Amid all the thoughts of the coming ordeal, there was one consolation that remained. It was in the mode of his prescribed death. The victims, of whose untimely fates he had been the prime spring, had met death in bitter agony at the stake; he was to be hung. While he had not gloated over the tortures of the condemned free-thinkers, he had deemed these tortures merited, and, as a late witness of the agonies of martyrs, he had at times fairly smiled at his own sentence.
There was one man amid the dense crowd, thronging the front of Newgate on that morning, who waited with something more than vulgar curiosity to see the condemned felon come forth. At an early hour, this man had mounted the stone block which stood on the edge of the street directly before the gates of the prison; and neither the threats of the approaching storm, nor its furious presence had driven him under shelter. Under the livid colored clouds, which still obscured the sky after the passing of the tempest, he maintained his position of vantage. It gave him a commanding view on all sides, and likewise made him a conspicuous figure. The tumbril bearing Bame would pass close before him. He could not fail in his accost of the condemned to secure his attention, and for this purpose he held this position. What was his ultimate design could not be read in the expression of his face or his demeanor. It might be that he intended by the fervor of devout utterance to strengthen the tried soul of the man entering the valley of shadow, or, on the contrary, to exhibit to the latter a gloating visage and hurl an execration in his face.
Whoever in the idle crowd questioned the design of this heavy man in leathern doublet who stood above them, remained only a short time in ignorance. The heavy gates swung open, and three men flourishing halberds cleared the way for a horse and open cart. Behind the cart came four armed riders, and the hangman in rough cassock and black hat. The cart bore two men. One was the driver. The other was a man in manacles who stood erect for the moment while the wheels run over the smooth pavement. As evidence of innocence, he wore a white cockade in his hat, and an expression of forced resignation appeared on his face. The crowd was silent for a moment, and then cheered him as they noticed his erect posture and the white cockade.
The horse had been reined in at the edge of the street for a moment while the crowd was being thrust back by the guard. Bame silenced the cheering by his effort to be heard above this demonstration. He repeated his words twice, and then they heard him.
“I have committed no crime,” he cried, “My death will be a judicial murder.”
Contrary to his expectations, the words did not revive the applause that had preceded them. This was occasioned by another voice that rang out in clear and louder accents:
“The dog lies. He should be strangled before he reaches the gallows. A public accuser! a public informer!”
Bame turned his head, and on his elevated perch he saw Gyves, the ex-constable. The crowd saw him too, and in its fickleness cheered him and then hooted and threw mud and stones at Bame. The latter was knocked into a sitting posture by the missiles where he remained trembling from fear of a more violent assault being made. Up to that moment he had prayed for death in any form, except at the hands of the hangman; but in the sudden and unexpected presence of mob violence, fierce and strong enough to crush out all life, he forgot the incentive of his prayers.
The driver’s hat had been knocked from his head, and this angered him so that he swore loudly and called vile names even at the man who picked the fallen hat from the ground and threw it into the cart. At the same time he sent the long lash of his whip cracking and smarting into the faces of the front row of the crowd. They fell back, jeering at him.
“Kill him, too!” they yelled.