...
There was a moment or two of relief as he sank down once more into the
trough of torture. He could feel that his feet were being handled, but
it appeared as if nothing touched his flesh. He gave a great sighing
moan as his arms were drawn back over his head; and the sweat poured
again from all over his body.
Then, as the cords tightened:
"As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended ..." he whispered.
CHAPTER IX
I
A great murmuring crowd filled every flat spot of ground and pavement
and parapet. They stood even on the balustrade of St. Mary's Bridge;
there were fringes of them against the sky on the edges of roofs a
quarter of a mile away. No flat surface was to be seen anywhere except
on the broad reach of the river, and near the head of the bridge, in the
circular space, ringed by steel caps and pike-points, where the gallows
and ladder rose. Close beside them a column of black smoke rose heavily
into the morning air, bellying away into the clear air. A continual
steady low murmur of talking went up continually.
* * * * *
There had been no hanging within the memory of any that had roused such
interest. Derbyshire men had been hung often enough; a criminal usually
had a dozen friends at least in the crowd to whom he shouted from the
ladder. Seminary priests had been executed often enough now to have
destroyed the novelty of it for the mob; why, three had been done to
death here little more than two months ago in this very place.
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