I must be brave.  He remembered a story his mother had once told him of a Roman executioner who, on receiving orders to behead a young Christian, had been so overcome with pity that he had fainted.  The youth had revived him, and comforted him as bravely as if it had been his duty to die, as it was the executioner’s to kill.  But then Conrad told himself:  you are a guilty creature, and cannot compare yourself with a saint.  Would you be brave enough to act like that?  Would you?  It is sweet to die with Jesus, but it is still sweeter to live with Him.

The jailer asked him if he would care to go out once more into the open air.

Out into the air?  Out into the prison yard, where all the refuse was thrown?  No.  He thanked him; he would prefer to remain in his cell.  It could not be for long now.

“No; it will not be for long now,” said the old man.  But he did not tell him that in the meantime the Chancellor had died of his wounds, although from the “old grumbler’s” increased tenderness Conrad might have suspected that his case did not stand in a favourable light.

“If you are truly brave,” the old man told him, “the next time you go out you shall walk under green trees.”

“But now?  Not now?” Conrad thought of a reprieve, and grew excited.  A red flush stained his cheeks.

“No; I did not mean that.  You know the King is far away.  But it may come any time.  I am waiting for it anxiously.  You know, Ferleitner, after this I shall resign my post.”

At that moment the priest came in.  He always entered the dark cell with a cheerful face and a glad “God be with you!” It was his office to bring comfort, if only he had known how.  As a rule the monk came in, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a coarse blue handkerchief, and loudly assuring the prisoner how pleasantly cool it was in his cell.  But this time he was nervous and ill at ease.  How did the prisoner look?  Emaciated to a skeleton, his teeth prominent between fleshless lips, his eyes wide open, a wondrous fire burning in their depths.

“As you will never send for me, my dear Ferleitner, I have come again unasked to see how you fare.  You are not ill?”

“Has the sentence come?” asked the prisoner.

“Not that I know of,” answered the monk; “but I see I am disturbing you at your work.”

Conrad had neglected to put away the sheets he had written, and so had to confess that he had been writing.

“Isn’t it too dark to see to write here?”

“You get accustomed to it.  At first it was dark, but now it seems to get lighter and lighter.”

“So you’ve made your will at last?” asked the father, raising his eyebrows.  He meant to be humorous.

“A sort of one!”

“Let’s see, then.  You have something to leave?”

“I have not.  Another has.”

The father turned over the sheets, read a line here and there, shook his shaven head a little, and said “It seems to resemble the New Testament.  Have you been copying it from the Gospel?”