With a heart-rending cry Henriette repeated: 

“Give me my husband, or let me die with him.”

This seemed to cause the cup of the officer’s exasperation to overrun; he thumped himself violently on the chest, declaring that he was no executioner, that he would rather die than harm a hair of an innocent head.  There was nothing against her; he would cut off his right hand rather than do her an injury.  And then he repeated his order that she be taken away.

As the Bavarian came up to carry out his instructions Henriette tightened her clasp on Weiss’s neck, throwing all her strength into her frantic embrace.

“Oh, my love!  Keep me with you, I beseech you; let me die with you—­”

Big tears were rolling down his cheeks as, without answering, he endeavored to loosen the convulsive clasp of the fingers of the poor creature he loved so dearly.

“You love me no longer, then, that you wish to die without me.  Hold me, keep me, do not let them take me.  They will weary at last, and will kill us together.”

He had loosened one of the little hands, and carried it to his lips and kissed it, working all the while to make the other release its hold.

“No, no, it shall not be!  I will not leave thy bosom; they shall pierce my heart before reaching thine.  I will not survive—­”

But at last, after a long struggle, he held both the hands in his.  Then he broke the silence that he had maintained until then, uttering one single word: 

“Farewell, dear wife.”

And with his own hands he placed her in the arms of the Bavarian, who carried her away.  She shrieked and struggled, while the soldier, probably with intent to soothe her, kept pouring in her ear an uninterrupted stream of words in unmelodious German.  And, having freed her head, looking over the shoulder of the man, she beheld the end.

It lasted not five seconds.  Weiss, whose eye-glass had slipped from its position in the agitation of their parting, quickly replaced it upon his nose, as if desirous to look death in the face.  He stepped back and placed himself against the wall, and the face of the self-contained, strong young man, as he stood there in his tattered coat, was sublimely beautiful in its expression of tranquil courage.  Laurent, who stood beside him, had thrust his hands deep down into his pockets.  The cold cruelty of the proceeding disgusted him; it seemed to him that they could not be far removed from savagery who could thus slaughter men before the eyes of their wives.  He drew himself up, looked them square in the face, and in a tone of deepest contempt expectorated: 

“Dirty pigs!”

The officer raised his sword; the signal was succeeded by a crashing volley, and the two men sank to the ground, an inert mass, the gardener’s lad upon his face, the other, the accountant, upon his side, lengthwise of the wall.  The frame of the latter, before he expired, contracted in a supreme convulsion, the eyelids quivered, the mouth opened as if he was about to speak.  The officer came up and stirred him with his foot, to make sure that he was really dead.