"
She judged it prudent to be more stern to her accomplice than the
executioners themselves.
The sixth and seventh wedges were driven in without a word of
complaint from Christophe. His face shone with extraordinary
brilliancy, due, no doubt, to the excess of strength which his fanatic
devotion gave him. Where else but in the feelings of the soul can we
find the power necessary to bear such sufferings? Finally, he smiled
when he saw the executioner lifting the eighth and last wedge. This
horrible torture had lasted by this time over an hour.
The clerk now went to call the physician that he might decide whether
the eighth wedge could be driven in without endangering the life of the
victim. During this delay the duke returned to look at Christophe.
"/Ventre-de-biche/! you are a fine fellow," he said to him, bending
down to whisper the words. "I love brave men. Enter my service, and
you shall be rich and happy; my favors shall heal those wounded limbs.
I do not propose to you any baseness; I will not ask you to return to
your party and betray its plans,--there are always traitors enough for
that, and the proof is in the prisons of Blois; tell me only on what
terms are the queen-mother and the Prince de Conde?"
"I know nothing about it, monseigneur," replied Christophe Lecamus.
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