"It is time!" solemnly said the lieutenant.
The priest muttered his prayers, and the assistants swung their
censers. Without, the death-bell kept up its wail; and from the
court was heard the hum of the mob, which, curious and bloodthirsty
as it ever is, had streamed hither to behold with laughing mouth the
blood of the man who but yesterday was its favorite.
Earl Surrey stood there a moment in silence. His features worked and
were convulsed, and a deathlike pallor covered his cheeks.
He trembled, not at death, but at dying. It seemed to him that he
already felt on his neck the cold broad-axe which that frightful man
there held in his hand. Oh, to die on the battle-field--what a boon
it would have been! To come to an end on the scaffold--what a
disgrace was this!
"Henry Howard, my son, are you prepared to die?" asked the priest.
"Have you made your peace with God? Do you repent of your sins, and
do you acknowledge death as a righteous expiation and punishment? Do
you forgive your enemies, and depart hence at peace with yourself
and with mankind?"
"I am prepared to die," said Surrey, with a proud smile; "the other
questions, my father, I will answer to my God."
"Do you confess that you were a wicked traitor? And do you beg the
forgiveness of your noble and righteous, your exalted and good king,
for the blasphemous injury to his sacred majesty?"
Earl Surrey looked him steadily in the eye. "Do you know what crime
I am accused of?"
The priest cast down his eyes, and muttered a few unintelligible
words.
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