendly or even pitiful face could he see among all the hundreds that surrounded him.
Arrived at the place, he glanced up at the beam over his head, and for one moment thought of trying, like Samson, to burst the bonds that held him; but it was only for a moment. The impossibility of freeing himself was too obvious. He meekly bowed his head. Another instant and the rope tightened round his neck, and he felt himself swinging in the air.
Before his senses had quite left him, however, he felt his feet again touch the ground. The choking sensation passed away, and he found himself supported by two men. A burst of mocking laughter then proved to the wretched man that his tormentors had practised on him the refined cruelty of half-hanging him. If he had had any doubt on this subject, the remark of the interpreter, as he afterwards left him in his cell to recover as best he might, would have dispelled it—
“We will ’ang you dead de nex’ time!”