Martial, stupefied, with horror and alarm, mechanically followed the soldier. Two of the assistants had carried the wretched Calabash to the other chair; one of them sustained the almost lifeless body, while the other, by means of whip-cord, exceedingly fine but very strong, tied her hands behind her back, and also fastened her feet together by the ankles, allowing slack enough to enable her walk slowly. The executioner and his other assistant performed the same operation on the widow, whose features underwent no alteration; only from time to time she coughed slightly. When the condemned were thus prevented from offering any resistance, the executioner, drawing from his pocket a long pair of scissors, said to her with marked politeness, "Have the goodness to bend your head." The widow obeyed, saying: "We are good customers; you have had my husband; now here are his wife and daughter." Without replying, the executioner gathered in his left hand the long gray hair of the condemned, and commenced cutting it short--very short, particularly about the neck. "This makes the third time that I have had my hair dressed in my lifetime," said the widow, with a horrible laugh: "the day of my first communion, when they put on my veil; the day of my marriage, when they put on my orange blossoms; and now to-day--the head-dress of death." The executioner remained silent. The hair of the condemned being thick and coarse, the operation was so long in being performed, that Calabash's lay strewed upon the ground before her mother's was half finished. "You do not know of what I am thinking?" said the widow, after having looked at her daughter again. The executioner continued to keep silent. Nothing could be heard but the snipping of the scissors and the kind of rattling which from time to time escaped from the throat of Calabash. At this moment was seen in the corridor a priest of venerable appearance, who approached the governor, and spoke a few words to him in a low tone. The chaplain came to make a last effort to soften the heart of the widow. "I think," resumed the widow at the end of some moments, and seeing that the executioner did not reply, "I think that at five years old, my daughter, whose head is to be cut off, was the handsomest child that I ever saw. She had flaxen hair and rosy cheeks. Then, who would have told me that,--" After a pause, she cried, with a burst of laughter, and an expression impossible to be described, "What a comedy is fate!" At this moment the last locks of the condemned fell upon her shoulders. "It is finished, madame,' said the executioner, politely. "Thank you. I recommend to you my son Nicholas," said the widow; "you will dress his hair some of these days." A keeper came and whispered a few words to her. "No; I have already said no," answered she, roughly. The priest heard these words, raised his eyes toward heaven, clasped his hands, and disappeared.