My better and calmer thoughts of duty, however, prevailed; and, in the meantime, I saw the prudence of preventing any meeting between Eugene and his parents, which could tend to nothing but an increase of pain on the side of those who were still able to feel—for, as regarded the young man himself, he was beyond the impulse of the feelings that might otherwise have been called up, even by such a scene. I was not even ill pleased to hear from the under turnkey, that the magistrates had given orders for the departure of the friends; though, for my own satisfaction, I wished that the father, who had still some command of himself, might visit his son for a few minutes, and sanction my proceedings with his approbation. I was informed also by the turnkey, that the father was resisting to the utmost of his power the efforts of the mother to get into the cell. He probably saw too clearly that in the excited condition in which she still remained, the scene might prove disastrous, as affecting either life or reason; and, if I could judge from what I myself felt in spite of the blunting effects of a long acquaintanceship with misery in its various phases, there was good reason for his fears. The scene presented features
"Direr than incubus's haggard train."
I had just looked my watch—it wanted now only twenty minutes of the last hour. The order for the friends to quit the jail was about to be obeyed. The father sent a messenger for me. I repaired to the cell; but to avoid the appeals of the mother and daughter, I beckoned him forth to the lobby. He asked me whether he should see his son now that he was all but insensible, and could not probably recognise him. He feared that he could not stand the scene, for that the calmness he assumed was false! I replied that it certainly required no ordinary firmness; and yet the pain might in some degree be even lessened by the state of stupor and insensibility in which the youth still continued. He fixed his eyes on my face with an expression of forced and unnatural calmness, that pained me more than the death-like inanity of the still beautiful countenance of his son, or the hysterical excitement of the mother. He at last seized my hand and proceeded along to the cell hurriedly, as the turnkey was crying loudly for the friends to depart. We entered and stood for a moment. He stood and gazed at his son, as the latter was still kept moving by the men; but Eugene was apparently unconscious of the presence of his parents. A loud cry from the dense crowd who had assembled to witness the execution, struck my ear. I ran to the window, and saw a man in the act of coming off a horse, whose sides were covered with foam and blood. The cries of the crowd continued, and I could distinctly hear the word "reprieve" mixed with the shouts. Mr. D—— was at my back, and I felt his hands press me like a vice. The two men who were supporting Eugene, had also heard the sound, and, paralysed by the extraordinary announcement, they actually let the prisoner sink on the floor. The sound of his fall made me turn; the father had vanished, doubtless to meet the messenger, and communicate the tidings to his wife and daughter. A great bustle in the neighbouring cells succeeded. The two men stood and looked at me in silence. Eugene still lay on the floor, to all appearance insensible. By my orders he was immediately again lifted up, and dragged more violently than ever, backwards and forwards. In a few seconds, the turnkey came in, and struck off the irons, by which his ancle had been so severely torn that the blood flowed from it on the floor. He informed me that he was indeed reprieved, and that the fault of the delay was attributable to the authorities in London. I shouted in the ear of the young man the electric word; he lifted his head, looked wildly around him for a few seconds, and uttered a strange gurgling sound unlike any expression of the human voice I ever heard. I was indeed uncertain whether he understood me or not. In a few minutes more, the cell was crowded—the father, mother, and daughter, the chaplain, the messenger, and several of the officials, all bursting in, to see the condition of the criminal. To this I was not averse; because the more excitement that could be produced in the mind of the youth, the greater chance remained of our being able to keep off the deadly effects of the drug. A thousand times did the parent and mother sound into his dull ear the vocable pregnant with so much relief to him and his friends; but it was not until two hours afterwards that he was so far recovered as to understand perfectly the narrow escape he had made from death. In the evening he was conveyed home in a carriage; and, as they were leaving the jail, he looked out at the grim apparatus which had been erected for him, and which the workmen were removing in the midst of a dense crowd of citizens.
Some days afterwards, Eugene D—— had almost entirely recovered from the effects of the poison. One day when I called, I found him lying on a sofa, with his mother sitting by his side. She took her eyes off her son, and bent them on me till tears filled them.
"Before you entered," she said, "I was talking to Eugene about the request I made to you in the jail on that dreadful day, to let my son die. Repeatedly since, have I thought of my wild words; but they know little of human nature, at least little of the feelings of a mother in my situation, who could brand them as unnatural, or doubt the sanity that recognised fully their effect."
"I am too well apprised, madam," I replied, "of the workings of that organ, whose changes often startle ourselves, to be surprised at the words you then made use of. I knew not, after all, if you did not exhibit as much heroism as Brutus, who condemned his son to death; certainly more than Zaleucus, who condemned his to the loss of an eye, having first submitted to the loss of his own, to make the love of a father quadrate with the justice of the law-giver."
"And what say you to yourself, to whom I owe the safety of my Eugene?" she added.
"An Acesias might have accomplished all that I accomplished, madam—for all I did was to keep off sleep; but, if the secret must needs be told, I had some doubts at least of the humanity of my proceedings, whatever I might have thought of my duty."
Eugene afterwards went to the East Indies, where he made a fortune. Some pecuniary embarrassments afterwards overtook the family, on which occasion he sent them home the one half of the money he had made, whereby they were again placed in a condition of affluence. A present was also sent to me. It is not yet very many years ago since I saw Eugene. He had assumed another name in India, where he had married a very beautiful woman, and to whom he again returned.