contest of skill—or the arguments on every conceivable
topic from death and women to lack of it, as far at least as
the general low intelligence of the group permitted.
For the most part, as soon as breakfast was over—among
those who were not called upon to join the first group for
exercise, there were checkers or cards, two games that
were played—not with a single set of checkers or a deck of
cards between groups released from their cells, but by one
of the ever present keepers providing two challenging
prisoners (if it were checkers) with one checker-board but
no checkers. They were not needed. Thereafter the
opening move was called by one. “I move from G 2 to E
1”—each square being numbered—each side lettered. The
moves checked with a pencil.
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1134
Thereafter the second party—having recorded this move on
his own board and having studied the effect of it on his own
general position, would call: “I move from E 7 to F 5.” If
more of those present decided to join in this—either on one
side or the other, additional boards and pencils were
passed to each signifying his desire. Then Shorty Bristol,
desiring to aid “Dutch” Swighort, three cells down, might
call: “I wouldn’t do that, Dutch. Wait a minute, there’s a
better move than that.” And so on with taunts, oaths,
laughter, arguments, according to the varying fortunes and
difficulties of the game. And so, too, with cards. These were
played with each man locked in his cell, yet quite as
successfully.
But Clyde did not care for cards—or for these jibing and
coarse hours of conversation. There was for him—and with
the exception of the speech of one—Nicholson—alone, too
much ribald and even brutal talk which he could not
appreciate. But he was drawn to Nicholson. He was
beginning to think after a time—a few days—that this lawyer
—his presence and companionship during the exercise hour
—whenever they chanced to be in the same set—could
help him to endure this. He was the most intelligent and
respectable man here. The others were all so different—
taciturn at times—and for the most part so sinister, crude or
remote.
But then and that not more than a week after his coming
here—and when, because of his interest in Nicholson, he
was beginning to feel slightly sustained at least—the
execution of Pasquale Cutrone, of Brooklyn, an Italian,
convicted of the slaying of his brother for attempting to
seduce his wife. He had one of the cells nearest the
transverse passage, so Clyde learned after arriving, and
had in part lost his mind from worrying. At any rate he was
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1135
invariably left in his cell when the others—in groups of six—
were taken for exercise. But the horror of his emaciated
face, as Clyde passed and occasionally looked in—a face
divided into three grim panels by two gutters or prison lines
of misery that led from the eyes to the corners of the mouth.
Beginning with his, Clyde’s arrival, as he learned, Pasquale
had begun to pray night and day. For already, before that,
he had been notified of the approximate date of his death
which was to be within the week. And after that he was
given to crawling up and down his cell on his hands and
knees, kissing the floor, licking the feet of a brass Christ on
a cross that had been given him. Also he was repeatedly
visited by an Italian brother and sister fresh from Italy and
for whose benefit at certain hours, he was removed to the
old death house. But as all now whispered, Pasquale was
mentally beyond any help that might lie in brothers or
sisters.
All night long and all day long, when they were not present,
he did this crawling to and fro and praying, and those who
were awake and trying to read to pass the time, were
compelled to listen to his mumbled prayers, the click of the
beads of a rosary on which he was numbering numberless
Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
And though there were voices which occasionally said: “Oh,
for Christ’s sake—if he would only sleep a little”—still on,
on. And the tap of his forehead on the floor—in prayer, until
at last the fatal day preceding the one on which he was to
die, when Pasquale was taken from his cell here and
escorted to another in the old death house beyond and
where, before the following morning, as Clyde later learned,
last farewells, if any, were to be said. Also he was to be
allowed a few hours in which to prepare his soul for his
maker.
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1136
But throughout that night what a strange condition was this
that settled upon all who were of this fatal room. Few ate
any supper as the departing trays showed. There was
silence—and after that mumbled prayers on the part of
some—not so greatly removed by time from Pasquale’s
fate, as they knew. One Italian, sentenced for the murder of
a bank watchman, became hysterical, screamed, dashed
the chair and table of his cell against the bars of his door,
tore the sheets of his bed to shreds and even sought to
strangle himself before eventually he was overpowered and
removed to a cell in a different part of the building to be
observed as to his sanity.
As for the others, throughout this excitement, one could
hear them walking and mumbling or calling to the guards to
do something. And as for Clyde, never having experienced
or imagined such a scene, he was literally shivering with
fear and horror. All through the last night of this man’s life
he lay on his pallet, chasing phantoms. So this was what
death was like here; men cried, prayed, they lost their minds
—yet the deadly process was in no way halted, for all their
terror. Instead, at ten o’clock and in order to quiet all those
who were left, a cold lunch was brought in and offered—but
with none eating save the Chinaman over the way.
And then at four the following morning—the keepers in
charge of the deadly work coming silently along the main
passage and drawing the heavy green curtains with which
the cells were equipped so that none might see the fatal
procession which was yet to return along the transverse
passage from the old death house to the execution room.
And yet with Clyde and all the others waking and sitting up
at the sound.
It was here, the execution! The hour of death was at hand.
This was the signal. In their separate cells, many of those
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1137
who through fear or contrition, or because of innate
religious convictions, had been recalled to some form of
shielding or comforting faith, were upon their knees praying.
Among the rest were others who merely walked or
muttered. And still others who screamed from time to time
in an incontrollable fever of terror.
As for Clyde he was numb and dumb. Almost thoughtless.
They were going to kill that man in that other room in there.
That chair—that chair that he had so greatly feared this
long while was in there—was so close now. Yet his time as
Jephson and his mother had told him was so long and
distant as yet—if ever—ever it was to be—if ever—ever——
But now other sounds. Certain walkings to and fro. A cell
door clanking somewhere. Then plainly the door leading
from the old death house into this room opening—for there
was a voice—several voices indistinct as yet. Then another
voice a little clearer as if some one praying. That tell-tale
shuffling of feet as a procession moved across and through
that passage. “Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.”
“Mary, Mother of Grace, Mary, Mother of Mercy, St. Michael,
pray for me; my good Angel, pray for me.
“Holy Mary, pray for me; St. Joseph, pray for me. St.
Ambrose, pray for me; all ye saints and angels, pray for me.”
“St. Michael, pray for me; my good Angel, pray for me.”
It was the voice of the priest accompanying the doomed
man and reciting a litany. Yet he was no longer in his right
mind they said. And yet was not that his voice mumbling
too? It was. Clyde could tell. He had heard it too much
recently. And now that other door would be opened. He
would be looking through it—this condemned man—so
soon to be dead—at it—seeing it—that cap—those straps.
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1138
Oh, he knew all about those by now though they should
never come to be put upon him, maybe.
“Good-by, Cutrone!” It was a hoarse, shaky voice from
some near-by cell—Clyde could not tell which. “Go to a
better world than this.” And then other voices: “Good-by,
Cutrone. God keep you—even though you can’t talk
English.”
The procession had passed. That door was shut. He was in