The criminal was then raised from the ground, and going up the platform took the seat ready for him.  The priest here renewed his exhortations, and, at length, turning to the audience, said, in a loud voice, “I believe in God Almighty and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and it grieves me to the heart to have offended them.”  These words, I suppose, were meant, as the confession of the criminal, to be repeated after the priest, but I heard no response from his lips.  Again and again the priest repeated them, the third time with a louder voice than ever; the signal was then given to the executioner.  The iron collar was adjusted to the neck of the victim, and fastened under the chin.  The athletic negro in blue, standing behind the post, took the handle of the screw and turned it deliberately.  After a few turns, the criminal gave a sudden shrug of the shoulders; another turn of the screw, and a shudder ran over his whole frame, his eyes rolled wildly, his hands, still tied with the rope, were convulsively jerked upward, and then dropped back to their place motionless forever.  The priest advanced and turned the peak of the white cap over the face to hide it from the sight of the multitude.

I had never seen, and never intended to see an execution, but the strangeness of this manner of inflicting death, and the desire to witness the behavior of an assembly of the people of Cuba on such an occasion, had overcome my previous determination.  The horror of the spectacle now caused me to regret that I made one of a crowd drawn to look at it by an idle curiosity.

The negro in blue then stepped forward and felt the limbs of the dead man one by one, to ascertain whether life were wholly extinct, and then returning to the screw, gave it two or three turns more, as if to make his work sure.  In the mean time my attention was attracted by a sound like that of a light buffet and a whimpering voice near me.  I looked, and two men were standing by me, with a little white boy at their side, and a black boy of nearly the same age before them, holding his hat in his hand, and crying.  They were endeavoring to direct his attention to what they considered the wholesome spectacle before him. “Mira, mira, no te harda dano"[6] said the men, but the boy steadily refused to look in that direction, though he was evidently terrified by some threat of punishment and his eyes filled with tears.  Finding him obstinate, they desisted from their purpose, and I was quite edified to see the little fellow continue to look away from the spectacle which attracted all other eyes but his.  The white boy now came forward, touched the hat of the little black, and goodnaturedly saying “pontelo, pontelo"[7] made him put it on his head.

The crowd now began to disperse, and in twenty minutes the place was nearly solitary, except the sentinels pacing backward and forward.  Two hours afterward the sentinels were pacing there yet, and the dead man, in his white dress and iron collar, was still in his seat on the platform.