Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 117: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALFRED DE ROSANN. 109 well the same turn. If no one will pull that little cord yonder, then Francois’ head will not be severed from his shoulders: and although they may shackle, and bind, and enchain us, they cannot compel us to mount that scaffold and enact the part of common ex- ecutioners.”’ | ‘'True!’”’ said De Rosann. ‘“ But hither comes the Commissary: let us await the event with resignation and in silence!”’ The Governor stepped forward: he had a painful duty to perform; but he was obliged to acquit him+ self of it. Nevertheless, his cheek was pale, and his voice was trembling; perhaps he also entertained the same hope that animated many others; for no one, however hard his heart—however strict his ideas of moral rectitude and justice might be, could mark that old man’s hoary locks, turn to the gloomy aspect of the guillotine, and recollect at the same moment all the circumstances of the case, without experiencing a cer- tain mental attenuation, a kindly feeling, a sentiment of deep commiseration, in favour of him whose days, whose hours—whose very minutes were haply num- bered. The Commissary did betray this humane spirit, and vainly endeavoured to preserve an assumed coolness as he addressed the convicts in the following terms:— ‘¢ Prisoners, the absence of the individual, who should this day have completed the awful sentence which has been pronounced against the criminal doomed to expiate his dreadful action on that scaffold, obliges me to have recourse to an extremity seldom practised within these walls. You are assembled to witness the execution of a malefactor, not that mere idle curiosity may be gratified, nor because it is deemed indispensable that his blood be poured out in the presence of a crowd: QO no! you are called hither from a far different motive. It is that the example may be a salutary one; that the mournful ceremony may bea warning to you for the future, and an useful lesson against giving way to the intemperance of the VOL. 1.——10 Connicloookxs (C@ 5}