“Best!—­that you should be slaughtered in cold blood!” His voice was hoarse with the horror which, despite his words, possessed him.  He knew what the demands of discipline exacted, he knew what the inexorable tyranny of the army enforced, he knew that he had found the life lost to him for so long only to stand by and see it struck down like a shot stag’s.

Cecil’s eyes looked at him with a regard in which all the sacrifice, all the patience, all the martyrdom of his life spoke.

“Best, because a lie I could never speak to you, and the truth I can never tell to you.  Do not let her know; it might give her pain.  I have loved her; that is useless, like all the rest.  Give me your hand once more, and then—­let them do their duty.  Turn your head away; it will soon be over!”

Almost ere he asked it, his friend’s hands closed upon both is own, keeping the promise made so long before in the old years gone; great, tearless sobs heaved the depths of his broad chest; those gentle, weary words had rent his very soul, and he knew that he was powerless here; he knew that he could no more stay this doom of death than he could stay the rising of the sun up over the eastern heavens.  The clear voice of the officer in command rang shrilly through the stillness.

“Monsieur, make your farewell.  I can wait no longer.”

The Seraph started, and flung himself round with the grand challenge of a lion, struck by a puny spear.  His face flushed crimson; his words were choked in his throbbing throat.

“As I live, you shall not fire!  I forbid you!  I swear by my honor and the honor of England that he shall not die like a dog.  He is of my country; he is of my Order.  I will appeal to your Emperor; he will accord me his life the instant I ask it.  Give me only an hour’s reprieve—­a few moments’ space to speak to your chiefs, to seek out your general—­”

“It is impossible, monsieur.”

The curt, calm answer was inflexible; against the sentence and its execution there could be no appeal.

Cecil laid his hand upon his old friend’s shoulders.

“It will be useless,” he murmured.  “Let them act; the quicker the better.”

“What! you think I would look on and see you die?”

“Would to Heaven you had never known I lived——­”

The officer made a gesture to the guard to separate them.

“Monsieur, submit to the execution of the law, or I must arrest you.”

Lyonnesse flung off the detaining hand of the guard, and swung round so that his agonized eyes gazed close into the adjutant’s immovable face, which before that gaze lost its coldness and its rigor, and changed to a great pity for this stranger who had found the friend of his youth in the man who stood condemned to perish there.

“An hour’s reprieve; for mercy’s sake, grant that!”

“I have said, it is impossible.”

“But you do not dream who is—­”