continued the executioner, without opening his eyes, as if he feared on opening them to see some frightful object, “it is especially when night comes on and when I have to cross a river, that this terror which I have been unable to conquer comes upon me; it then seems as if my hand grew heavy, as if the cutlass was still in its grasp, as if the water had the color of blood, and all the voices of nature — the whispering of the trees, the murmur of the wind, the lapping of the wave — united in a voice tearful, despairing, terrible, crying to me, ‘Place for the justice of God!

’“

“Delirium!” murmured the monk, shaking his head.

The executioner opened his eyes, turned toward the young man and grasped his arm.