tenderness, such as Franz had never before witnessed in them; his black eyes especially were full of kindness and pity.
However, the two culprits advanced, and as they approached their faces became visible. Peppino was a handsome young man of four or five-and-twenty, bronzed by the sun; he carried his head erect, and seemed on the watch to see on which side his liberator would appear. Andrea was short and fat; his visage, marked with brutal cruelty, did not indicate age; he might be thirty. In prison he had suffered his beard to grow; his head fell on his shoulder, his legs bent beneath him, and his movements were apparently automatic and unconscious.
“I thought,” said Franz to the count, “that you told me there would be but one execution.”
“I told you true,” replied he coldly.
“And yet here are two culprits.”
“Yes; but only one of these two is about to die; the other has many years to live.”
“If the pardon is to come, there is no time to lose.”
“And see, here it is,” said the count. At the moment when Peppino reached the foot of the mandaïa , a priest arrived in some haste, forced his way through the soldiers, and, advancing to the chief of the brotherhood, gave him a folded paper. The piercing eye of Peppino had noticed all. The chief took the paper, unfolded it, and, raising his hand, “Heaven be praised, and his Holiness also,” said he in a loud voice; “here is a pardon for one of the prisoners!”
“A pardon!” cried the people with one voice; “a pardon!”
At this cry Andrea raised his head.