Presently, as we stood there, in a pit, as it were, getting no view, I felt Master Lindstrom's hand, which still clasped mine, begin to shake; and turning to him, I found that his face had changed to a deep red, and that his eyes were protruding with a kind of convulsive eagerness which instantly infected me.
"What is it?" I stammered. I began to tremble also. The air rang, it seemed to me, with one word, which a thousand tongues took up and reiterated. But it was a German word, and I did not understand it.
"Wait! wait!" Master Lindstrom exclaimed. "Pray God it be true!"
He seized my other hand and held it as though he would protect me from something. At the same moment Van Tree pushed past me, and, bounding up the steps, thrust his way through the officials on the scaffold, causing more than one fur-robed citizen near the edge to lose his balance and come down as best he could on the shoulders of the guards.
"What is it?" I cried. "What is it?" I cried in impatient wonder.
"Oh! my lad, my lad!" Master Lindstrom answered, his face close to mine, and the tears running down his cheeks. "It is cruel if it be not true! Cruel! They cry a pardon!"
"A pardon?" I echoed.
"Ay, lad, a pardon. But it may not be true," he said, putting his arm about my shoulder. "Do not make too sure of it. It is only the mob cry it out."
My heart made a great bound, and seemed to stand still. There was a loud surging in my brain, and a mist rose before my eyes and hid everything. The clamor and shouting of the street passed away, and sounded vague and distant. The next instant, it is true, I was myself again, but my knees were trembling under me, and I stood flaccid and unnerved, leaning on my friend.
"Well?" I said faintly.