“That’s him. That’s the one. Grayson-bloody murderer.”

Matt stared at them. Missiles thrown by the crowd began slicing through the air around him, rotten tomatoes and eggs and even rocks. The guards, as caught up in the maelstrom of refuse as he was, cursed viciously and hurried him up the stairs. Matt did nothing to hinder them. Every ounce of his concentration was suddenly focused on fighting down the terror that tiptoed icily up and down his spine. He scarcely felt the rock that bounced off his left temple, leaving a darkening bruise and a trickle of crimson in its wake.

The platform was long and narrow, just wide enough for perhaps four men to stand abreast. It stood a good fifteen feet off the ground-far enough so that there was at least an even chance that the drop would break the victim’s neck. After all, England in the year 1842 was a humane country; no one wanted a man to meet his death twisting at the end of a rope and choking for as long as a full half hour. No matter that it happened like that more often than not; at least it was not planned. Thinking of the horrible, blackened face and gasping sounds of a man he had once seen hanged and who had died hard, Matt promised himself he would watch for the hangman’s signal, then jump upward at the last moment so that he would fall through the trapdoor with a little extra force. All he asked now was that his finish be quick and clean. Being slowly strangled to death by a frayed piece of hemp was an end he preferred not to contemplate.

He was not the only man scheduled to die that day, he saw as soon as he set foot on the platform. Two other poor wretches were there, their irons already replaced by a single rope securing their hands behind their backs in the attitude in which they would soon meet their maker.