- [closing narration]
- Narrator: It was a very small, misery-laden village on the day of a hanging, and of little historical consequence. And if there's any moral to it at all, let's say that in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human heart, for inside this deep place is a wizardry that costs far more than a few pieces of gold. Tonight's case in point - in the Twilight Zone.
- Sheriff Koch: It isn't a carnival, Rogers. It's a hanging.
- Rogers: You mean the kids? They ain't never seen a hanging. I figured it was about time.
- Sheriff Koch: Why?
- Rogers: Why not? They'll learn a lesson. They'll see what happens to drunks that kill kids.
- Sheriff Koch: I guess that's pretty vital. How do you teach 'em pain, Rogers? Shoot one of them in the arm?
- [opening narration]
- Narrator: There was a village, built of crumbling clay and rotting wood, and it squatted ugly under a broiling sun like a sick and mangy animal wanting to die. This village had a virus shared by its people. It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith. For the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time, ample time, to engage in one of the other pursuits of men. They begin to destroy themselves.
- Luís Gallegos: I'm free!
- Sheriff Koch: Are any of us free? But you can go home now. You have that much freedom.
- Gallegos: Luís? It was magic! It was magic dust! It brought back love to the people.
- Luís Gallegos: Yes, father, it was magic. Time to go home now. Please, let's go home now.
- Sheriff Koch: As for that boy in there, he had his trial and today he's gonna swing for it. There's nothing in his sentence that says he's gotta be tormented by a pig who sells trinkets at funerals.
- Sheriff Koch: There are only two people here who have the right to ask for an eye for an eye. What about it, Mr Canfield?
- Mrs. Canfield: No more today, John. No more!
- John Canfield: He killed our child!
- Mrs. Canfield: And part of himself while doing it. And he's suffered enough.
- John Canfield: Sherriff Koch, there must be... there must be another hand in this, for the rope to break like that. Another hand. Maybe... maybe the hand of providence.
- Sheriff Koch: You want to stop at that, Mr Canfield?
- [Mr Canfield nods, and turns to walk away]
- Man: John? We leave it like this?
- John Canfield: We leave it like this. One victim is enough.
- [addressing the crowd]
- John Canfield: I think we should all go home now.
- Peter Sykes: [to the sheriff] You have a soft spot for foreigners and the downtrodden, but you're mighty tight-lipped when it comes to your own kind!