THE LAST LONG DAY A long day, the last of many long days he told himself, was ended, and John North stood by his window.

Below in the yard into which he was looking, but within the black shadow cast by the jail, was the gallows.
Though indistinguishable in the darkness, its shape was seared on his brain, for he had lived in close fellowship with all it emphasized.

It was his gallows, it had grown to completion under his very eyes that it might destroy him in the last hour.
There had been for him a terrible fascination in the gaunt thing that gave out the odor of new wood; a thing men had made with their own hands; a clumsy device to inflict a brutal death; a left-over from barbarism which denied every claim of civilization and Christianity! Now, as the moon crept up from behind the distant hills, the black shadows retreated, and as he watched, timber by timber the gallows stood forth distinct in the soft clear light.

In a few hours, unless the governor interfered, he would pass through the door directly below his window.

He pictured the group of grave-faced nervous officials, he saw himself bound and blindfolded and helpless in their midst.
His fingers closed convulsively about the iron bars that guarded his window, but the feeling of horror that suddenly seized him was remote from self-pity.