She said it to no one
else, for the more difficult the enterprise the more determined she
was to succeed, and the more secretive she grew as to her measures.
In the mean time the outlaw, double-ironed, was confined in the
condemned cell, the strongest portion of the county jail. All
persons were strictly prohibited from visiting him, except certain
of the clergy.
They did all they could to bring the outlaw to a sense of his
condition, to prepare him to meet his fate and to induce him to make
a confession and give up the retreat of his band.
And Donald listened to them with respect, acknowledged himself a
great sinner, and knelt with them when they knelt to pray for him.
But he denied that he was guilty of the murders for which he had
been doomed to die, and he utterly refused to give up his old
companions, replying to the ministers in something like these words:
"Poor wretches! They are no more fit to die than I am, and a
condemned cell, with the thought of the scaffold before him, are not
exactly the most favorable circumstances under which a man might
experience sincere repentance, my masters!"
And so, while the convict listened with docility to all that the
ministers had to say, he steadily persisted in asserting his own
innocence of the crimes for which he was condemned, and in his
refusal to deliver up his companions.
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