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the criminal. Soon after their arrival, the melancholy procession
approached, and Florian, unable to face the criminal, turned hastily
away, ascended the ladder with unsteady steps, and concealed himself
behind the massive person of the old headsman, as the victim of offended
justice, with a firm and measured step, mounted the scaffold. The old
man felt for his shrinking son-in-law, but kept a stern eye upon him,
in hopes to counteract the disabling effects of his rising agony.
When, however, the decisive moment approached, he whispered to him
encouragingly--"Be a man, Florian! Beware of looking at the criminal
before you strike; but when his head is lifted, look him boldly in the
face, or the people will doubt your courage."

Florian fixed on him a vacant stare, but these kindly-meant instructions
reached not his inward ear. The remembrance of the execution he had
witnessed with his friend Bartholdy had flashed upon him, and he
recollected the taunting prediction--that he might himself be condemned
to the scaffold. His agony rose almost to suffocation; he compared his
own destiny with that of the being whom he was about to deprive of life,
and he felt that he could not unwillingly have taken his place. At this
moment his attention was caught by the admiring comments of the crowd
upon the courageous bearing and firm unflinching features of the
criminal. Roused by these exclamations to a stinging consciousness of
his own unmanly timidity, he made a powerful effort, and rallied his
expiring energies into temporary life and action. The headsman now
approached him with the broad axe, and whispered, "Courage, my son!
'tis nothing but a cabbage-head."

With a desperate effort, Florian seized the weapon, fixed his dim gaze
upon the white neck of the criminal, and, guided more by long practice
than by any estimate of place and distance, he struck the death-stroke.
The head fell upon the hollow flooring of the scaffold with an appalling
bounce, which petrified the unfortunate executioner. The consciousness
that he had deprived a fellow-creature of life now smote him with a
withering power, which for some moments deprived him of all volition,
and he stood in passive stupor, gazing wildly upon the blood which
streamed in torrents from the headless trunk. Immediately, however, his
father-in-law again approached him, with a whisper. "Admirably done, my
son! I give you joy! But recollect my warning, and look boldly at your
work,