"Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take you to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your life, if you do it. I will promise—ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?"
"To go free—altogether?"
"Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?"
The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its sullenness.
"Life—and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always what some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like that over me that have been a boss of men—wasn't it that drove me to kill?— to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What do I care for life! What is it to me! To live like this—ah, I would break my head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my own hands! If I stayed here, I would kill again, I would kill—kill."
"Then to go free altogether—that would be the wish of all the world, if you save this man's life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some sooner, some later; and when you go, will you not want to take to God in your hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you forgotten God, Grassette? We used to remember Him in the Church of St. Francis down there at home."
There was a moment's silence, in which Grassette's head was thrust forwards, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a vulnerable corner in his nature.
Presently he said in a low voice: "To be free altogether. . . . What is his name? Who is he?"
"His name is Bignold," the Governor answered. He turned to the Sheriff inquiringly. "That is it, is it not?" he asked in English again.
"James Tarran Bignold," answered the Sheriff.