Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1886-12-03

premonition of death.
Not when they stood me up to hear
my sentence and to answer. nor after
ward in the cool contemplation my
Isolated and silent dungeon afforded;
not when the officer of the day, on
that eventful execution informing, read
to me in my dungeon the days pro.
gramme and delineated my doom at
the hands OF twelve detailed soldiers.
He found me whistling as paced my
narrow cell that morning and exclaim-
ed IN surprise:
Good God, captain! what kind OF
man are your"
ooh, I don't know; skin and bone,
flesh and sinews, blood and bile.
Why?"
"Why! Don't you know you are to
be shot to-day? Outside here are the
twelve men detailed to send you into
eternity. You'll never see another
morning? And here you are-whist.
lingr,
"Well, why not whistle as long as
possible, and cry when you cannot
laugh?"
Hence, Il may not be able to tell just
how a man feels who staressdeath
calmly in the face, for maybe Ibid not
comprehend my situation.
But was sentenced to death. That
1tully comprehended when they march
ed nee, handcuffed, between two guards
with arms at charge" and bayonets
fixed back, to the prison; and instead
OF my former twelve by twelve cell,
barred and bolted me in an under
ground dark, dank dungeon, 8 by TO-
with a tub occupying two feet Of that
sparse space, significantly suggestive
that | was TO stay right there until
the day and hour.
The sentence was fully realized dur
ing the sunless days and no darker
nights of the weeks that followed.
Daylight! Heavens man! you do not
appreciate what a ray OF glad, bright
sunlight is until shut IN from all that
makes day beautiful.
Oh, yes; I comprehended, slightly,
that mine was no trifling sentence, as
I crouched in that felt darkness, wait
ing till diiated pupils enabled me to
see imperfectly. what was the damp.
ness that touched
Finally, however, I was permitted
to send out and buy lamp, and to
keep it lighted. The walls had been
repeatedly whitewashed; but the hu-
mid filth oozing through the bricks
had pushed it off in discolored flakes.
The floor was stone; solid or cement
ed mass that once negatived any Nor.
ganic idea OF digging out" Away up
yonder, ten or twelve feet away, was
the arched brick ceiling. whose sweaty
surface told that it, too, was under
sod.
But the dampness and the darkness
and the dirt were but grains of dust
compared to the urfutterable lonli-
ness that grew upon me in that sep
ulchre. Not human soul--not even
a brute. except the scampering rats
to break the stiffness OF that murky
tomb! Out yonder, somewhere, knew
was a grim sentry, for I heard the
measured tread of the relief as they
left him on his lonely post. But I
never saw or heard him.
Twice n day grimly silent, came the
cooks detail with my barrack soup
or coffee. But he was mute, under
strict orders not to speak or signal to
the prisoner, as his baker-like shovel
reached in my nlorsel of food.
Perdition! how I strove to make
him speak, ii ne only would curse me,
abuse me, anything; even his profan-
ity would have sounded as melody in
my solitude.
. never knew what music there was
in the human voice till in that dun
geon, where it never sounded, and
where / soon grew startled at my
own. '~
! The post chaplain's was the only
human voice heard for weeks-and
his only once, for my levity shocked
him so that he gave me up as an ire
deemable reprobate. He offered q
prayer for me, however, courteously
kneeling with him on the stone floor.
But he never came again.
He told me-what my occasionally
too plainly informed me-that there
was no hope Of escape from the fate
that seemed to them and the outside
world to be staring me in the face.
Every possible. effort has been made,
every available influence pressed into
service with the President, and he had
declined interfering with the judgment
OF the court martial. The worthy
chaplain said: -
"Gaptain, prepare for death, for
your life ends in O few days"
Here was food for reflection, surely.
1 In the prime and vigor of early man
= + -; n, xx,;% Il Il a hn,,p1