It was just on the verge of sunrise. There was the grayish-blue
light in the west, the top of a long range of forest was sharply
outlined against it, and a timorous darkness was hurrying out of
the zenith. In the east a sad golden radiance was stealing up and
driving back the mystery of the night, and that weird loneliness of
an arctic world. The city was hardly waking as yet, but straight
silver columns of smoke rolled up out of many chimneys, and the
golden cross on the cathedral caught the first rays of the sun. I
was not interested in the city; I had now, as I thought, done with
men. Besides the four soldiers who had brought me out, another squad
surrounded me, commanded by a young officer whom I recognized as
Captain Lancy, the rough roysterer who had insulted me at Bigot's
palace over a year ago. I looked with a spirit absorbed upon the
world about me, and a hundred thoughts which had to do with man's
life passed through my mind. But the young officer, speaking sharply
to me, ordered me on, and changed the current of my thoughts. The
coarseness of the man and his insulting words were hard to bear,
so that I was constrained to ask him if it were not customary to
protect a condemned man from insult rather than to expose him to it.
I said that I should be glad of my last moments in peace. At that he
asked Gabord why I was unbound, and my jailer answered that binding
was for criminals who were to be HANGED!
I could scarcely believe my ears.
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