"I should advise you to say a prayer before you
die," I said.

"Do not worry about my soul any more than
your own. One thing I beg of you: be quick
about firing."

"And you do not recant your slander? You
do not beg my forgiveness? . . . Bethink you
well: has your conscience nothing to say to
you?"

"Mr. Pechorin!" exclaimed the captain of
dragoons. "Allow me to point out that you are
not here to preach. . . Let us lose no time, in
case anyone should ride through the gorge and
we should be seen."

"Very well. Doctor, come here!"

The doctor came up to me. Poor doctor! He
was paler than Grushnitski had been ten minutes
before.

The words which followed I purposely pro-
nounced with a pause between each -- loudly
and distinctly, as the sentence of death is pro-
nounced:

"Doctor, these gentlemen have forgotten, in