"In pity leave him!" exclaimed Bertie; "in the name of Christianity, of humanity, refrain from taking so miserable a life as this! Vile as he has been, see, see what he is now! It is as though you took the life of a helpless child, of a dumb brute. As you hope for mercy, show some."
"I am but an instrument," said the Lieutenant; "I have my orders; willingly or unwillingly I must obey them. And if I would spare him, nay, if my master the King would spare him, the Church would not. He is in their grip; it will be unfastened an hour hence, when he is dead." Then, turning to the soldiers, he said, "Bring him away."
They took the shaking wretch--no longer a man but only a living thing--by the arms and led him moaning to the door; yet, when he had arrived there, he had the strength to wrench one of them free; and looking round at Bertie for the last time in the world, and with his starting, scintillating eyes fixed on him, he raised that arm, the hand clenched as though grasping a weapon, and--once--twice--struck downward fiercely with it.
Then he was gone for ever.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
KATE LEARNS SHE IS FREE.
A great masked ball was over at the opera house; the candles were burning down into their sockets in the girandoles and lustres; the May morning, which under ordinary circumstances should have broken so soft and bright, had dawned foul, rainy, and snowy; and carriages, hackney coaches, and sedan chairs were pushing their way up to the doors of the theatre and carrying off their employers to their houses and beds.
But all were not yet departed; some still sat drinking or chatting at the supper tables; some danced in groups without any music to accompany them except the airs which they hummed or whistled themselves, for the orchestra had put up its instruments and gone also to its bed; and some, principally men, struggled and pushed in the vestiaires to obtain cloaks, roquelaures, hats and riding hoods, and swords--which latter could not by law be worn in the ball-room. Mock harlequins jostled imitation Henrys of Navarre; mock monks swore at supposed Crusaders; minotaurs and cavaliers and priests all contended against one another for their and their female companions' wraps, and at the same time laughed and jested and proposed breakfasts at neighbouring taverns, or a visit to the gambling hells, which on such nights as these kept their doors perpetually open.
Amidst all this confusion there ran through the whole place a rumour--a whisper, which reached first those in the vestiaires, and next the people at the supper tables--that those who so chose might yet finish their night's enjoyment with another spectacle--a grim and dismal but still enjoyable one--which was far better than any tavern breakfast or punting at the gaming table.
"Figurez-vous!" screamed one reveller, a deformed creature by nature, who had, with true Parisian appreciation of ludicrousness, arrayed himself consequently as Venus--"figurez-vous, mes enfants, there are two for execution, although, malheureusement, but only one is to be broken. The other, they say--because, peste! he is a sal Anglais and also of high rank--escapes the wheel and is only to be decapitated. A curse upon the law, say I, that treats an Englishman better than us!"