"I am ready to execute, Monsieur."
"Oh, oh! Can it really be?" said Gabriel, shaking from head to foot.
"It surely is so," replied Monsieur de Sazerac, with an accent in which an indifferent person might have detected a shade of sadness and bitterness.
But Gabriel was too distracted and excited by his joy. "Ah, it is true, then!" cried he. "I do not dream. My eyes are open. My insane terrors were dreams; and you are really going to deliver this prisoner to me, Monsieur? Oh, I thank thee, my God! And thanks to thee, Sire! But come, let us go quickly, Monsieur, I beseech you."
He took two or three steps as if to lead the way before Monsieur de Sazerac; but his strength, so vigorous and inexhaustible in the face of suffering and danger, failed him in the excess of his joy. He was obliged to stop for a moment, for his heart was beating so violently and so fast that he thought he should suffocate.
Poor human nature was too weak to undergo such a tumult of conflicting emotions.
The almost despaired-of realization of such far-off hopes and the end and aim of his whole life,—the goal of his superhuman efforts suddenly attained; gratitude to the loyal king and the just God; filial love at last to be satisfied; another passion, still more ardent, to be at last decided for better or worse,—such a multitude of feelings, all aroused and excited at the same moment, made poor Gabriel's heart overflow.
But amid this inexpressible whirl of emotions and almost insane happiness, his least confused thoughts framed themselves into something like a hymn of thanksgiving to Henri II., to whom he owed this delirium of joy.
Gabriel repeated over and over again in his grateful heart his oath to devote his whole life to this truehearted king and his children. How, in God's name, could he for one moment have doubted so noble and excellent a monarch!
But at last, shaking off his ecstatic mood, he said to the governor, who had stopped beside him,—