This man was the executioner.
He had, moreover, sandals bound on his feet by cords.
Behind the executioner came, in the order in which they were to die, first Peppino and then Andrea. Each was accompanied by two priests. Neither had their eyes bandaged.
Peppino walked with a firm step, doubtless aware of what awaited him. Andrea was supported by two priests. Each of them kissed, from time to time, the crucifix a confessor held out to them.
At this sight alone Franz felt his legs tremble under him. He looked at Albert he was white as his shirt, and mechanically cast away his cigar, although he had not half smoked it.
The count alone seemed unmoved nay, more, a slight color seemed striving to rise in his pale cheeks.
His nostril dilated like a wild beast that scents its prey, and his lips, half opened, disclosed his white teeth, small and sharp like those of a jackal. And yet his features wore an expression of smiling tenderness, such as Franz had never before witnessed in them; his black eyes especially were full of kindness and pity.
However, the two culprits advanced toward the scaffold, and as they approached their faces became visible.
Peppino was a handsome young man of four or five-and-twenty, bronzed by the sun; he carried his head erect, and seemed to look on which side his liberator would appear. Andrea was short and fat; his visage, marked with brutal cruelty, did not indicate age; he might be thirty. In prison he had suffered his beard to grow; his head fell on his shoulder, his legs bent beneath him, and he seemed to obey a mechanical movement of which he was unconscious.
"I thought," said Franz to the count, "that you told me there would be but one execution!"
"I told you true," replied he, coldly.
"However, here are two culprits."
"Yes; but only one of these two is about to die; the other has long years to live!"
"If the pardon is to come, there is no time to lose."
"And, see, here it is," said the count.
At the moment when Peppino arrived at the foot of the mandaia, a penitent, who seemed to arrive late, forced his way through the soldiers, and, advancing to the chief of the brotherhood, gave him a folded paper. The piercing eye of Peppino had noticed all.
The chief took the paper, unfolded it, and, raising his hand, "Heaven be praised! and his Holiness also!" said he, in a loud voice; "here is a pardon for one of the prisoners!"
