The executioner, in whose stern and inflexible nature feelings of pity, and even of repentance, were now at work, hastened to obtain some information, and returned in half an hour, with indications of anxiety and doubt too obvious to escape the unhappy Florian, who, with folded hands, exclaimed, “For God-sake, father, tell me all—I must know it, sooner or later. Your anxiety prepares me for the worst. If you, a man of iron, are thus shaken”——
“I? Nonsense!” retorted the old man, somewhat disconcerted. “The fellow was a notorious villain, and was executed for two murders.”
Florian, relieved by this intelligence, began to breathe more freely, and gazed upon the headsman with looks which sought farther explanation, “Florian,” continued the old man, fixing upon him his stern and searching look, “when you told me the tale of your calamities at D., did you tell me all? Had you no reservations?”
“None, father, by all I hold most sacred!” replied Florian, with emphatic earnestness.
“One of Bartholdy’s crimes,” resumed the headsman, “was connected with your story. He is said to have slain the officer in whose murder you thought yourself implicated by suspicious appearances.”
“He?” exclaimed Florian, gasping with horror. “No! by the Almighty God, he did not slay him! I have beheaded an innocent man, and the remembrance will cleave to me like a curse!”
“Can you prove that he had no share in that murder?” now sternly demanded the headsman, whose suspicions had been roused by Florian’s acknowledgment of former intimacy with Bartholdy.
“I can swear to his innocence of that murder,” vehemently replied Florian, whose energies rose with his excitement. “And the other crime?” he eagerly continued. “In mercy, father, tell me whom else he is said to have murdered?”
“Yourself!” said the old man, turning pale as he anticipated the effect of this communication,—“if the name inserted in the judicial summons from D. was really yours.”