Make a clean breast, man, and carry a log with you that'll bear
inspection. You killed the nigger?"
No reply. A long pause.
The captain read another chapter, pausing, from time to time, to impress
the effect. Then he talked an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, and
ended by repeating the question:
"Did you kill the nigger?"
No reply--other than a malignant scowl. The captain now read the first
and second chapters of Genesis, with deep feeling--paused a moment,
closed the book reverently, and said with a perceptible savor of
satisfaction:
"There. Four chapters. There's few that would have took the pains with
you that I have."
Then he swung up the condemned, and made the rope fast; stood by and
timed him half an hour with his watch, and then delivered the body to the
court. A little after, as he stood contemplating the motionless figure,
a doubt came into his face; evidently he felt a twinge of conscience--a
misgiving--and he said with a sigh:
"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But I was trying to do for
the best."
When the history of this affair reached California (it was in the "early
days") it made a deal of talk, but did not diminish the captain's
popularity in any degree. It increased it, indeed. California had a
population then that "inflicted" justice after a fashion that was
simplicity and primitiveness itself, and could therefore admire
appreciatively when the same fashion was followed elsewhere.
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