"Laudanum!" I exclaimed. "Yes, yes--as much as would kill two men!" he cried wildly. The poison had not had time to operate; or rather, its narcotic power had been suspended by the terrors of an awakened love and hope of life, that had followed close upon the prospect of death caused by his own act. "You had a chance for life, Eugene," said I, hurriedly. "A courier may yet arrive, independently of the mail, which has not yet come." "Chance or no chance," he cried, as I proceeded with my assistant, who now entered, to apply the remedies; "I would yet live the two hours! I had no sooner swallowed the drug, than I thought I had intercepted the mercy of heaven; life seemed--and, oh, it even now seems--sweeter than ever, and death still more dreadful! Quick--quick--quick! The poison is busy with my heart. I would give a world for even these two hours of life and hope--small, small as that is!" I proceeded with the application of the usual remedies. A portion, but only a portion of the laudanum, had been taken off; and the next efficient remedy was motion, to keep off the sleepy lethargy that drinks up the fountain of life. Two men were got to drag him as violently as possible along the floor, leaving him enough of his own weight to force him to use his limbs. I noticed that he struggled with terrible energy against the onset of the subtle agent; exhibiting the most signal instance I ever beheld of the power of that hope which seems to be consistent with life itself. Already an eighth part of the apparent period of his sojourn upon earth had passed. Seven quarters more would, in all likelihood, bring him to the scaffold, and, by resisting my energies to counteract the effects of the poison, he might have eluded the grim arm of the law, by a death a thousand times less dreadful. Every now and then, as the men dragged him along, he turned his eyes to me, and asked the hour. Sometimes he repeated the question within two minutes of my answer. As often was his ear directed to the street, to try to catch the sounds of a coach, or the feet of a horse; and then he redoubled his energies to keep off the onset of the lethargy, which I told him was most to be feared. The operation was persevered in; but the men informed me they thought he was gradually getting heavier on their hands, and I noticed his eye, at times, get so dull that he seemed to be on the eve of falling asleep and sinking. Another quarter of an hour soon passed; and in a little further time, the bailies and chaplain would find it their duty to come and prepare him for his fate--alas! now indeed so certain, that no reasonable thought could suggest even the shadow of a hope; a reprieve, so near the time of execution, would not have been trusted to the mail, and a messenger would have arrived, by quick stages, long before; unless there had, indeed, been any fault in the government authorities, in tampering with a man's life within an hour of his execution.