The prisoner remained apparently absorbed in meditation which was entirely abstracted from terrestrial objects. The thousands of spectators waited in silent and gloomy suspense for the final catastrophe. The sheriff stood forth and addressed to the condemned man a few remarks pertinent to the occasion.
Having carried the proceedings to this crucial point, the sheriff, Solomon Martin, then changed his role, and produced from his pocket a letter from his excellency Morgan Lewis, Governor of the State of New York, containing directions for a respite of the execution until further orders, and announcing that a reprieve, in due form, would soon be forwarded.
It was now long after noon, and the sheriff, having received this letter at nine o'clock in the morning, had kept it in his pocket during the entire proceedings, "conceiving it improper to divulge the respite until the crisis." The sheriff had acted with the advice of a few others who were let into the secret. Even the attending ministers of religion were uninformed of the respite until it was dramatically produced upon the stage. The thing, in fact, outdid all stagecraft, for while it is quite consistent with the traditions of theatrical art that an execution should be stayed at the critical moment by the appearance of a furiously galloping horseman waving a reprieve above his head, probably never elsewhere in the history of the drama or in the annals of the law has the official document been produced at the gallows, after the adjustment of the fatal noose, from the pocket of the hangman!
In the judgment of the sheriff it appeared that since the order for a respite had arrived too late to forestall the gathering of great multitudes to witness the hanging, it was equally clear that it had come too early to be made public at once without causing unnecessary disappointment to thousands who were still enjoying the ecstasies of anticipation. So he carried out the original programme to the letter, going through with all the preliminaries and forms of the execution, stopping short only of the actual hanging.
When the sheriff made his amazing announcement from the scaffold, the prisoner swooned, and the whole scene was changed. The prisoner was reconducted to the jail with the same pomp and bravery of troops and music that had brought him to the scaffold. The spectators slowly dispersed, and before sunset the village assumed its accustomed tranquility.