LED OUT TO EXECUTION.
I pass rapidly over the period of suspense which succeeded my examination.
Even now it is painful to look back on the time when I fully expected every hour of each ensuing day to be my last.
Yet night and morning came and went, and I still remained in the dark cell, unable to learn anything concerning my fate.
The only relief to the monotony was the coming of the jailer, and he was such a surly fellow that his visits gave me more pain than pleasure.
A whole week passed in this way, and then I was again taken from the cell and marched to another part of the fortress.
At every step I gazed round anxiously, expecting to see the preparations for my execution.
Young, strong, and healthy, I had no wish to die; yet this horrible uncertainty, this alternation of hope and fear, was actually worse than death.
The faces of the soldiers were stolid and impassive--nothing could be learned from them; while the officer did not even look at me. We crossed the courtyard, and my pulses throbbed with fresh hope as I was led into a spacious room, where a stout, florid man in military uniform sat at a table writing.
Only two of the escort had entered with the officer, and these stood with fixed bayonets.