For a minute, I felt as if my heart had ceased its pulsations, but, gradually, I became conscious of the position in which I was placed. None could doubt my guilt. Could any deny that I was a felon? I, with forced notes concealed upon my person, of which I had uttered one already under a fictitious name. The observations of the crowd occasionally reached me. There was no difference of opinion as to my destiny--my career would close upon the scaffold! Oh Heaven! if thoughtless youth could only fancy the agony of soul I felt, how many would be deterred from crime, and saved from ruin! To die!--to perish in the very opening of my manhood! And how die? Like a dog--stared at by a gaping crowd--pitied by some--laughed at by others--choked--hanged! “Never, by Heavens!” I muttered to myself,--“Never shall a Clifford, no matter how fallen, die such a felon-death! The grave is open for me; what matters it whether it hide me now, or in a brief space after? Come, man thyself, Edward Clifford, for a last effort--and die!” Nothing remained but to convey me before a magistrate for committal. The crowd retired; the officers took me away in custody. My passive conduct throughout, led them to set me down a heartless wretch, with whom hope was at an end; and mine seemed “The composure of settled despair,” which enables the criminal to meet his doom in sullen apathy. How little they suspected the dark thoughts which then occupied my mind, or the deadly purpose which I meditated! An old watchman held my collar in his feeble grasp, and two or three others surrounded me. The mob kept generally in advance of us, to enable them to frequently indulge their curiosity with a view of the criminal. Before we had moved a dozen paces, I made a sudden spring, shook off the man who held me, overturned another in my rear, and started off, at headlong speed, to gain the bridge which was immediately contiguous. A wild outcry announced my escape; an instant pursuit succeeded. The mob were the only persons I had to fear; for the old men who watched the city then, wrapped in their great coats, and encumbered with poles and lanterns, were incapable of rapid movements. Several persons, however, kept me well in sight; they little knew that death, and not deliverance, was what I aimed at; and they raised a cry to warn the passengers who were approaching in the opposite direction. I saw several men draw themselves across the bridge to bar my farther progress. I stopped, leaped upon the balustrade--“Seize him!” cried a dozen voices--they were the last words I heard--I muttered one brief adjuration to Heaven to pardon the act I was about to commit, closed my eyes, sprang from the battlement, and the waters closed over me!