Murders of mere necessity Williams
was obliged to hurry; but, in a murder of pure voluptuousness, entirely
disinterested, where no hostile witness was to be removed, no extra booty
to be gained, and no revenge to be gratified, it is clear that to hurry
would be altogether to ruin. If this child, therefore, is to be saved, it
will be on pure aesthetical considerations. [5]
But all considerations whatever are at this moment suddenly cut short. A
second step is heard on the stairs, but still stealthy and cautious; a
third--and then the child's doom seems fixed. But just at that. moment all
is ready. The window is wide open; the rope is swinging free; the
journeyman has launched himself; and already he is in the first stage of
his descent. Simply by the weight of his person he descended, and by the
resistance of his hands he retarded the descent. The danger was, that the
rope should run too smoothly through his hands, and that by too rapid an
acceleration of pace he should come violently to the ground. Happily he
was able to resist the descending impetus: the knots of the splicings
furnished a succession of retardations. But the rope proved shorter by
four or five feet than he had calculated: ten or eleven feet from the
ground he hung suspended in the air; speechless for the present, through
long-continued agitation; and not daring to drop boldly on the rough
carriage pavement, lest he should fracture his legs.
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