He was a well-known coward, and it was feared
he would disgrace his country at the last moment in the presence of the
French soldiers, who had a way of being shot with a good grace and a
light heart: they had grown accustomed to it.
For the honor of Sicily his confessor told him, in the strictest
confidence, that his sentence was a mock one, and that he would be fired
at with blank cartridges.
It was a pious fraud. All but two of the twelve cartridges had bullets,
and he fell, riddled through and through. No Frenchman ever died with a
lighter heart, a better grace. He was superb, and the national honor
was saved.
Thrice happy Sicilian drum-major, if the story be true! That trust in
blank cartridges was his paradise.
* * * * *
Oh, it is uphill work to be a stoic when the moment comes and the tug!
But when the tug lasts for more than a moment--days and nights, days and
nights! Oh, happy Sicilian drum-major!
* * * * *
Pray? Yes, I will pray night and morning, and all day long, to whatever
there is left of inherited strength and courage in that luckless,
misbegotten waif, Peter Ibbetson; that it may bear him up a little while
yet; that he may not disgrace himself in the dock or on the gallows.
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