Belle-Rose — page 212: what you’re looking at

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

THE ARGUMENTS OF A MINISTER. 201 ‘*Let your will be done.’’ The governor made a sign to two men whom Belle-Rose had not remarked, and who had remained up to this mo- ment in an obscure corner of the hall. These two men seized the prisoner and began to undress him. When he no longer had anything on except his trousers and his shirt, they extended. him upon a sort of long chair; his arms were tied to the rounds of the chair, and the physi- cian approached the patient. Belle-Rose had not made the least resistance to all this. When he was half stretched out upon the chair the governor asked him if he still per- sisted in his refusal.: ‘‘I cannot desert at tha moment of combat,’’ Belle-Rose answered him, with a pale smile. “Then the order must be executed,’ said the governor. — One of the torturers brought near the chair two large buckets full of water, filled a pint cup, and advanced it to the patient’s lips. _ ‘‘Ah!’’ said Belle-Rose, ‘‘it is the torture of water.’’ ‘Yes, monsieur,’’ said the physician, ‘‘it sometimes kills, but if one escapes it, one is not mutilated. ’”’ Belle-Rose thanked the governor by a look and swal- lowed the pint of water. A second one was presented to him, but he could not drink it all. One of the assistants laid his head back and emptied the pint even to the last drop. Belle-Rose trembled. ‘‘We are ready to receive your confessions, monsieur,’’ the governor said; ‘‘do you wish to speak?”’ A third pint was raised to the height of Belle-Rose’s lips, he drank a few swallows, but his teeth came together ~ by a convulsive movement, and the water flowed over his naked breast. ‘‘Do you still persist in your silence, monsieur?’’ inter- rupted the governor. ‘*Yes,’’ said Belle-Rose, in a choking voice. One of the torturers half parted his lips by the aid of a _ piece of iron, introduced into Belle-Rose’s mouth the neck of a funnel, and poured down another pint. Belle-Rose grew horribly pale; his fingers clasped the wood, and with a Shock, extorted by grief, he shook the chair upon which he was tied. Another pint of water disappeared in the funnel, then still another. Great drops of sweat rolled down the patient’s forehead, his eyes became blood-shot, and his cheeks took on a bluish tinge. The governor re- iterated his question; Belle-Rose could still hear, but no longer being able to reply, he made a negative sign of the (E(0) Gomicbooks