ht come to die beside it, there where he
had loved.

The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.

Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere. It was to this spot,
then, that they had led him, by the long white road which descends from
Sainte-Roure to Plassans. If he had known it, he would have hastened on
yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end of the
narrow path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the scent of
Miette's breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in his grief.
Heaven was merciful. He waited, a vague smile playing on is face.

Mourgue, meantime, had caught sight of the pistols. Hitherto he had
allowed himself to be dragged along stupidly. But fear now overcame him,
and he repeated, in a tone of despair: "I come from Poujols--I come from
Poujols!"

Then he threw himself on the ground, rolling at the gendarme's feet,
breaking out into prayers for mercy, and imagining that he was being
mistaken for some one else.

"What does it matter to me that you come from Poujols?" Rengade
muttered.

And as the wretched man, shivering and crying with terror, and quite
unable to understand why he was going to die, held out his trembling
hands--his deformed, hard, labourer's hands--exclaiming in his patois
that he had done nothing and ought to be pardoned, the one-eyed man grew
quite exasperated at being unable to put the pistol to his temple, owing
to his constant movements.

"Will you hold your tongue?" he shouted.

Thereupon Mourgue, mad with fright and unwilling to die, began to howl
like a beast--like a pig that is being slaughtered.

"Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!" the gendarme repeated.

And he blew his brains out. The peasant fell with a thud. His body
rolled to the foot of a timber-stack, where it remained doubled up. The
violence of the shock had severed the rope which fastened him to his
companion. Silvere fell on his knees before the tombstone.

It was to make his vengeance the more terrible that Rengade had killed
Mourgue first. He played with his second pistol, raising it slowly in
order to relish Silvere's agony. But the latter looked at him quietly.
Then again the sight of this man, with the one fierce, scorching eye,
made him feel uneasy. He averted his glance, fearing that he might die
cowardly if he continued to look at that feverishly quivering gendarme,
with blood-stained bandage and bleeding moustache. However, as he raised
his eyes to avoid him, he perce