t able to bear the 'question,' which will now
be put to you; he confessed at last that both he and the Prince de Conde
had an interview with you. If you wish to escape the torture of the
question, I exhort you to tell me the simple truth. Perhaps you will
thus obtain your full pardon."

Christophe answered that he could not state a thing of which he had no
knowledge, or give himself accomplices when he had none. Hearing these
words, the provost-marshal signed to the executioner and retired himself
to the inner room. At that fatal sign Christophe's brows contracted,
his forehead worked with nervous convulsion, as he prepared himself to
suffer. His hands closed with such violence that the nails entered the
flesh without his feeling them. Three men seized him, took him to the
camp bed and laid him there, letting his legs hang down. While the
executioner fastened him to the rough bedstead with strong cords, the
assistants bound his legs into the "boots." Presently the cords were
tightened, by means of a wrench, without the pressure causing much pain
to the young Reformer. When each leg was thus held as it were in a vice,
the executioner grasped his hammer and picked up the wedges, looking
alternately at the victim and at the clerk.

"Do you persist in your denial?" asked the clerk.

"I have told the truth," replied Christophe.

"Very well. Go on," said the clerk, closing his eyes.

The cords were tightened with great force. This was perhaps the most
painful moment of the torture; the flesh being suddenly compressed,
the blood rushed violently toward the breast. The poor boy could not
restrain a dreadful cry and seemed about to faint. The doctor was called
in. After feeling Christophe's pulse, he told the executioner to wait a
quarter of an hour before driving the first wedge in, to let the
action of the blood subside and allow the victim to recover his full
sensitiveness. The clerk suggested, kindly, that if he could not bear
this beginning of sufferings which he could not escape, it would be
better to reveal all at once; but Christophe made no reply except to
say, "The king's tailor! the king's tailor!"

"What do you mean by those words?" asked the clerk.

"Seeing what torture I must bear," said Christophe, slowly, hoping to
gain time to rest, "I call up all my strength, and try to increase it by
thinking of the martyrdom borne by the king's tailor for the holy cause
of the Reformation, when the question was applied