"Signore Illustrissimo—oh, colonello mio!" he exclaimed, in a piercing voice, while gesticulating with all the fervour of a true Calabrian; "Dio buono! you cannot mean this! It is too cruel—too terrible. The king will resent it—General Cialdini will never permit it," he added, wildly and incoherently, while his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.
In a paroxysm of grief he knelt before the conte, entreating him to alter the terrible selection—to forego this subtle scheme for vengeance, while the pale prisoner, who saw and understood the whole situation, uttered a cry of grief, and, dropping the crucifix which the chaplain had placed in his hands, covered his face with them.
"What can be the meaning of this?" was whispered round the ranks.
Raphael alone could have told; but he was sworn to secrecy—secrecy by God's name and the soul of Francesca.
In vain did the major—a gallant old soldier, who possessed great influence in the corps—urge the conte to change his plan; in vain did the venerable chaplain supplicate on one hand and threaten on the other; and in vain also did Raphael Velda, whose voice had now left him, stretch his hands towards the conte in mute entreaty.
Vincenzo Manfredi was inexorable!
"I do not command the son to shoot the father, but the loyal Bersagliere to slay the convicted felon," said he; and then, with a voice and bearing that forbade all hope of his revoking an order which filled the regiment with indignation and bewilderment—for the character of Raphael was unimpeachable, and even were it not so, the selection was alike cruel and unnatural—he ordered the firing-party to fall in at fifty yards' distance from the criminal, and to load and cap their rifles. Then the remainder of the obnoxious task was to be performed by the sergeant-major.
"Sono allo desperazione!—I am in despair—oh, Francesca!—oh, my father!" moaned Raphael, as he loaded mechanically, and knew that even if he fired in the air he would throughout all his future life be branded as a parricide—as the executioner of his own father!
A blindness—a horror, like a great darkness—seemed to come over him, and for a few moments he was beside himself with excess of emotion. For a second or so the idea of shooting Manfredi at the head of the regiment occurred to him, but only to be dismissed, for that officer was so placed that he could not have been hit without the risk of killing another; and now, like an automaton, he found himself kneeling—one of three executioners—before his father, at fifty yards' distance.
Though horror blanched his face, Agostino looked proudly and steadily at the three dark tubes from whence his doom was to come; for at the word "three" the executioners were to fire.