“By all that is sacred!” exclaimed Florian, with trembling eagerness, “I am innocent of murder, and incapable of falsehood; and yet so disastrous is my destiny, that I am beset with peril and suspicion. You are an utter stranger to me, but you appear to have benevolence and worldly wisdom. Listen to my tale, and then in mercy give me aid and counsel.”
He now unfolded to the executioner the extraordinary chain of circumstances which had compelled him to seek security in flight, and told his tale of trials with an artless and single-hearted simplicity of language, look, and gesture, which carried with it irresistible conviction of his innocence. The rigid features of the headsman gradually relaxed, as he listened, into a cheerful and even cordial expression; then warmly grasping the hand of Florian as he concluded, he said, “Well! well! I see how it is. In my profession we learn how to read human nature. When I watched your slumber, I thought your sleep looked very like the sleep of innocence; and now I believe from my soul that you are as guiltless of this murder as I am. With God’s help I will yet save you from this peril; and, indeed, had you killed your rival in sudden quarrel, I would have done as much for you, for I well know that sudden wrath has made many a good man blood-guilty. There was certainly some danger of your being implicated by the singular circumstances you have detailed; but the real and formidable peril has grown out of your flight. That was a blunder, young man! but I see no reason to despair. ’Tis true, the broad blade has denounced you, and my grandfather and father, as well as myself, have traced criminals by its guidance; but I know that the sword will speak alike to its master and its victim. You have yet to learn, young man, that in this life every man is either an anvil or a hammer, a tool or a victim; and that he who boldly grasps the blade will never be its victim. Briefly, then, I feel a regard for you. I have no sons, but I have a young and lovely daughter. Marry her, and I will adopt you as my successor. You will then fulfil your destiny by coming in contact with the sword; and, if you clutch it firmly, I will pledge myself that you never die by it.”
At this strange proposal Florian started on his feet with indignant abhorrence. “Hold!” continued the headsman coolly. “Why hurry your decision? The night is long, and favourable to reflection. Bestow a full and fair consideration upon my proposal, and recollect that your neck is in peril; that all your prospects in life are blasted; and that my offer of a safe asylum, and a competent support, can alone preserve you from despair and destruction. The sword has sent you a helper in the hour of need, and if you reject the friendly warning, you will soon discover that the consciousness of innocence will not protect a blushing and irresolute fugitive from the proverbial ubiquity and prompt severity of the French police.”
The headsman now emptied his glass, and with a friendly nod left the kitchen. Soon after his departure the landlord appeared with a night-lamp, and conducted Florian to his apartment. Without undressing, the bewildered youth extinguished his lamp, and threw himself on the bed, hoping that the darkness would accelerate the approach of sleep, and of that oblivion which in his happier days had always accompanied it. Vain, however, for some hours, was every attempt to lull his senses into forgetfulness. The revolting proposal of the old man haunted him incessantly.
“I become an”——he muttered indignantly, but could never utter the hateful word. The shrinking diffidence which had been a fertile source of difficulty to him through life, had been increased tenfold by his recent calamities; he was conscious even to agony of his total inability to contend with the consequences of his imprudent and cowardly flight; but from such means of escape he recoiled with unutterable loathing. He felt that he should never have resolution to grasp the sword which was to save him from being numbered with its victims, and yet his invincible abhorrence of this alternative failed to rouse in him the moral courage which would have promptly rescued him from the toils of the cunning headsman. The broken slumber into which he fell before morning was haunted by boding forms and tragic incidents. The sword, the axe, the scaffold, and the rack, flitted around him in quick procession, and seemed to close every avenue to escape. He awoke from these visions of horror at daybreak, and left his bed as wearied in body, and as irresolute in mind, as when he entered it. Dreading alike a renewal of the executioner’s proposal, and the risk of being arrested and tried for murder, he saw no alternative but flight—immediate flight beyond the bounds of France. While pondering over the best means of accomplishing this now settled purpose, the tin weathercock upon the roof of his bedroom creaked in the morning breeze. Florian, to whose excited fancy the headsman’s sword was ever present, thought he heard it jar against the axe, and started in sudden terror. “Whither shall I fly?” he exclaimed, as tears of agony rolled down his cheeks—“where find a refuge from the sword of justice? Alas! my doom is fixed and unalterable. Anvil or hammer I must be, and I have not courage to become either.”
Again the weathercock creaked above him, and more intelligibly than before. Florian, discovering the simple cause of his terrors, rallied his drooping spirits, and hastened down-stairs to order his horse, that he might leave the hotel and the town before the promised visit of the fearful headsman. Notwithstanding his urgency, he found his departure unaccountably delayed. The servants were not visible, and the landlord, insisting that he should take a warm breakfast before his departure, was so dilatory in preparing it, that a full hour elapsed before Florian rode out of the stable-yard. His officious host then persisted in sending a boy to show him the nearest way to the town gate; and the impatient traveller, who would gladly have declined the offer, found himself obliged to submit. His guide accompanied him to the extremity of the small suburb beyond the eastern gate, and quitted him; while Florian, whose ever-ready apprehensions had been roused by the tenacious civility of the landlord, rode slowly forward, looking around occasionally at his returning guide, and determining to take the first cross-road he could find. A little farther he discovered the entrance of a narrow lane, shaded by a double row of lofty chestnuts; and as he turned towards it his horse’s head, he saw the old man, whose promised visit he was endeavouring to escape, issuing from the lane on horseback. “I guessed as much,” said the headsman, smiling, as he rode up to the startled fugitive. “I knew you would try to escape me, but I cannot consent that you should thus run headlong into certain destruction. You have neither sanguine hopes nor a fixed purpose to support you, and you want firmness to answer with discretion the trying questions which will everywhere assail you. You are silent—you feel the full extent of your danger—why not then embrace the certain protection I offer you? Fear not that I shall either repeat or allude to my last night’s proposal. My sole object is your immediate protection at this critical period, when you are doubtless tracked in all directions by the blood-hounds of the police. At the frontiers you will inevitably be stopped and identified; but under my roof you will be safe from all pursuit and suspicion. I live secluded from the world; I have no visitors; and your presence will not be suspected by any one. In a few weeks the heat of pursuit will abate, and you may then take your departure with renewed courage and confidence.”
“Courage and confidence!” repeated to himself the timid Florian; “would Heaven I had either!” The good sense, however, of the old man’s advice was so obvious, that he determined to avail himself of so kind an offer. Gratefully pressing his hand, he dismissed all doubts of his sincerity, and said, “I will accompany you; and may God reward your benevolence, for I cannot.”
“We must return by the road I came,” said the headsman, turning his horse. “It will take us outside the town to my house; and, at this hour, we shall arrive there unperceived. Your landlord, who is under obligations to me, sent you this road at my request. He supposes that you are my distant relative, and that, unwilling to appear in public with an executioner, you had made an appointment with me for this early hour on your way homeward.”
After a ride of half an hour through the shady lanes which skirted the ramparts, they reached the back entrance of the Gothic building before mentioned, and Florian entered this singular sanctuary with emotions not easily described. The old headsman was in high spirits; and the blunt but genuine kindness and cordiality of his manners soon removed from the mind of his guest every lurking suspicion that some treachery was intended. The table was promptly covered with an excellent breakfast, and the old man sent a message to his daughter, requesting that she would bring a bottle of the best wine in the cellar.