University of Virginia Library

37. CHAPTER XXXVII.

“You have trifled long enough,” said the commissioner;
“declare what you know, or you shall be dealt with summarily.”

A long journey, manacled like a felon, and guarded by
dragoons with loaded carbines; a rigorous imprisonment,
already five months protracted; repeated examinations before
a military tribunal; cross-questionings, threats, and insults,
to extort his supposed secrets; — all these had formed a
sharp transition from the halcyon days of Vassall Morton's
prosperity.

“Declare what you know, or you shall be dealt with
summarily.”

“I know nothing, and therefore can declare nothing.”

“You have held that tone long enough. Do you imagine
that we are to be deceived by your inventions? Tell what
you know, or in twenty minutes you will be led to the
rampart and shot.”

“I am in your power, and you can do what you will.”

The commissioner spoke in German to the corporal of the
guard, who took Morton into custody, and was leading him
from the room.

“Stop,” cried the official, from his seat.

Morton turned.

“You are destroying yourself, young man.”

“It is false. You are murdering me.”

“Do not answer me. I tell you, you are murdering yourself.
Are you the fool to fling away your life in a fit of
obstinacy?”

“Are you the villain to shoot innocent men in cold blood?”

The commissioner swore a savage oath, and with an angry
gesture sent the corporal from the room.

The corporal led his prisoner along the corridor, which had
grown ruefully familiar to Morton's eye; but instead of
following the way which led to the latter's cell, he turned
into a much wider and more commodious passage. Here, at
his open door, stood Padre Luca, confessing priest of the
castle.

Padre Luca had mistaken his calling, when he took it upon
him to discharge such a function. He was too tender of
heart, too soft of nature; ill seasoned, moreover, to his work,
for he had been but a week in the fortress, and this was the
first victim whom it behooved him to prepare for death. And
when he saw the young prisoner, and learned the instant
doom under which he stood, his nerves grew tremulous, and
he found no words to usher in his ghostly counsels.

Corporal Max Kubitski, with a face unperturbed as a block,
unfettered Morton's wrists, left him with the confessor, and

withdrew, placing a soldier on guard at the door without.
Morton sat silent and calm. The hand of Padre Luca
quivered with agitation.

“My son,” he began; and here his voice faltered.

“I trust,” he said, finding his tongue again, “that you are
a faithful child of our holy mother, the church, and that the
heresies and infidelities of these times —”

“Father,” said Morton, willingly adopting the filial address
to the kind-hearted priest, “I am a Protestant. I was
born and bred among Protestants. I respect your ancient
church for the good she has done in ages past, and for the
good men who have held her faith; but I do not believe her
doctrine, nor approve her practice.”

The priest's face betrayed his discomposure.

“My son, my dear son, it is not too late; it is never too
late. Listen to the truth; renounce your fatal errors. I
will baptize you; and when you are gone, I will pray our
great saint of Milan to intercede for you, and I will say
masses for your soul.”

Morton smiled faintly, and shook his head.

“I thank you; but it is too late for conversion. I must
die in my heresy, as I have lived.”

“So young!” exclaimed Padre Luca; “and so calm on
the brink of eternity! Ah, it is hard to die, when so much
is left to enjoy; but it is worse to plunge from present
suffering into everlasting despair.” And he proceeded to
give a most graphic picture of post-mortal torments, drawn
from the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, a work very
familiar to his meditations. This dire imagery failed to
convince the dying heretic.

“My mind is made up. I cannot believe your doctrine,
but I can feel your kindness. You have spoken the first
friendly words that I have heard for months.”

“It is hard that you should die so unprepared, and so
young. You have relatives? You have friends?”

“More than friends! More than friends!” groaned Morton.
And as a flood of recollection swept over him, his
heart for a moment was sick with anguish.

“Come with me,” whispered Padre Luca. He led the
way into the chapel of the castle, which adjoined his room.
Here he bowed and crossed himself before an altar, over
which was displayed a painting of the Virgin.

“Our Blessed Mother is full of love, full of mercy. See,
— hang this round your neck” — placing in his hand a small
medal on which her image was stamped. “Go and kneel
before that altar, and repeat these words,” pointing to the
Ave Maria in a little book of devotion. “Call on her with a
true heart, and she will have pity. She cannot see you
perish, body and soul. She will appear, and teach you the
truth.”

There was so much of earnestness and sincerity in his
words, that Morton felt nothing but gratitude as he answered,
—

“It would be no better than a mockery, if I should do as
you wish. I cannot —”

Here a clear, deep voice from the adjacent room interrupted
him.

“Mother of heaven!” cried Padre Luca, greatly agitated.

“I am ready,” answered Morton, in a voice firm as that
which summoned him.

He returned to the priest's apartment, and in the doorway
stood the athletic corporal, like the statue of a modern
Mars.

“Mio figlio! Mio caro figlio!” faltered Padre Luca,
laying a tremulous hand on the young man's shoulder. The
kindly accents of the melodious Italian fell on his ear like a
strain of music.

“You must not die now; you are not prepared. I will go
to the commissioner. He will grant time.”

He was pushing past the corporal, when Morton gently
checked him.

“I thank you, father, a thousand times; but if I must die,
there is no mercy in a half hour's delay. Let me go. This
sentence may be, after all, a kindness.”

The corporal took him into custody; and, with three soldiers
before and three behind, he moved towards his place of
execution. He seemed to himself like one not fully awake;
the stern reality would not come home to his thoughts, until,
as he was mounting a flight of steps leading to the rampart,
a vivid remembrance glowed upon him of that summer evening
when, in her father's garden, Edith Leslie had accepted
his love. It was with a desperate effort of pride and resolution
that he quelled the emotion which rose choking to his
throat, and murmuring a petition for her safety, walked
forward with an unchanged face.

A light shone in upon the passage, and they stood in a
moment upon the rampart, whence a panorama of sunny
mountains opened on the view. It was a space of some
extent, paved with flag-stones, and compassed with battlements

and walls. On one side stood, leaning on their muskets,
a file of Bohemian soldiers, in their close frogged uniforms
and long mustaches. These, with their officer, Corporal
Kubitski, with his six men, a sub-official acting for the
commissioner, and Padre Luca, were the only persons present,
besides the prisoner. The latter was placed before the Bohemians,
at the distance of twelve or fourteen paces. The
corporal and his men drew aside.

“Now,” demanded the deputy, “will you confess what you
know, or will you die?”

“I have told you, once and again, that I have nothing to
confess.”

“Then take the consequence of your obstinacy.”

He motioned to the officer. A word of command was
given. Each soldier loaded with ball, and the ramrods rattled
as they sent home the charge. Another command, and
the cocked muskets rose to the level, concentrating their aim
against the prisoner's breast.

“If you will speak, speak now. You have a quarter of a
minute to save yourself.” And the deputy took out his
watch.

Morton turned his head slowly, and looked at him for an
instant in silence.

“Speak, speak,” cried Padre Luca, pressing towards him;
“tell him what you know.”

The sharp voice of the officer warned him back.

Morton stood with compressed lips, and every nerve at its
tension, in instant expectation of the volley; already, in
fancy, he felt the bullets plunging through his breast; but

not a muscle flinched, and he fronted the deadly muzzles with
an unblenching eye. The deputy scrutinized his face, and
turned away, muttering. At that moment a man, who
through the whole scene had stood hidden in the entrance of
a passage, ran out with a pretence of great haste and earnestness,
and called to stop the execution, since the commissioner
had granted a reprieve. In fact, the whole affair was a sham,
played off upon the prisoner to terrify him into confession.

The Bohemians recovered their muskets, and the bewildered
Morton was once more in custody of the corporal, who
led him, guarded as before, back towards his cell. Padre
Luca, who thought that an interposition of the Virgin had
softened the commissioner's heart, hastened to his oratory to
pray for the heretic's conversion. Faint and heartsick, Morton
scarcely knew what was passing, till he was thrust in at
his narrow door. The jailer was there, but the corporal entered
also, to aid in taking the handcuffs from his wrists.

One might have looked in vain among ten thousand to find
a nobler model of masculine proportion than this soldier.
He stood more than six feet high, and Morton, who loved to
look upon a man, had often, even in his distress, admired his
martial bearing and the powerful symmetry of his frame.
His face, too, was singularly fine in its way, and though the
discipline of long habit usually banished from it any distinct
expression, yet the cast of the features, and the manly curve
of the lip, which the thick brown mustache could not wholly
hide, seemed to augur a brave, generous, and loyal nature.

More stupefied than cheered at being snatched, as he supposed,
from the jaws of death, Morton stood passive while his

hands were released. The jailer left him for a moment, and
crossed over to the opposite corner of the cell. His back was
turned as he did so. The corporal's six soldiers were all in
the passage without. At that instant, Morton felt a warm
breath at his ear, and heard whispered in a barbarous accent, —

“Courage, mon ami! Vive la liberté! Vive l'Amérique!”

He turned; but the martial visage of the corporal was
unmoved as bronze; and, in a moment more, the iron door
clanged behind him as he disappeared.