“Adieu!” said Bruno.
“Farewell for ever!” said Ali.
The young monk embraced the culprit as a priest is in the habit of doing when he gives absolution to the sinner, and he then alighted from the cart and mingled with the crowd.
“Go on,” said Bruno, imperatively; and the procession again obeyed him, as if the speaker had the right to command.
Every one arose; Gemma reseated herself, and the procession moved on towards the scaffold.
When it arrived at the foot of the gibbet, the executioner descended from his horse, mounted the scaffold, climbed up the ladder, and fixed his blood-coloured flag on the cross-piece above, satisfied himself that the cord was well fastened, and threw off his coat that he might have more freedom of action.
Pascal immediately sprang out of the cart, thrust aside with his shoulders the hangmen’s men, who wished to assist him, rapidly mounted the scaffold, and placed himself against the ladder which he had to climb backwards. At the same instant, the Penitent who carried the cross placed it in front of the bandit, so that he might see it in its dying moments. The Penitents who carried the coffin seated themselves upon it, and the troops formed themselves into a semicircle round the scaffold, leaving in the centre the two bands of Penitents, the executioner, his assistants, and their victim, Pascal mounted the ladder, refusing all assistance, with the calmness he had hitherto displayed, and as Gemma’s balcony was facing him, it was even observed that he cast his eyes in that direction and smiled. At the same instant, the executioner passed the cord round his neck, seized him by the middle of his body, and cast him off the ladder; he then slipped down the cord, and pressed with his whole weight on the shoulders of the culprit, while the assistants, clinging to his legs, pulled at the lower part of his body; but suddenly the rope broke, not being able to bear the weight of four persons, and the whole party, the executioner, his assistants, and their victim, were rolling on the scaffold.
One man arose before the rest—it was Pascal Bruno, whose hands had burst the cords with which they were tied; he stood up in the midst of a general silence, having in his right side a knife the executioner had in his rage at the accident plunged into it the whole length of its blade.
“Wretch!” cried the bandit, addressing the hangman, “you are neither fit for an executioner nor a bandit; you can neither hang nor assassinate.”
With these words, he drew out the reeking knife from his right side, and plunging it into his left side near his heart fell dead.