Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845.

The host had got everything ready, a bed, lint and bandages, and a messenger had been dispatched to Lens, which was the nearest town, to bring back a surgeon.

"You will follow us," said Raoul to the servants, "as soon as you have conveyed this person to his room. A horseman will arrive here in the course of the afternoon," added he to the innkeeper, "and will probably enquire if the Viscount de Braguelonne has passed this way. He is one of my attendants, and his name is Grimaud. You will tell him that I have passed, and shall sleep at Cambrin."

By this time the litter had reached the door of the inn. The monk got off his mule, ordered it to be put in the stable without unsaddling, and entered the house. The two young men rode away, followed by the benedictions of the wounded man.

The litter was just being carried into the inn, when the hostess hurried forward to receive her guests. On catching sight of the sufferer, she seized her husband's arm with an exclamation of terror.

"Well," said the host, "what is the matter?"

"Do you not recognise him?" said the woman, pointing to the wounded man.

"Recognise him! No – yet – surely I remember the face. Can it be?" —

"The former headsman of Bethune," said his wife, completing the sentence.

"The headsman of Bethune!" repeated the young monk, recoiling with a look and gesture of marked repugnance.

The chief of Raoul's attendants perceived the disgust with which the monk heard the quality of his penitent.

"Sir," he said, "although he may have been an executioner, or even if he still be so, it is no reason for refusing him the consolations of religion. Render him the service he claims at your hands, and you will have the more merit in the sight of God."

The monk made no reply, but entered a room on the ground-floor, in which the servants were now placing the wounded man upon a bed. As he did so, every one left the apartment, and the penitent remained alone with his confessor. The presence of Raoul's and De Guiche's followers being no longer required, the latter remounted their horses, and set off at a sharp trot to rejoin their masters, who were already out of sight.

They had been gone but a few minutes, when a single horseman rode up to the door of the inn.

"What is your pleasure, sir?" said the host, still pale and aghast at the discovery his wife had made.

"A feed for my horse, and a bottle of wine for myself," was the reply. "Have you seen a young gentleman pass by," continued the stranger, "mounted on a chestnut horse, and followed by two attendants."

"The Viscount de Braguelonne?" said the innkeeper.

"The same."

"Then you are Monsieur Grimaud?"

The traveller nodded assent.

"Your master was here not half an hour ago," said the host. "He has ridden on, and will sleep at Cambrin."

Grimaud sat down at a table, wiped the dust and perspiration from his face, poured out a glass of wine, and drank in silence. He was about to fill his glass a second time, when a loud shrill cry was heard, issuing from the apartment in which the monk and the patient were shut up together. Grimaud started to his feet.

"What is that?" exclaimed he.

"From the wounded man's room," replied the host.

"What wounded man?"

"The former headsman of Bethune, who has been set upon and sorely hurt by Spanish partisans. The Viscount de Braguelonne rescued and brought him hither, and he is now confessing himself to an Augustine friar. He seems to suffer terribly."

"The headsman of Bethune," muttered Grimaud, apparently striving to recollect something. "A man of fifty-five or sixty years of age, tall and powerful; of dark complexion, with black hair and beard?"

"The same; excepting that his beard has become grey, and his hair white. Do you know him?"

"I have seen him once," replied Grimaud gloomily.

At this moment another cry was heard, less loud than the first, but followed by a long deep groan. Grimaud and the innkeeper looked at each other.

"It is like the cry of a man who is being murdered," said the latter.

"We must see what it is," said Grimaud.

Although slow to speak, Grimaud was prompt in action. He rushed to the door, and shook it violently; it was secured on the inner side.

"Open the door instantly," cried he, "or I break it down."

No answer was returned. Grimaud looked around him, and perceived a heavy crowbar standing in a corner of the passage. This he seized hold of, and before the host could interfere, the door was burst open. The room was inundated with blood, which was trickling from the mattrass; there was a hoarse rattling in the wounded man's throat; the monk had disappeared. Grimaud hurried to an open window which looked upon the court-yard.

"He has escaped through this," said he.

"Do you think so?" said the host. "Boy, see if the monk's mule is still in the stable."

"It is gone," was the answer.

Grimaud approached the bed, and gazed upon the harsh and strongly marked features of the wounded man.

"Is he still alive?" said the host.

Without replying, Grimaud opened the man's doublet to feel if his heart beat, and at the same time the innkeeper approached the bed. Suddenly both started back with an exclamation of horror. A poniard was buried to the hilt in the left breast of the headsman.

What had passed between the priest and his penitent was as follows.

It has been seen that the monk showed himself little disposed to delay his journey in order to receive the confession of the wounded man; so little, indeed, that he would probably have endeavoured to avoid it by flight, had not the menaces of the Count de Guiche, and afterwards the presence of the servants, or perhaps his own reflections, induced him to perform to the end the duties of his sacred office.

On finding himself alone with the sufferer, he approached the pillow of the latter. The headsman examined him with one of those rapid, anxious looks peculiar to dying men, and made a movement of surprise.

"You are very young, holy father," said he.

"Those who wear my dress have no age," replied the monk severely.

"Alas, good father, speak to me more kindly! I need a friend in these my last moments."

"Do you suffer much?" asked the monk.

"Yes, but in soul rather than in body."

"We will save your soul," said the young man; "but, tell me, are you really the executioner of Bethune, as these people say?"

"I was," replied the wounded man hurriedly, as though fearful that the acknowledgment of his degrading profession might deprive him of the assistance of which he stood in such imminent need. "I was, but I am so no longer; I gave up my office many years ago. I am still obliged to appear at executions, but I no longer officiate. Heaven forbid that I should!"