“You may address him, M. le Duc; but be brief. Time presses.”
He thanked the officer for the unusual permission, and turned to approach the prisoner. At that moment Cecil turned also, and their eyes met. A great, shuddering cry broke from them both; his head sank as though the bullet had already pierced his breast, and the man who believed him dead stood gazing at him, paralyzed with horror.
For a moment there was an awful silence. Then the Seraph's voice rang out with a terror in it that thrilled through the careless, callous hearts of the watching soldiery.
“Who is that man? He died—he died so long ago! And yet——”
Cecil's head was sunk on his chest; he never spoke, he never moved; he knew the helpless, hopeless misery that waited for the one who found him living only to find him also standing before his open grave. He saw nothing; he only felt the crushing force of his friend's arms flung round him, as though seizing him to learn whether he were a living man or a spector dreamed of in delirium.
“Who are you? Answer me, for pity's sake!”
As the swift, hoarse, incredulous words poured on his ear, he, not seeking to unloose the other's hold, lifted his head and looked full in the eyes that had not met his own for twelve long years. In that one look all was uttered; the strained, eager, doubting eyes that read their answer in it needed no other.
“You live still! Oh! thank God—thank God!”
And as the thanksgiving escaped him, he forgot all save the breathless joy of this resurrection; forgot that at their feet the yawning grave was open and unfilled. Then, and only then, under that recognition of the friendship that had never failed and never doubted, the courage of the condemned gave way, and his limbs shook with a great shiver of intolerable torture; and at the look that came upon his face, the look of death, brute-like anguish, the man who loved him remembered all—remembered that he stood there in the morning light only to be shot down like a beast of prey. Holding him there still with that strong pressure of his sinewy hands, he swore a great oath that rolled like thunder down the hard, keen air.
“You! perishing here! If they send their shots through you, they shall reach me first in their passage! O Heaven! Why have you lived like this? Why have you been lost to me, if you were dead to all the world beside?”