On the table lay a Testament, but there were no tokens of its having been in recent use.
In the press-room below, were three men, the nature of whose offence rendered it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in guilt.

It is a long, sombre room, with two windows sunk into the stone wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the morning of their execution, before moving towards the scaffold.

The fate of one of these prisoners was uncertain; some mitigatory circumstances having come to light since his trial, which had been humanely represented in the proper quarter.

The other two had nothing to expect from the mercy of the crown; their doom was sealed; no plea could be urged in extenuation of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in this world.

'The two short ones,' the turnkey whispered, 'were dead men.' The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some hopes of escape, was lounging, at the greatest distance he could place between himself and his companions, in the window nearest to the door.