Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/169

151 "A pardon!" cried the people with one voice; "a pardon!"

At this cry Andrea raised his head.

"Pardon for whom?" cried he.

Peppino remained breathless.

"A pardon for Peppino, called Rocca Priori," said the principal friar. And he passed the paper to the officer commanding the carbineers, who read and returned it. to him.

"For Peppino!" cried Andrea, who seemed aroused from the torpor in which he had been plunged. "Why for him and not for me? We ought to die together. I was promised he should die with me. You have no right to put me to death alone. I will not die alone I will not!"

And he broke from the priests, struggling and raving like a wild beast, and striving desperately to break the cords that bound his hands. The executioner made a sign, and his assistant leaped from the scaffold and seized him.

"What is passing?" asked Franz of the count; for, as all this occurred in the Roman dialect, he had not perfectly comprehended it.

"Do you not see," returned the count, "that this human creature who is about to die is furious that his fellow-sufferer does not perish with him? and, were he able, he would rather tear him to pieces with his teeth and nails than let him enjoy the life he himself is about to be deprived of. Oh, man, man! race of crocodiles!" cried the count, extending his clenched hands toward the crowd, "how well do I recognize you there, and that at all times you are worthy of yourselves!"

All this time Andrea and the two executioners were struggling on the ground, and he kept exclaiming, "He ought to die!—he shall die!—I will not die alone!"

"Look, look!" cried the count, seizing the young men's hands; "look! for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die—like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? do you know what consoled him and gave him patience? It was, that another partook of his punishment—that another partook of his anguish—that another was to die with him—another to die before him! Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughter house, and make one of them understand his companion will not die: the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy! Honor to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!"