moment! The iron grasp was sudden and solid as the grip of a vice;
the man's arm held my waist like a bar of steel. "I arrest you!"
he cried, and the soldiers immediately closed round us. At once
I realised the hopelessness of the situation,--the utter futility
of resistance. "Vous n'avez pas besoin de me tenir ainsi," I said
to the officer; "j irai tranquillement" He loosened his hold and
we were then marched off to another military station, in a different
part of the town from that whence we had escaped. The man who had
arrested me was a sergeant or some officer in petty command. He
took me alone with him into the guardroom, and placed before me
on a wooden table some papers which he told me to fill in and sign.
Then he sat down opposite to me and I looked through the papers.
They were forms, with blanks left for descriptions specifying the
name, occupation, age, address and so forth of arrested persons.
I signed these, and pushing them across the table to the man, asked
him what was to be done with us. "You will be shot," he replied,
quickly and decisively. "Both of us?" I asked. "Both," he replied.
"But," said I, "my companion has done nothing to deserve death.
He was drawn into this struggle entirely by me. Consider, too,
his advanced age. His hair is white; he stoops, and, had it not
been for the difficulty with which he moves his limbs, both of us
would probably be at this moment in a place of safety. What can
you gain by shooting an old man such as he?" The officer was silent.
He neither favored nor discouraged me by his manner. While I sat
awaiting his reply, I glanced at the hand with which I had just
signed the papers, and a sudden idea flashed into my mind. "At
least," I said, "grant me one request. If my companion must die,
let me die first." Now I made this request for the following reason.
In my right hand, the line of life broke abruptly halfway in its
length, indicating a sudden and violent death. But the point at