There are unwritten laws and canons for all important occurrences in the Death-Chamber. I do not mean the prison rules; but the way “we” have of doing things. For instance, the new arrival, after he has passed through all formalities at the officials’ hands, and they are many, is initiated by “us” on the first night passed in our society.
This is an ancient and honorable custom, and like all initiations, a secret. These fixed ceremonies occur all through his long and brutal life in the Death-Chamber.[1] Long, for even a short stay in it makes him old; brutal, because his punishment is—death. Is that not enough? And to add thereto years of solitary confinement is to kill him not once, but over and over again. The system is all wrong. Oh, the years in the Death-Chamber! The loneliness, the quiet. Hell must be a quiet place.
When at last it is drawing to a close, when the Governor has refused to interfere, the officials proceed in this manner: On Saturday the “fortunate one” on stepping from his bath is ordered into a new cell—the one next to the “little door” leading to the execution chamber. Here he receives everything new: new bedding, new clothes from head to foot, and then his knick-knacks, pipe, tobacco, boxes, books, and the packages of letters from home, ragged and blurred from reading and rereading; all have been very carefully searched. He receives something else, for this change in itself is his notice that one week from the following Monday he will be moved again. No questions are ever asked; he has seen it all before; but should he ask, the only reply will be, “I don’t know.”
From that moment a certain unwritten etiquette among us is never violated. His own way in everything, as far as we can possibly comprehend it, is our law. Does he ask for a song or story, his demand is acquiesced with at once. Will he play checkers? He may choose his opponent, and he will always win. We send him our oranges, the top layer from the box of cigars one has purchased. We do anything, everything we can to please him. Has there been a quarrel between him and another, it is completely forgotten. On his part, he must make the ghastly regulation jokes during the week. These are two in number, one with the keeper about the new suit of clothes: “I suppose you will be wearing this week after next.” Number two is with the barber: “Don’t forget to cut my hair short on top.” From now on the “death watch” (two keepers) sits in front of his cage every night. During this week occurs the greatest horror we are called upon to bear, i.e., to hear the last farewells of our companion to mother, wife, sister, or child. While listening to their cries we anticipate the agony in store for those we love. My heart bleeds when I remember what I have heard in the Death-Chamber. It is unspeakable. I cannot write of it.
Then comes the last night. Everything must be done very exactly now. Our code prescribes for everything; nothing must be omitted, no custom may be violated. The early evening passes as usual. Generally he asks for songs, perhaps he will sing one himself. That is as it may be. But at midnight the last rites among us of the Death-Chamber take place. The keeper comes to my cell carrying, perhaps, the little paper box my departing friend has kept his tobacco in so long; one that he made and decorated himself.
“Keep that to remember me by,” I hear from the direction of the little door.
“Thank you,” I reply.
“Good-by. I hope you have luck and get out,” is the next part of the ritual.
I must respond, “Thank you. Good-by, and God bless you.”
This is repeated with each one separately. He gives everything away, books, pipe, all. For six months he has been turning over in his mind just what treasure each of his companions shall receive when the last night comes. The responses never vary. They are now as they were ten years ago; they will be the same twenty years from now if that hell on earth is still in existence.
No one speaks to him or to any one else after that. He is reading and rereading each of those letters for the last time and destroying them. We hear him tearing them up one by one. “Swish, swish, swish.” Then it is quiet, very quiet in the Death-Chamber. I am not sleepy; the other fellows do not seem to be sleepy. They are reading. I sit up and write this; to-morrow I will write the other half.
I have often read in the newspapers the supposed meal partaken of by the departing guest “furnished from the Warden’s table.” No newspaper reporter seems able to resist a description of the last breakfast, and no two papers ever publish the same one. Did the wretch gorge himself to the extent indicated, indigestion and not electricity would carry him off, and justice be cheated. No, he is not even stimulated to the extent of a cup of coffee, and for a good reason; a full stomach is not a good conductor. You will read that “the man was indifferent.” I tell you he was glad to go. “That he made no trouble.” Why should he? “Our horror,” how we are affected by our companion’s death, is portrayed. As a matter of fact, we envy him. Anything, everything is better than existence in the Death-Chamber.
During the night, if you have lain awake, and one has been known to be so foolish, you may have felt a very slight vibration, perhaps it is imagination; perhaps it is the dynamo. If you have slept, and do not hear the death-watch draw down the curtains in front of all the cells when the night outside turns gray, you will surely be awakened by the noise of many feet. It is the priests who have entered. Their ordinary shoes on the flagging of the corridor sound like thunder, thunder moving away. Now it subsides to the murmuring of Latin prayers. As you lie in your cell (the drawn curtains make it resemble a little box) wide-awake, you know that the last confession is being made, the last sacrament is being administered. This is another reason why no breakfast is given to the traveller. I saw it all one morning; the curtain was not quite down to the floor. I made myself as flat as possible. I saw the priest bless and kiss him; hold up the cross before his eyes; bid him have faith, and then back out of the cell. “He,” who is so soon to be “it,” followed. Then I heard the procession march rapidly into the next room. “Bang!” said the hungry little door as it closed.
What happens in there, and how it felt three minutes later, I cannot tell you; but I came very near finding out. Will you believe me that this day is a long one? You fellows outside can do much to divert the mind from disagreeable thoughts; we have breakfast, and sit down to wonder which one of us will be the next to go. Poor Benjamin, you have the advantage of us now; you have found “Nirvana” while we are worrying; you are reposing in your bed—of quicklime.