a prayer.

Then a slave was blindfolded; the hangman unslung
his rope. There lay the smooth road below us, we
upon one side of it, the banked multitude wailing its
other side -- a good clear road, and kept free by the
police -- how good it would be to see my five hundred
horsemen come tearing down it! But no, it was out
of the possibilities. I followed its receding thread out
into the distance -- not a horseman on it, or sign of
one.

There was a jerk, and the slave hung dangling;
dangling and hideously squirming, for his limbs were
not tied.