"My wife! my children!" cries Montlouis, wringing his hands in despair; "oh! go, have pity upon me!"
"Montlouis!" cries his wife, holding up afar the youngest of his sons, "Montlouis, bless your children, and one day, perhaps, one of them will avenge you."
"Adieu! my children, my blessing on you!" cries Montlouis, stretching his hands toward the window.
These mournful adieux pierce the night, and reverberate like a terrible echo in the hearts of the spectators.
"Enough," says Waters, "enough." Then turning to his a.s.sistants:
"Be quick!" says he, "or the people will not allow us to finish."
"Be easy," says Montlouis; "if the people should rescue me, I would not survive them."
And he pointed with his finger to the heads of his companions.
"Ah, I had estimated them rightly, then," cried Gaston, who heard these words, "Montlouis, martyr, pray for me."
Montlouis turned round, he seemed to have heard a well-known voice; but at the very moment the executioner seized him, and almost instantly a loud cry told Gaston that Montlouis was like the others, and that _his_ turn was come.
He leaped up; in a moment he was on the top of the ladder, and he in his turn looked down from the abominable platform upon all that crowd. At three corners of the scaffold were the heads of Talhouet, Du Couedic, and Montlouis.
But there arose then a strange emotion in the people. The execution of Montlouis, attended by the circ.u.mstances we have narrated, had upset the crowd. All the square, heaving and uttering murmurs and imprecations, seemed to Gaston some vast sea with life in every wave. At this moment the idea flashed across him that he might be recognized, and that his name uttered by a single mouth might prevent his carrying out his intention. He fell on his knees, and laid his head himself upon the block.
"Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu, my friends, my tender, dear Helene; thy nuptial kiss has cost me my life, indeed, but not mine honor. Alas!
those fifteen minutes wasted in thine arms will have struck down five heads. Adieu! Helene, adieu!"
The sword of the executioner gleamed.
"--And you, my friends, pardon me," added the young man.
The steel fell; the head rolled one way, and the body fell the other.
Then Waters raised the head and showed it to the people.
But then a mighty murmur rose from the crowd; no one had recognized Pontcalec.
The executioner mistook the meaning of this murmur; he placed Gaston"s head at the empty corner, and with his foot pushing the body into the tumbril where those of his three companions awaited it, he leaned upon his sword, and cried aloud:
"Justice is done."
"And I, then," cried a voice of thunder, "am I to be forgotten?"
And Pontcalec, in his turn, leaped upon the scaffold.
"You!" cried Waters, recoiling as if he had seen a ghost. "You! who are you?"
"I," said Pontcalec; "come, I am ready."
"But," said the executioner trembling, and looking one after the other at the four corners of the scaffold--"but there are four heads already."
"I am the Baron de Pontcalec, do you hear; I am to die the last--and here I am."
"Count," said Waters, as pale as the baron, pointing with his sword to the four corners.
"Four heads!" exclaimed Pontcalec; "impossible." At this moment he recognized in one of the heads the pale and n.o.ble face of Gaston, which seemed to smile upon him even in death.
And he in his turn started back in terror.
"Oh, kill me then quickly!" he cried, groaning with impatience; "would you make me die a thousand times?"
During this interval, one of the commissioners had mounted the ladder, called by the chief executioner. He cast a glance upon Pontcalec.
"It is indeed the Baron de Pontcalec," said the commissioner; "perform your office."
"But," cried the executioner, "there are four heads there already."
"Well, then, his will make five; better too many than too few."
And the commissioner descended the steps, signing to the drums to beat.
Waters reeled upon the boards of his scaffold. The tumult increased. The horror was more than the crowd could bear. A long murmur ran along the square; the lights were put out; the soldiers, driven back, cried "To arms!" there was a moment of noise and confusion, and several voices exclaimed:
"Death to the commissioners! death to the executioners!" Then the guns of the fort, loaded with grape, were pointed toward the people.
"What shall I do?" asked Waters.
"Strike," answered the same voice which had always spoken.
Pontcalec threw himself on his knees; the a.s.sistants placed his head upon the block. Then the priests fled in horror, the soldiers trembled in the gloom, and Waters, as he struck, turned away his head lest he should see his victim. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty--the windows closed and dark. The artillery and the fusiliers, encamped around the demolished scaffold, looked in silence on the spots of blood that incarnadined the pavement.
The priests to whom the bodies were delivered recognized that there were indeed, as Waters had said, five bodies instead of four. One of the corpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand.
This paper was the pardon of the other four. Then only was all explained--and the devotion of Gaston, which he had confided to no one, was divined.
The priests wished to perform a ma.s.s, but the president, Chateauneuf, fearing some disturbance at Nantes, ordered it to be performed without pomp or ceremony.
The bodies were buried on the Wednesday before Easter. The people were not permitted to enter the chapel where the mutilated bodies reposed, the greater part of which, report says, the quick lime refused to destroy.
And this finished the tragedy of Nantes.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.
THE END.