In the mean time, the proceedings in the press-room were of a still more terrific description He now resembled the stag at bay; his strength became more than human.  On attempting to tie his hands, five men were found insufficient for the woeful task.  He yelled, and flung them aside like children, but made no attempt at escape, for, in truth, he knew not what he did.  The sheriff, one of the most powerful and athletic men to be found in the province, was turned about and bent like an osier in his hands.  His words, when the fury of despair permitted his wild and broken cries to become intelligible, were now for life—­only life upon any terms; and again did he howl out his horrors of death, hell, and judgment.  Never was such a scene, perhaps, witnessed.

At length his hands were tied, and they attempted to get him up to the platform of death, but to their amazement he was once more loose, and, flying to the priest, he clasped him with the gripe of Hercules.

“Save me, save me!” he shouted.  “Let me live!  I can’t die!  You’re puttin’ me into hell’s fire!  How can I face God?  No, it’s tarrible! it’s tarrible! tarrible!  Life, life, life—­only life—­oh, only life!”

As he spoke he pressed the reverend gentleman to his breast and kissed him, and shouted with a wildness of entreaty, which far transcended in terror the most outrageous paroxysms of insanity.

“I will not lave the priest,” shrieked he; “so long as I stay with him so long I’ll be out of the punishments of eternity.  I will stick to you.  Don’t—­don’t put me away, but have pity on me!  No—­I’ll not go, I’ll not go!”

Again he kissed his lips, cheeks, and forehead, and still clung to him with terrific violence, until at last his hands were finally secured beyond the possibility of his again getting them loose.  He then threw himself upon the ground, and still resisted, with a degree of muscular strength altogether unaccountable in a person, even of his compact and rather athletic form.  His appearance upon the platform will long be remembered by those who had the questionable gratification of witnessing it.  It was the struggle of strong men dragging a strong man to the most frightful of all precipices—­Death.

[Illustration:  PAGE 311—­ Most frightful of all precipices—­Death]

When he was seen by the people in the act of being forced with such violence to the drop, they all moved, like a forest agitated by a sudden breeze, and uttered that strange murmur, composed of many passions, which can only be heard where a large number of persons are congregated together under the power of something that is deep and thrilling in its interest.  At length, after a struggle for life, and a horror of death possibly unprecedented in the annals of crime, he was pushed upon the drop, the spring was touched, and the unhappy man passed shrieking into that eternity which he dreaded so much.  His death was instantaneous, and, after hanging the usual time, his body was removed to the goal; the crowd began to disperse, and in twenty minutes the streets and people presented nothing more than their ordinary aspect of indifference to everything but their own affairs.*