Methinks the boon is
not so great, if the restoration of your son be the
price."
"Do you mean, then," eagerly returned the governor, "that
if the mere mode of your death be changed, my son shall
be restored?"
"I do," was the calm reply.
"What pledge have we of the fact? What faith can we repose
in the word of a fiend, whose brutal vengeance has already
sacrificed the gentlest life that ever animated human
clay?" Here the emotion of the governor almost choked,
his utterance, and considerable agitation and murmuring
were manifested in the ranks.
"Gentle, said you?" replied the prisoner, musingly; "then
did he resemble his mother, whom I loved, even as his
brother resembles you whom I have had so much reason to
hate. Had I known the boy to be what you describe, I
might have felt some touch of pity even while I delayed
not to strike his death blow; but the false moonlight
deceived me, and the detested name of De Haldimar,
pronounced by the lips of my nephew's wife--that wife
whom your cold-blooded severity had widowed and driven
mad--was in itself sufficient to ensure his doom."
"Inhuman ruffian!" exclaimed the governor, with increasing
indignation; "to the point.
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