officials are so slow. If it's any comfort to you, you may know that
they wrong me, too. They won't accept my resignation. Yes, that's how
it is with us," concluded the old man.

Then he went and brought a pot with rusty steel pens. "But don't you
spoil them!" For they were the very pens with which death-warrants had
been signed--the old man had a collection of such things and hoped to
sell it to a rich Englishman. "Does your honour require anything
else?" With those mocking words he left the cell and raged and cursed
all along the corridor. The prisoners thought he was cursing them.


The judge, his hands behind his back, walked up and down his large
study. What a cursed critical case! If the Chancellor had not been
given up by the doctors on the day of the trial, the sentence would
have been different. The petition for mercy! Would it have any result
except that of prolonging the poor man's torture? Whether in the end
it would not have been better----? Everything would have been over
then. An old official came out of the adjoining room and laid a bundle
of papers on the table.

"One moment. Has the petition for mercy been sent to His Majesty?"

"It has, sir."

"What's your opinion?" asked the judge.

The counsellor raised his shoulders and let them fall again.