. But she kept herself
erect, bracing against the pedestal with her left hand. A red blotch was
spreading from her shoulder to her breast and down her side. There was
shock and pain in her eyes, but the half-smile was still on her lips.

"Une!" shouted the crowd, counting his first shot.

Jacques no longer needed a will of his own. The momentum of a thousand
deaths swept him along, overpowering everything else.

"Deux!" screamed the hundred thousand voices. "Deux! Deux!"

His second shot struck Ann well below the left shoulder, knocking her
away from the support of the pedestal, sprawling her in the dust. Yet so
indomitable was her will that she brought her hands together and raised
herself to her knees. Her entire upper body was covered with dust and
spreading fingers of crimson.

"Trois!" shrieked the maddened crowd. "Trois! Trois!"

Women tore away pieces of their clothing and waved them with savage
abandon.

"Trois! Trois! Trois!"

The third shot could barely be heard. Ann was lifted from her knees and
hurled backwards. She rolled over twice, then lay face downward, her
fingers digging in the hard earth.

With his last shot, the fierceness drained out of Jacques. He blinked
like a man awakening from a horrible dream. He stared at Ann's
shuddering body, not believing he could have done this. He cried out to
her, and ran to her side with great, lunging steps. His body shook with
dry sobs.

He turned her over tenderly, smoothed back the tangled hair from her
forehead, tried to wipe some of the dirt and bubbles of red from her
lips.

An FBIT man rushed toward them with a microphone. With one terrible
look, Jacques sent him scurrying back.

"Ann ... Ann ..." he cried. "What have I done?"

Her glazing, pain-filled eyes cleared for a moment, and drew him closer.
In them, for all the pain, there was peace at last. No reproach, no
disappointment. Only peace. And he knew then, what he should always have
known: That when a man lived as one with Death, he could not give less
to any person, nor expect more.

Ann's fingers crawled through the dust and touched the toe of his boot.
Her quivering lips twisted in a final grimace of ecstacy. And out of the
lonely void of the dying came the words he had always hoped to hear, and
would never hear again:

"Good night," she whispered. "You--were wonderful--my lover--my
husband."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Executioner, by Frank Riley

*** END