The phantoms pursued him, grinning and screaming in his ears:-- "Cursed be he who slayeth his mother!" Charles was roused from these horrors by the cries of his brothers, who had come to embrace him for the last time before embarking.

The duke in a low voice asked their pardon, and then fell back into his state of despair.

The children were dragged away, begging to be allowed to share their brother's fate, and crying for death as an alleviation of their woes.

At length they were separated, but the sound of their lamentation sounded long in the heart of the condemned man.

After a few moments, two soldiers and two equerries came to tell the duke that his hour had come.
Charles followed them, unresisting, to the fatal balcony where Andre had been hanged.