Are you all straight? Now then!
Ready--present----"
"Fire!" the colonel interrupted, starting forward.
It was intolerable that this man should give the command for his own death.
There was another confused, disorganized volley, and the line broke up into a knot of shivering figures, staring before them with wild eyes.
One of the soldiers had not even discharged his carbine; he had flung it away, and crouched down, moaning under his breath:
"I can't--I can't!"
The smoke cleared slowly away, floating up into the glimmer of the early sunlight; and they saw that the Gadfly had fallen; and saw, too, that he was still not dead.
For the first moment soldiers and officials stood as if they had been turned to stone, and watched the ghastly thing that writhed and struggled on the ground; then both doctor and colonel rushed forward with a cry, for he had dragged himself up on one knee and was still facing the soldiers, and still laughing.
"Another miss!
Try--again, lads--see--if you can't----"
He suddenly swayed and fell over sideways on the grass.
"Is he dead?" the colonel asked under his breath; and the doctor, kneeling down, with a hand on the bloody shirt, answered softly:
"I think so--God be praised!"
"God be praised!" the colonel repeated. "At last!"
His nephew was touching him on the arm.
"Uncle! It's the Cardinal!
He's at the gate and wants to come in."
"What?
He can't come in--I won't have it!
What are the guards about?
Your Eminence----"
The gate had opened and shut, and Montanelli was standing in the courtyard, looking before him with still and awful eyes.
"Your Eminence!
I must beg of you--this is not a fit sight for you! The execution is only just over; the body is not yet----"
"I have come to look at him," Montanelli said.
Even at the moment it struck the Governor that his voice and bearing were those of a sleep-walker.
"Oh, my God!" one of the soldiers cried out suddenly; and the Governor glanced hastily back.
Surely------
The blood-stained heap on the grass had once more begun to struggle and moan.
The doctor flung himself down and lifted the head upon his knee.
"Make haste!" he cried in desperation. "You savages, make haste!
Get it over, for God's sake!
There's no bearing this!"
Great jets of blood poured over his hands, and the convulsions of the figure that he held in his arms shook him, too, from head to foot.
As he looked frantically round for help, the priest bent over his shoulder and put a crucifix to the lips of the dying man.
"In the name of the Father and of the Son----"
The Gadfly raised himself against the doctor's knee, and, with wide-open eyes, looked straight upon the crucifix.
Slowly, amid hushed and frozen stillness, he lifted the broken right hand and pushed away the image.
There was a red smear across its face.
"Padre--is your--God--satisfied?"
His head fell back on the doctor's arm.
. . . . .
"Your Eminence!"
As the Cardinal did not awake from his stupor, Colonel Ferrari repeated, louder:
"Your Eminence!"
Montanelli looked up.
"He is dead."
"Quite dead, your Eminence.
Will you not come away?