"With God only there is mercy," is the General's reply. The little white staff falls to the ground broken in two. The condemned man gives a sigh of relief, thanks the gentlemen present for the trouble they have taken, the good sergeant-major for interceding on his behalf, and the rigorous judge for pronouncing over him the sentence of the law. Then they take him away to the house of mourning, give him a white uniform to put on, and set meat and drink before him that he may eat and drink for the last time. That day the iron man was afraid to go to his own quarters. Suppose Cornelia were to ask him what sentence he had pronounced upon the son of his enemy? He durst not go home, he was actually afraid. He was still brooding there when the gaoler came to tell him that the condemned man wished to say a few words to the General privately. Vértessy hastened to him at once. "You defended yourself badly," said he reproachfully on entering, "you made it impossible for us to pronounce any other sentence." "I know that, I wished it so," replied the youth with a bright, calm countenance. "That is all over now, General; it was a soldier's duty to condemn me. In three days' time I am to die. Take it as if I was very sick, and the doctors had told you beforehand that I had only three more days to live." "I will send the sentence to His Majesty." "It would be useless. Why, even you can advance nothing in my defence, and I have myself nothing to allege in mitigation of my sentence." "But I know everything. Others have come forward to defend you, and if you had not cut the ground from under my feet by your defiant answers before the court-martial, I might have devised some means of saving you." "I am surprised that anyone should have defended me. I know of none who might bear me in mind." "Indeed yes. First of all there was my wife." "Ah! General, such knowledge will make my death the easier." "Then there was the man you fired at in your stupid jealousy." "Then he did not die after all?" exclaimed the youth joyfully. "It does me good to hear that." "That's all one so far as you are concerned. You have in any case committed a capital offence." "But my heart is the easier, nevertheless. A load has been removed from it. I thank you. What you have said will shorten my last moments." "Your third advocate was your father." "What?" stammered the youth with trembling lips--"my father, did you say?--my own father?" "Your own dear father. He wrote to me with those trembling hands of his, those hands which have barely recovered from a paralytic stroke. He wrote to me himself--do you realise what that means?" "He wrote on my account!" whispered the condemned man, clasping his manacled hands together and closing his heavy eyelashes over his moist eyes. "Your fourth advocate was Count Kamienszki, whose sister you will doubtless remember." The youth looked up in astonishment. "I have no recollection of such a person. _She_ had no brother."