Page:Famous stories from foreign countries.djvu/63

 who fought for freedom, and how many just like him he had tricked and brought to ruin. He touched his sword, then drew his hand back, and glanced at the heavy chains of his old friend and former companion in the strife for liberty. Which was better, the sword of the Turkish official or those rusty chains of the martyr for freedom? This question which he thought he had decided long ago, came up again.

It is night—a gloomy night. A restless wind roamed under the black sky. The helper started for the prison. The superintendent had called him. His walk did not have its usual animation. The darkness was not pleasant, nor the wind either. He kept thinking of things he did not wish to think of. How hard he had tried to hide himself that morning when A— climbed to the gallows. He did not succeed. The prisoner seemed to search for him. He found him. He looked at him again just as he had looked at him on the place of execution. Before he died he wished to burn that look of scorn and contempt into his brain. There—before him in the dark—were two burning points—eyes. He could not go on. He stopped. They were the eyes of his friend. They were just like them—just so large. Should he go on? He meditated a moment and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the two eyes were still looking at him again—only they were larger and there was a different expression within them. He started to run. The eyes disappeared. It was a cat which leaped