Concluding by desiring the prayers of the assemblage, he returned slowly, and fixing an inquiring look upon Renard, who was standing with his arms folded upon his breast, near the block, said in a low tone, “It comes not.”
“It is not yet time,” replied Renard.
The Duke was about to kneel down, when he perceived a stir amid the mob in front of the scaffold, occasioned by some one waving a handkerchief to him. Thinking it was the signal of a pardon, he paused. But he was speedily undeceived. A second glance showed him that the handkerchief was waved by Gunnora, and was spotted with blood.
Casting one glance of the bitterest anguish at Renard, he then prostrated himself, and the executioner at the same moment raised his hand. As soon as the Duke had disposed himself upon the block, the axe flashed like a gleam of lightning in the sunshine,—descended,—and the head was severed from the trunk.
Seizing it with his left hand, Mauger held it aloft, almost before the eyes were closed, crying out to the assemblage, in a loud voice, “Behold the head of a traitor!”
Amid the murmur produced by the released respiration of the multitude, a loud shriek was heard, and a cry followed that an old woman had suddenly expired. The report was true. It was Gunnora Braose.
