There was a deep
sadness on his face, but it was perfectly serene. To the words of the
priest who approached him he listened with respect, though he gently
declined the services of the Church. He had spoken but very little since
his arrest; he was led out of the camp in silence and waited in silence
now, looking across the plains to where the dawn was growing richer and
brighter with every moment that the numbered seconds of his life drifted
slowly and surely away.
When they came near to bind the covering over his eyes, he motioned them
away, taking the bandage from their hands and casting it far from him.
"Did I ever fear to look down the depths of my enemies' muskets?"
It was the single outbreak, the single reproach, that escaped from
him--the single utterance by which he ever quoted his services to
France. Not one who heard him dared again force on him that indignity
which would have blinded his sight, as though he had ever dreaded to
meet death.
That one protest having escaped from him, he was once more still and
calm, as though the vacant grave yawning at his feet had been but a
couch of down to rest his tired limbs. His eyes watched the daylight
deepen, and widen, and grow into one sheet of glowing roseate warmth;
but there was no regret in the gaze; there was a fixed, fathomless
resignation that moved with a vague sense of awe those who had come to
slay him, and who had been so used to slaughter that they fired their
volley into their comrade's breast as callously as into the ranks of
their antagonists.
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