For the honor of Sicily his confessor told him, in the strictest confidence, that his sentence was a mock one, and that he would be fired at with blank cartridges. It was a pious fraud. All but two of the twelve cartridges had bullets, and he fell, riddled through and through. No Frenchman ever died with a lighter heart, a better grace. He was superb, and the national honor was saved. Thrice happy Sicilian drum-major, if the story be true! That trust in blank cartridges was his paradise. * * * * * Oh, it is uphill work to be a stoic when the moment comes and the tug! But when the tug lasts for more than a moment--days and nights, days and nights! Oh, happy Sicilian drum-major! * * * * * Pray? Yes, I will pray night and morning, and all day long, to whatever there is left of inherited strength and courage in that luckless, misbegotten waif, Peter Ibbetson; that it may bear him up a little while yet; that he may not disgrace himself in the dock or on the gallows. * * * * * Repent? Yes, of many things. But of the thing for which I am here? Never! * * * * * It is a ghastly thing to be judge and jury and executioner all in one, and for a private and personal wrong--to condemn and strike and kill. Pity comes after--when it is too late, fortunately--the wretched weakness of pity! Pooh! no Calcraft will ever pity _me_, and I do not want him to. * * * * * He had his long, snaky knife against my stick; he, too, was a big strong man, well skilled in self-defence! Down he went, and I struck him again and again. "O my God! O Christ!" he shrieked.... "It will ring in my heart and my ears till I die--till I die!" * * * * * There was no time to lose--no time to think for the best. It is all for the best as it is. What might he not have said if he had lived! * * * * * Thank Heaven, pity is not remorse or shame; and what crime could well be worse than his? To rob one's dearly beloved dead of their fair shame! * * * * * He might have been mad, perhaps, and have grown in time to believe the lies he told himself. Such things have been. But such a madman should no more be suffered to live than a mad dog. The only way to kill the lie was to kill the liar--that is, if one _can_ ever kill a lie! * * * * * Poor worm! after all, he could not help it, I suppose! he was _built_ like that! and _I_ was built to kill him for it, and be hanged.' [Greek: Anagkae]! What an exit for "Gogo--gentil petit Gogo!" * * * * *