"Do you forgive our enemies?"
"With all the strength of my heart. I pray God to have mercy on the witnesses who accused me. May He forgive me my sins!"
"How old is it that you will soon be?" the old man asked suddenly, for his reason was beginning to totter, and his memory had failed him.
"I was twenty-five on All Hallows' Day."
"True; it was a sad day, this year; you were in prison."
"Do you remember how, five years ago, on that same day I got the prize in the regatta at Venice?"
"Tell me about that, my child."
And he listened, his neck stretched forward, his mouth half open, his hands in his son's. A sound of steps came in from the corridor, and a dull knock was struck upon the door. It was the fatal hour. The poor father had forgotten it.
The priests had already begun to sing the death hymn; the executioner was ready, the procession had set out, when Solomon the fisherman appeared suddenly on the threshold of the prison, his eyes aflame and his brow radiant with the halo of the patriarchs. The old man drew himself up to his full height, and raising in one hand the reddened knife, said in a sublime voice, "The sacrifice is fulfilled. God did not send His angel to stay the hand of Abraham."
The crowd carried him in triumph!