Mine—there was something terrible in the idea: I paused for a moment; a beam of hope lightened his gloomy eyes and brow. The place was so still that one might have heard a pin fall: but delay was cruel.
"Unhappy man!" said I, "you have heard the opinion and sentence of the court. The latter must be carried into execution in twenty minutes, and it would be well to employ that little time in pure repentance, and in solemn prayer."
"O, omnipotente!" he exclaimed, raising up his eyes and fettered hands; "in twenty minutes, can so many years of sin and enormity be repented of? O, San Giovanni, thou whose most holy order I have outraged! O, San Marco the glorious! Eufemio the martyred! and thou, sweetest Madonna! intercede for me with One whom I am unworthy to address?" Deeply touched with his tone, I turned to Santugo: but he was too much used to hear such pious ejaculations on every frivolous occasion to care a straw about them; and leaning on his sabre he surveyed the culprit with a stern glance of distrust and contempt.
"Down on your knees, villain!" he exclaimed, "and pray with a will; for I fear you are standing on the brink of eternal damnation!"
"O, horror!" cried Navarro; and losing all self-possession, he sank on his knees, and began to repeat his paternoster with great devotion.
"I regret that we have here no priest of the Catholic church to attend you in this terrible hour;" said I, "but yonder is a good and worthy soldier who has once been in holy orders, and if his prayers——"
"Away!" cried Navarro, as Gask took a Bible from his havresack, and laying his grenadier cap aside, advanced towards him. "Better a Turk than a Jew; but in such an hour as this, better the devil than a heretic! Away, accursed! I spit upon you! I will trust rather to my own prayers than thy intercessions——"
"I presume not to intercede," said poor Gask, meekly, as he closed the Bible; "I am but a humble soldier, though I have seen better days; and I am a sinner, doubtless, though never committing sin wilfully. I entreat your permission to accompany you in prayer, to soothe your last moments, in such wise that through the blessed mercy of the Lord of Hosts——"
"Ghieu, setanasso!" screamed the assassin, quite beside himself; "away, heretic! Better the most ribald monk of Pistoja than such as thee!"
"Fall back, Gask; the man is frantic," said I. "Tell off a section with their arms loaded; desire the pioneers to dig a grave in the cardinal's bastion, and their corporal to bind up the prisoner's eyes."