Had I been a condemned criminal sentenced to the electric chair, my torments would have been less hard to bear. For then, at least, I would have known that I was suffering justly; I would have been surrounded by people of my own kind and race; I would have had time in which to prepare myself, and I would have had to face no such diabolical instrument as the violet-ray. Oh, how I loathed the sight of that machine. Even today I cannot think of it without an involuntary start of fright! Yet, apparently, there was no power on Heaven or Earth to save me from it. Coolly, deliberately, with the most matter-of-fact manner, my oppressors dragged me out of prison, pulled me at the end of a wire to the stone column that had witnessed the six executions, and, still not approaching me, hurled some heavy iron strands around the column in such a way as to hold me tightly against it.
Now it seemed to me that I was living through some horrible nightmare, persecuted by devils. I saw the ghastly black-and-white figures of the spectators crowded at a safe distance, their salmon eyes glittering with pitiless curiosity; I saw the ten soldiers with their hatchet helmets looking on like the creatures of some delirious vision; I saw the death-machine being moved into place and watched the operator as he peered through the little glass tube as if to make sure of his aim. Then, while I gave a convulsive shudder and grew limp with fright, the executioner lifted his hand to signify that all was ready....
The following seconds seemed each as long as whole hours. For the first time since my childhood, I had an impulse to pray; my lips opened, as if to gasp out a supplication to that Supreme Power in whom I no longer believed; but nothing except a cracked, dry sound came forth, and I half imagined I already heard my own death-rattle. In that final second, I seemed to live through my whole life again, as the drowning are said to do; I was a child in my mother's arms; I was a youth at college; I was a grown man making love to that auburn-headed one who might even now be my bride, if—
But at this point my remembrances ceased. My ears caught the tell-tale whirring of the death-machine; my eyes beheld the cone of violet light, its thin point tapering toward my breast; and, straining with a last futile effort against the imprisoning wires, I thought that my days on earth were over.
Several seconds, long-protracted, tortured seconds—went by. I was aware of a faint warmth, a slight tickling sensation above the heart—and that was all. Was my death to be painless?
Then, in a wild rush, hope came flooding back upon me. Might I not, after all, be saved? Was I immune to the effects of the rays?
Yes!—the miracle had happened! Suddenly the whirring of the machine ceased, the violet-ray snapped off, and the spectators, surging back and forth with excited cries, showed that they shared my own surprise at the failure of the execution.
But was I actually saved? Again I heard the fearful buzzing of the machine; again the cone of violet light pointed toward me; again I felt that ticking sensation in my breast. But I still defied the rays of death!
After the third fruitless attempt, the chalk-faces seemed ready to abandon the effort. I saw the soldiers gathered in a little knot as though in conference; I heard the spectators noisily talking with explosive exclamations; then, after a minute, to my great relief, one of the helmeted ones reached out with a long forked pole and loosened the wires that bound me.
A moment later, I was a free man! Still mystified as to the reason for my escape, I felt impulsively at my chest, wondering if I had not been wounded, ever though I felt no pain. And, as I did so, sudden light dawned upon me. Beneath my coat, which had been punctured with a little round incision like a bullet-hole, I felt a small familiar bulge. And reaching into an inner pocket, I drew forth a little leather-covered notebook! A deep, charred perforation, reaching almost through the heavy back cover, showed what it was that had checked the deadly rays!