Your
Emperor would grant me his life, were he here; yield me an hour--a half
hour--anything that will give me time to serve him--"
"It is out of the question; I must obey my orders. I regret you should
have this pain; but if you do not cease to interfere, my soldiers must
make you."
Where the guards held him, Cecil saw and heard. His voice rose with all
its old strength and sweetness.
"My friend, do not plead for me. For the sake of our common country and
our old love, let us both meet this with silence and with courage."
"You are a madman!" cried the man, whose heart felt breaking under this
doom he could neither avert nor share. "You think that they shall kill
you before my eyes!--you think I shall stand by to see you murdered!
What crime have you done? None, I dare swear, save being moved, under
insult, to act as the men of your race ever acted! Ah, God! why have
lived as you have done? Why not have trusted my faith and my love?
If you had believed in my faith as I believed in your innocence, this
misery never had come to us!"
"Hush! hush! or you will make me die like a coward."
He dreaded lest he should do so; this ordeal was greater than his
power to bear it. With the mere sound of this man's voice a longing, so
intense in its despairing desire, came on him for this life which they
were about to kill in him forever.
The words stung his hearer well-nigh to madness; he turned on the
soldiers with all the fury of his race that slumbered so long, but when
it awoke was like the lion's rage.
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