"'Gentlemen,' he said to them in a firm, voice, 'in a few short hours I shall have satisfied human justice, and will appear before that of God, which is far more terrible. Since the day when I began the implacable struggle which I have carried on against society, I have committed many crimes, secured many hatreds, and been the accomplice of an incalculable number of odious actions. The sentence passed on me is just, and though resolved to undergo—like a man whom death has never terrified—the punishment to which I am condemned, I think it my duty to confess to you with the greatest sincerity and deepest humility that I repent of my crimes, and that, far from dying impenitent, I shall die imploring God not to pardon me, but to regard my repentance with pity.'"
"'Good, my son,' the chaplain said gently; 'take refuge in God, His mercy is infinite.'"
"There was a silence of some minutes, which Red Arm was the first to interrupt."
"'I should have liked at this supreme moment,' he said, 'to repair the evil I have done. Alas! This is impossible, my victims are really gone, and no human power would be able to restore them the life of which I so cowardly deprived them; but among these crimes there is one—the most frightful of all perhaps—which, it is true, I cannot fully repair, but whose effects I hope to neutralize by revealing to you its sinister incidents, and divulging to you the name of the man who was my accomplice. God, by unexpectedly bringing count Oclau to this town, doubtless wished to force me to this expiation; I submit without a murmur to His will, and perhaps He will deign to pity me on account of my obedience. Gentlemen, in requesting you to come to me, I wish to procure the person most interested in my narrative, the indispensable witnesses who will enable human justice to punish the criminal hereafter without fear of error. Hence, gentlemen, take note of my words, for I swear to you on the brink of the tomb that they are perfectly true.'"
"The condemned man ceased, and appeared to be collecting his thoughts. His hearers waited with the most eager curiosity; the count more especially tried in vain to conceal by a cold and stern air the anxiety that was contracting his heart. A secret presentiment warned him that the light was at length about to shine, and that the hitherto impenetrable secret which surrounded his family, and the clue of which he had so long sought, was about to be divulged to him. Red Arm continued, after selecting from among the papers that crowded his table a rather large bundle, which he opened and placed before him."
"'Though eight years have elapsed,' he said, 'since the period when these events happened, they have remained so fresh in my mind that as soon as I heard of the arrival of count Oclau in this town, a few hours sufficed me to write a detailed account of them. I am about to read to you, gentlemen, this frightful story, after which each of you will attach his signature beneath mine at the end of this manuscript, in order to give it the necessary authenticity for the use which the count will think it his duty to turn it to hereafter on behalf of his family, and to punish the guilty man. I in all this have only been the paid accomplice and the instrument employed to strike the victim.'"
"'This precaution is very good,' the prison director then said: 'we will sign this revelation unhesitatingly, of whatever nature it may be.'"
"'Thanks, gentlemen,' the count remarked, 'though I am as ignorant as yourselves of the facts which are about to be revealed; still, for certain private reasons, I feel almost convinced that what I am going to hear is of great importance to the happiness of certain members of my family.'"
"'You shall be the judge of that, my lord,' the condemned man said, and immediately began reading his manuscripts."
"This reading lasted nearly two hours. The result of the collected facts was this: first, that when the Prince of Oppenheim-Schlewig was killed, the bullet came from the gun of Red Arm, who was concealed in a thicket, and paid by the prince's younger son to commit this parricide. Once he had entered on this slippery path of crime, the young man followed it without hesitation or remorse in order to reach the object he meditated, that of seizing the paternal fortune. After a parricide, a fratricide was nothing to him, and he executed it with a Machiavellism full of atrocious precautions. Other crimes, more awful still were it possible, were recorded with a truth of detail so striking, and supported by such undeniable proofs, that the witnesses summoned by the condemned criminal asked themselves, with horror, if it were possible that such an atrocious monster could exist, and what horrible punishment was reserved for him by that divine justice which he had mocked with such frightful cynicism for so many years. The princess, on learning her husband's death, had been seized by the pangs of childbirth, and was delivered—not of a daughter as everybody believed—but of twins, of whom the boy was carried off, and the prince got rid of him in order to annul the clause in his brother's will which left to his posthumous son the titles and entire fortune of the family."