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.
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:
“Goodby, Cutrone.
God keep you — even though you can’t talk English.”
The procession had passed.
That door was shut.
He was in there now.
They were strapping him in, no doubt.
Asking him what more he had to say — he who was no longer quite right in his mind.
Now the straps must be fastened on, surely.
The cap pulled down.
In a moment, a moment, surely —
And then, although Clyde did not know or notice at the moment — a sudden dimming of the lights in this room — as well as over the prison — an idiotic or thoughtless result of having one electric system to supply the death voltage and the incandescence of this and all other rooms.
And instantly a voice calling:
“There she goes. That’s one.
Well, it’s all over with him.”
And a second voice:
“Yes, he’s topped off, poor devil.”
And then after the lapse of a minute perhaps, a second dimming lasting for thirty seconds — and finally a third dimming.
“There — sure — that’s the end now.”
“Yes.
He knows what’s on the other side now.”
Thereafter silence — a deadly hush with later some murmured prayers here and there.
But with Clyde cold and with a kind of shaking ague.
He dared not think — let alone cry.
So that’s how it was.
They drew the curtains.
And then — and then.
He was gone now.
Those three dimmings of the lights.
Sure, those were the flashes.
And after all those nights at prayer.
Those moanings!
Those beatings of his head!
And only a minute ago he had been alive — walking by there.
But now dead.
And some day he — he! — how could he be sure that he would not?
How could he?
He shook and shook, lying on his couch, face down.
The keepers came and ran up the curtains — as sure and secure in their lives apparently as though there was no death in the world.