“It matters not.”
“He is an English noble, I tell you—”
“He is a soldier who has broken the law; that suffices.”
“O Heaven! have you no humanity?”
“We have justice.”
“Justice! If you have justice, let your chiefs hear his story; let his name be made known; give me an hour's space to plead for him. Your Emperor would grant me his life, were he here; yield me an hour—a half hour—anything that will give me time to serve him—”
“It is out of the question; I must obey my orders. I regret you should have this pain; but if you do not cease to interfere, my soldiers must make you.”
Where the guards held him, Cecil saw and heard. His voice rose with all its old strength and sweetness.
“My friend, do not plead for me. For the sake of our common country and our old love, let us both meet this with silence and with courage.”
“You are a madman!” cried the man, whose heart felt breaking under this doom he could neither avert nor share. “You think that they shall kill you before my eyes!—you think I shall stand by to see you murdered! What crime have you done? None, I dare swear, save being moved, under insult, to act as the men of your race ever acted! Ah, God! why have lived as you have done? Why not have trusted my faith and my love? If you had believed in my faith as I believed in your innocence, this misery never had come to us!”