Sister Howard, who also has borne this terrible vigil, supports the fainting woman from the portals of the charnel-house, and their carriage rumbles away over the stones of Old Bailey. Even these loving friends have failed him, and the red giant must bear his last dismal journey alone. Two turnkeys watch over him, lest he may do himself injury, for he wears no fetters. “It is a long night,” he exclaims about two o’clock, as he tosses wearily upon his couch. Still, his voice is strong and resonant with its military ring, though his mighty form has sunk beneath a weight of torture into a mere gaunt framework of bones. Bread-and-water has been his diet since the sentence, and Sheriff Cox, although assiduous in his visits to the unhappy man, will not relax his stern rules. In a little while, as if he looked for sleep, he asks whether the scaffold will make a noise when it is dragged out into the street. With compassionate lie, they answer that it will not, but his thoughts dwell morbidly upon his destiny. “I most earnestly request,” he tells his attendants, “that I may not be pulled by the heels when I am suffering.” They attempt to appease him by the promise that it shall be done as he wishes, but he has seen hangings in plenty, and he knows what may happen. “I hope that the fatal cord may be placed properly,” he persists, “and that I may be allowed to depart as fairly and easily as my sentence will allow.” At last he falls asleep, and when the huge wooden machine lumbers between the prison doors with a sound that reverberates through the whole building, he is unconscious of what has happened. Also, it is not recorded that he heard the dread chaunt of the bellman outside in the Old Bailey: “You that in the condemned hole do lie, Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die; Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near, That you before the Almighty must appear.” About half-past five he awakes with a start as a mail-coach rumbles along Newgate Street. “Is that the scaffold?” he demands, and they tell him no.