"Now!" exclaimed the judge.
Four persons stepped forward and seized Downie, on whose features a cold, clammy sweat had burst forth. They bared his neck, and made him kneel before the block.
"Strike!" exclaimed the judge.
The executioner struck the ax on the floor; an assistant on the opposite side lifted at the same moment a wet towel, and struck it across the neck of the recumbent criminal. A loud laugh announced that the joke had at last come to an end.
But Downie responded not to the uproarious merriment—they laughed again—but still he moved not—they lifted him, and Downie was dead!
Fright had killed him as effectually as if the ax of a real headsman had severed his head from his body.
It was a tragedy to all. The medical students tried to open a vein, but all was over; and the conspirators had now to bethink themselves of safety. They now in reality swore an oath among themselves; and the affrighted young men, carrying their disguises with them, left the body of Downie lying in the hotel. One of their number told the landlord that their entertainment was not yet quite over, and that they did not wish the individual that was left in the room to be disturbed for some hours. This was to give them all time to make their escape.
Next morning the body was found. Judicial inquiry was instituted, but no satisfactory result could be arrived at. The corpse of poor Downie exhibited no mark of violence internal or external. The ill-will between him and the students was known: it was also known that the students had hired apartments in the hotel for a theatrical representation—that Downie had been sent for by them; but beyond this, nothing was known. No noise had been heard, and no proof of murder could be adduced. Of two hundred students at the college, who could point out the guilty or suspected fifty? Moreover, the students were scattered over the city, and the magistrates themselves had many of their own families among the number, and it was not desirable to go into the affair too minutely. Downie's widow and family were provided for, and his slaughter remained a mystery; until, about fifteen years after its occurrence, a gentleman on his death-bed disclosed the whole particulars, and avowed himself to have belonged to the obnoxious class of students who murdered Downie.