Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-02-20

/ no dark fate lay in wait for him among
tho midnight shadows. The echo 70
their laughter moro than once pierced
the furious brain of the inscrutsble
sentinel, each merry peal another stern
argument in favor of his ruthless pur-
pose.
They plumber me and laugh at it, +"
he thought "Those laugh best who
laugh last and it will be the devils
turn soOn."
His satanic majesty had to wait till
the irst wan streaks Of daylight paled
in the East.
THEN THE DOOR OPENED.
Through the chill mist blowing in
from the sea the assassin saw the fig
ure of his victim loom dim like a
ghosts. Not so dim, however, but
his fierce eyes made it out and guided
the sight ofthe rifle to it.. He held
the weapon thus when he heard the
woman, who accompanied her lover
to the door, kiss him.
Then a sharp crack broke the dead
silence, and Salvador Xiques staggered
forward with a loud cry, and fell face
down in the street.
With a savage oath the murderer
leaped from the deep doorway in
which he stood concealed and, snarl-
ing in his fury like a wild beast, COM
menced to hack his victims skull to
pieces with his machete.
lie paid no attention to Dolores
wild screams, moi to the hurrying feet
Of the heighbors,
SUMMONED BY THESE WILD CRIES.
When a dozen half dressed people
came up with him he had turned the
corpse on Its back, and, seated on its
chest, was stufing the fragments of a
torn list of the prizes drawn in the
late lottery into its mouth.
The poor wretch was a maniac. His
misfortune had turned his brain.
He was conveyed to prison, where,
after some months, his paroxysms
passed away and he became quiet.
The prison physician declared him
still insane and unfit to be tried for
his crime, and his relatives, people of
considerable interest, applied for his
release. The authorities we're about
to grant it when a peremptory order
arrived from Havana to put him on
trial Such an order was net to be
disobeyed. From the first it was evi.
dent that
THE WRETCHED MAN WAS DOOMED.
Three of the leading physicians of
the island swore that he was perfectly
sane. Scores Of witnesses testified in
every way against him. No expense
was spared to paint his crime in its
blacklist shade. The very judges were
50 evidently biased in his disfayor that
all MantanZas was shocked.
But shocked or not, Tiburcio Her
nandeZ was condemned to the garrOtc.
The popular excitement rose to
such a pitch that the authorities
dared not perform the execution in
public. The prisoner was garroted in
the courtyard of the fort. From al
easement in front of the scaffold a
yelled woman watched the perform
anee from first to last. The same
yelled figure, it was whispered, had
been seen from time to time during
the trial in close consultation with the
three surgeons and the witness who
had
SWORN TIBUCI0 HERNANDEZ LIFE
AWAY.
The witnesses in question were
known to have become most unac-
countably possessed of money. The
doctors exchanged large sums in gold
for notes before they departed.
Dolores, on the contrary, was OBJ
served to be no longer gay Of dress and
flashing with jewels. So it may be
true after all, that every unlucky dol
lar Of her unlucky lottery ticket was
spent in brides to send her lovers |
murder to a shameful death.
At any rate the people say so, and
stranger things have happened under
the sun.