"Juanito," she said, "have pity on my want of courage; begin with me." At this instant the hurried steps of a man were heard, and Victor Marchand appeared on the terrace. Clara was already on her knees, her white neck bared for the scimitar. The officer turned pale, but he ran with all his might. "The general grants your life if you will marry me," he said to her in a low voice. The Spanish girl cast upon the officer a look of pride and contempt. "Go on, Juanito!" she said, in a deep voice, and her head rolled at Victor's feet. The Marquise de Leganes made one convulsive movement as she heard that sound; it was the only sign she gave of sorrow. "Am I placed right this way, my good Juanito?" asked the little Manuelo of his brother. "Ah! you are weeping, Mariquita!" said Juanito to his sister. "Yes," she said, "I think of you, my poor Juanito; how lonely you will be without us." Soon the grand figure of the marquis came forward. He looked at the blood of his children; he turned to the mute and motionless spectators, and said in a strong voice, stretching his hands toward Juanito,-- "Spaniards! I give my son my fatherly blessing! Now, _Marquis_, strike, without fear--you are without reproach." But when Juanito saw his mother approach him, supported by the priest, he cried out: "She bore me!" A cry of horror broke from all present. The noise of the feast and the jovial laughter of the officers ceased at that terrible clamor. The marquise comprehended that Juanito's courage was exhausted, and springing with one bound over the parapet, she was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. A sound of admiration rose. Juanito had fallen senseless. "General," said an officer, who was half drunk, "Marchand has just told me the particulars of that execution down there. I will bet you never ordered it." "Do you forget, messieurs," cried General G--t--r, "that five hundred French families are plunged in affliction, and that we are now in Spain? Do you wish to leave our bones in its soil?" After that allocution, no one, not even a sub-lieutenant, had the courage to empty his glass. In spite of the respect with which he is surrounded, in spite of the title El Verdugo (the executioner) which the King of Spain bestowed as a title of nobility on the Marquis de Leganes, he is a prey to sorrow; he lives in solitude, and is seldom seen. Overwhelmed with the burden of his noble crime, he seems to await with impatience the birth of a second son, which will give him the right to rejoin the Shades who ceaselessly accompany him. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of El Verdugo, by Honore de Balzac