One hand clasping clearly is not enough for this conversation-- he claps the other to Feuilly's arm and gives that a squeeze too. "Ah, my friend-- my friend-- if it must be, I would it had been quickly done--"

Feuilly's actually dead, he died, and for some reason that fact had not seemed entirely real to Hotspur until now, until he can picture the men he has seen die bloody and slow but now with Feuilly's face, and oh yes it's glorious to die in battle, to die in honor, to die for a great cause (as he has no doubt at all that Feuilly did)-- but at the moment mostly it just seems unfair and he knots his fingers into Feuilly's sleeve, just a bit, to conceal their slight trembling.