HALIFAX GIBBET
execution

   And the sentence be death, death on the gibbet. You shall be taken from this place and be whipped  naked through the streets to the gibbet where you shall suffer death. Go now and may God have mercy upon your poor soul.  Guards remove her and do your duty.
    With those words her trial was over. She stood in shock until she was roughly grabbed and tied by the guards. Led outside where a dung cart waited. Although empty it still smelled of the night soil and stable waste it usually carried. A small donkey stood quietly between the shafts. Standing at the rear of the cart she was stripped naked and her hands were tied to the sides on the stinking load bed. Her belly was touching the cart and as it moved forward she was forced to follow or have her face fall into the slop left in it. Her case was not one that attracted a lot of attention so the crowd was small. Still it would grow as she neared the fort hill where the gibbet was.
    There was very little to do in the city during the winter. Few ships dared to brave the northern oceans during the stormy winter and even those that did had a difficult time even entering the harbor to dock through the ice. The word of entertainment of this fink would spread fast and she expected a large crowd to watch her when the gibbet fell. Spring was near but it was still cold and wet but her back burned as the first of the uncountable slashes of the whip landed on her bare skin.  Her  feet soon went numb as she walked in the wet slush a brief storm had left on the cobbles. Feet then hands as the too tight lashings holding her to the cart cut off the blood. Her back felt like it was being cut to ribbons and from the damage she could see where the lash had curled around her torso and flayed the sides of her large breasts it probability was. She could look back and trace her path by the red patches left by her feet and the drops of blood dripping from her body.  
    She was right. There was a fair sized crowd waiting for her. She was barely able to stand and as the cart stopped her legs gave out and left her with her body laying in the stinking half frozen muck in the cart. Hands untied her and dragged her to the base of the gibbet. As she was held there for the reading of her charges and sentence she looked up at the device that would soon come crashing down to end her life. Two tall beams with rails down the inside edges stood before her. A crossbar on top held a large ships pulley. Hanging from the rope was a block of iron that was as large as her body. Groves in the sides rode the rails to guide it as it fell. The bottom was shaped like a huge axe and would land on a large oak block buried in the ground. Even as she looked the rope was being tied off to an iron trigger release. 
    Was there anybody in that crowd that held even a tiny bit of pity or would offer a prayer for her. There had to be someone there she knew. Someone who would look and see a face that they would miss instead of seeing a naked young woman going to her death. She was too young to face this if you looked at her. Most of these people cared little for her reason of being here and would have laughed a suggestion of mercy. They wanted to watch as her fine body was whipped and manhandled and finally killed. Well she thought, they were getting what they wanted. 
    The reading done she was almost dragged to the base of the gibbet. Once there she was laid on her back looking up at the axe blade hanging over her. A guard held each limb and carefully made sure he was clear of the fall of all that iron. Some priest muttered some words. She somehow felt that she should be grateful for his intervention but all she could do was stare up at the mass hanging there. Then a rusty sounding scrape. The rope went slack and just for a brief time the iron was suspended over her without anything holding it. A miracle her mind shouted but before the thought was done the whole thing was screeching and wobbling down the tracks. 
    While the rough uneven surfaces kept it from moving as fast as it should have it still covered the twenty odd feet in a very short time. Just enough to allow her to scream once. A mindless shriek of terror that was cut short. A crashing thump signaled her demise as the dull axe blade effortlessly parted the soft flesh and weak bones of her neck before rebounding slightly from the hard seasoned oak. Her head flew and landed at the feet of a drunk standing nearby. He picked it up and planted a kiss on her still warm lips and shouted over to the guards to ask if he could borrow the rest of her for a little while. As the crowd guffawed and giggled at his humor he pranced a little jig and held his trophy high for all to see. The left behind body was jumping and kicking while her lifeblood fountained  from the ragged stump of her neck. There were those that claimed her eyelids blinked as her head was being moved around while others thought that she moved as if a lover was caressing her.  
    Her body was loaded into a small boat to be taken offshore and dumped overboard as the frost in the ground was still to hard to dig a grave. Some whispered later that the sailors manning the boat tried out the drunks idea before her corpse splashed into the cold water but nobody knew for sure. 

  Note: the Halifax gibbet was very much as described and heads did fly when it was used. It was an early version of la Madame Guillotine but differed in using overwhelming force to remove the head instead of being able to perform a clean cut. The head was in effect crushed off by the dull blade. A quick but very messy death. It has been reported that victims were killed either face up or face down and there were similar machines built elsewhere but they were all named after the one in Halifax.  Replaced by hanging by the middle 1700s. I suppose it took too much maintenance and was just too messy. Hanging is neater and less work if not as quick.