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76 caused many a dark brow to turn scowling upon him; but he paid them back glance for glance, and met every frown with a smile. He reached the appointed place; and, at a sign from Major Johnstone, one of the troopers drew out a handkerchief, and attempted to bind his eyes. The prisoner flung him off with a force scarcely to be expected from one of his slight figure, and, turning quickly, said, "Let me die like a man!—whatever is my death, let me face it!" No further effort was made to blindfold him; but the carbineers formed their deadly rank, looking, however, towards their commander for the signal.

"I will myself give the word!" cried Evelyn. "When I take off my hat, fire!"

Francesca had hitherto looked on with that sort of charmed gaze with which the fascinated bird watches the grey and glittering eye of the serpent which forces it to its doom; but womanly terror now mastering strong excitement, she knelt down, and, hiding her face in her hands, muttered incoherent ejaculations of prayer.

Major Johnstone had, by a stern gesture of assent, marked his permission for the prisoner to give his own death signal; and Francis, after a leisurely survey, expressive of the utmost contumely of the iron faces that darkened round him,