"He went to her tent, alone, at night; that was, of course,
whence he came when Chateauroy met him. I doubt not the Black Hawk
had some foul thing to hint of his visit, and that blow was struck for
her--for her! Well; in the streets of Algiers I saw a man with a face
like his own, different, but the same race, look you. I spoke to him; I
taxed him. When he found that the one whom I spoke of was under sentence
of death, he grew mad; he cried out that he was his brother and had
murdered him--that it was for his sake that the cruelty of this
exile had been borne--that, if his brother perished, he would be his
destroyer. Then I bade him write down that paper, since these English
names were unknown to me, and I brought it hither to you that you might
see, under his hand and with your own eyes, that I have uttered the
truth. And now, is that man to be killed like a mad beast whom you fear?
Is that death the reward France will give for Zaraila?"
Her eyes were fixed with a fearful intensity of appeal upon the stern
face bent over her; her last arrow was sped; if this failed, all was
over. As he heard, he was visibly moved; he remembered the felon's shame
that in years gone by had fallen across the banished name of Bertie
Cecil; the history seemed clear as crystal to him, seen beneath the
light shed on it from other days.
His hand fell heavily on the gun-carriage.
"Mort de Dieu! it was his brother's sin, not his!"
There was a long silence; those present, who knew nothing of all that
was in his memory, felt instinctively that some dead weight of alien
guilt was lifted off a blameless life forever.
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