CHAPTER XXXII. THE PARDONED VOLTIGEUR.
“Portia.—It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established;
‘Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error, by the same example,
Will rush into the state—it cannot be.”
Merchant or Venice.
I never met a man who appeared to have made his mind up to die with more dignity and determination than Lieutenant Cammaran. He had already almost undergone the bitterness of death; as yet his fate was an uncertainty—the sword continued suspended by a hair—and still the expression of his manly countenance was perfectly undisturbed, and neither lip nor eye-lid trembled, he planted his foot firmly on the floor, and, calmly and resolved, awaited a doubtful result—the turn of the die, on which life and death depended.