“You had better not, my friend,” said Gavin, unable to keep silence any longer. “Perhaps you may be shot for shaking hands with a prisoner of war about to be hanged.”
In the corridor leading to the room to which he was conveyed there was a window looking straight into the window of the court-martial room. The sentry who passed the door near which Gavin sat also passed this window in his walk up and down the corridor. Something of sympathy in the man’s eye as he glanced in the room where Gavin sat, with the sergeant at his side, caused Gavin to say:
“My friend, I, too, once carried a musket before I wore a sword; therefore, I beg of you, as a comrade, to tell me what Captain Dreisel and his unhappy young officers are doing in that room.”
“Lieutenant von Bulow, the soft-hearted one, is standing up speaking to Captain Dreisel,” he said in a low voice.
The man walked away, and, passing the window, returned in five minutes to the open door. He again whispered:
“Lieutenant Reber is now talking very earnestly, and seems not afraid of the captain.”
The third time he passed the door the sentry’s face was ashy pale.
“Captain Dreisel is speaking now, and Lieutenant von Bulow has covered his face and is crying.”
“Is he?” was Gavin’s only remark. “Good Von Bulow. I suppose I am to be hanged. Well, I will lie down on this bench and think over things a little.”
He lay out at full length on the bench, and thoughts of all sorts chased one another through his mind. He had the tenderest thoughts of his mother and of St. Arnaud and Madame Ziska and her family, and the most acute pity for himself. “No wonder Von Bulow weeps at the thought of an innocent young man being hanged. I would weep for Von Bulow under the same circumstances.” But he could not perceive, much to his surprise, any sensation of fear or weakness. He felt his pulse—it was beating with perfect steadiness—he took up a glass of water and drank it without the tremor of a finger, and lying calmly down again, closed his eyes. And the soldiers watching him saw a strange thing—his breathing grew slower, his limbs relaxed, and he was sleeping as peacefully as an infant. Gavin himself fell into the most delicious dream—he was walking with his mother in the gardens at Schoenbrunn; it was a lovely spring morning, and he carried his hat in his hand to feel the soft, sweet breeze, and his mother was saying to him: