ghtly chained
together, to wipe the tears from his eyes, he noticed that the room
was lighter now; the sky was a clear daffodil. Daybreak was coming;
the day was at hand--his last on earth!

And again he whispered: "It is better so. But for her there is naught
to hold me to life. Better so. Now"--and as he spoke to himself,
across the roofs of the houses the first rays of the summer sun shot
up--"now be brave. The end is near; meet it like a man. And remember,
her name the last word on your lips--the last ere your soul goes to
meet its God!"

A murmur, a noise from the crowd below waiting for its victim, caused
him to look forth again from the window, and to observe that some new
officials had arrived. A horseman in a rich scarlet coat, over which,
however, he wore a riding cloak--for the morning was still
chilly--followed by two others in sober blue coats trimmed with silver
lace, was making his way down the lane of people and was being greeted
by the crowd.

Yet, to the doomed man standing by the window, he did not seem to be
altogether popular with them, especially when he suddenly halted his
horse, and turning round on the vast concourse behind him, said
something to them, accompanied with a comprehensive wave of his
disengaged hand--something that vexed and annoyed that concourse
terribly, he could see, and hear, too--a vexation increased when,
after the other had spoken a further word to the officer in command of
the dragoons, they began to close in from the outside of the _place_
round the assembled mob.

Then the horseman disappeared from St. Georges's view, evidently
having entered the door beneath his window, and again the people
murmured and shrieked.

"Has he given orders to clear them away," he began to speculate, "so
that they may not witness my end?----" but his speculation was not
concluded.

On the stone steps outside he could hear the tread of many feet, the
clang of spurs and of swords as those who wore them mounted the
stairs.

"They are coming for me," he thought, and again he whispered: "The
time is at hand. Courage! Be brave!"

The keys turned grating in the locks, a great transverse bar outside
was moved with a clash, and the door opened, the first person to enter
being the newly arrived horseman, followed by the principal official
of the Hotel de Ville, and next by some of his subordinate officers,
as well as the jailers, one of whom carried in his hands a large iron
hammer and the