Part 54 (1/2)

”I don't want it! I won't touch it! The price of blood! It would burn my fingers!” said Cap.

”Oh, very well! A thousand dollars won't go a-begging,” said Old Hurricane.

”Uncle, it breaks my heart to think of Black Donald's execution! It just does! It must be dreadful, this hanging! I have put my finger around my throat and squeezed it, to know how it feels, and it is awful. Even a little squeeze makes my head feel as if it would burst, and I have to let go! Oh, it is horrible to think of!”

”Well, Cap, it wasn't intended to be as pleasant as tickling, you know.

I wish it was twenty times worse! It would serve him right, the villain! I wish it was lawful to break him on the wheel--I do!”

”Uncle, that is very wicked in you! I declare I won't have it! I'll write a pet.i.tion to the Governor to commute his sentence, and carry it all around the county myself!”

”You wouldn't get a soul to sign it to save your life, much less his.”

”I'll go to the Governor myself, and beg him to pardon Donald Bayne!”

”Ha! ha! ha! the Governor would not do it to save all our lives, and if he were to do such an outrageous thing he might whistle for his reelection!”

”I declare, Donald Bayne shall not be hanged--and so there!” said Cap, pa.s.sionately.

”Whe-ew! You'll deliver him by the strength of your arm, my little Donna Quixota.”

”I'll save him one way or another, now mind I tell you! He sinned more against me than against anybody else, and so I have the best right of anybody in the world to forgive him, and I do forgive him! And he shan't be hanged I I say it!”

”You say it! Ha! ha! ha! Who are you, to turn aside the laws?”

”I, Capitola Black, say that Donald Bayne, not having deserved to be hanged, shall not be hanged! And in one way or another I'll keep my word!”

And Cap did her best to keep it. The next morning she mounted Gyp and rode up to Tip Top, where she employed the village lawyer to draw up a pet.i.tion to the Governor for the commutation of Donald Bayne's sentence. And then she rode all over the county to try to get signatures to the doc.u.ment. But all in vain. People of every age and condition too thoroughly feared and hated the famous outlaw, and too earnestly wished to be entirely and forever rid of him, to sign any pet.i.tion for a commutation of his sentence. If a pet.i.tion for his instant execution had been carried around it would have stood a much better chance of success.

Cap spent many days in her fruitless enterprise, but at last gave it up--but by no means in despair, for--

”I'll save his life, yet! by one means or another! I can't change clothes with him as I did with Clara; he's too big, but one way or other I'll save him,” said Cap, to herself. She said it to no one else, for the more difficult the enterprise the more determined she was to succeed, and the more secretive she grew as to her measures.

In the mean time the outlaw, double-ironed, was confined in the condemned cell, the strongest portion of the county jail. All persons were strictly prohibited from visiting him, except certain of the clergy.

They did all they could to bring the outlaw to a sense of his condition, to prepare him to meet his fate and to induce him to make a confession and give up the retreat of his band.

And Donald listened to them with respect, acknowledged himself a great sinner, and knelt with them when they knelt to pray for him.

But he denied that he was guilty of the murders for which he had been doomed to die, and he utterly refused to give up his old companions, replying to the ministers in something like these words:

”Poor wretches! They are no more fit to die than I am, and a condemned cell, with the thought of the scaffold before him, are not exactly the most favorable circ.u.mstances under which a man might experience sincere repentance, my masters!”

And so, while the convict listened with docility to all that the ministers had to say, he steadily persisted in a.s.serting his own innocence of the crimes for which he was condemned, and in his refusal to deliver up his companions.

Meantime, Capitola, at Hurricane Hall, was doing all she could to discover or invent means to save the life of Black Donald. But still she said no more about it even to Old Hurricane.

One evening, while Cap was sitting by the fire with her thoughts busy with this subject, her uncle came in saying:

”Cap, I have got some curiosities to show you!”