The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hans of Iceland, Vol. 2 of 2; The Last Day of a Condemned
    
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Title: Hans of Iceland, Vol. 2 of 2; The Last Day of a Condemned

Author: Victor Hugo

Contributor: Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood

Release date: May 1, 2021 [eBook #65215]

Language: English

Credits: David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANS OF ICELAND, VOL. 2 OF 2; THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED ***




                            HANS OF ICELAND

              [Illustration: _Ordener convicts Himself._

    Etched by Léopold Flameng.--From drawing by François Flameng.]




                            Hans of Iceland

                            IN TWO VOLUMES
                               VOL. II.

                           The Last Day of a
                               Condemned

                                  BY
                              VICTOR HUGO

                            [Illustration]

                           Centenary Edition


                        _BOSTON_ · DANA ESTES &
                        COMPANY · _PUBLISHERS_


                         The Centenary Edition

                        LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND
                         COPIES · _NUMBER_ 555




                        LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

                               VOL. II.


                                                                    PAGE

ORDENER CONVICTS HIMSELF                                   _Frontispiece_

SCHUMACKER AND HIS DAUGHTER MADE PRISONERS                            88

THE MARRIAGE OF ETHEL AND ORDENER                                    139

“FORBEAR,” SAID THE BISHOP                                           163

“THE POOR MOTHER WAS INSANE”                                         193


                     THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED.

“CONDEMNED TO DEATH”                                                 225

THE PRIEST AND THE CONDEMNED MAN                                     277




HANS OF ICELAND.




XXX.

     Peter, good fellow, has lost his all at dice.--RÉGNIER.


The regiment of musketeers from Munkholm was on the march through the
narrow passes lying between Throndhjem and Skongen. Sometimes it moved
along the brink of a torrent, and the long line of bayonets crept
through the ravine like a huge serpent with glittering scales; sometimes
it wound around a mountain, making it look like one of those triumphal
columns about which curves an army of heroes in bronze.

The soldiers marched with trailing weapons and cloaks dragging in the
dust, looking surly and tired, for these noble fellows are averse to
anything but battle or inaction. The coarse banter and threadbare jests
which delighted them but yesterday had lost their savor. The air was
chill, the sky clouded. Nothing would raise a laugh in the ranks, unless
one of the sutler-women should get an awkward tumble from her little
Barbary horse, or a tin saucepan should happen to roll over the
precipice and rebound from rock to rock.

To while away the monotony of the journey, Lieutenant Randmer, a young
Danish baron, accosted old Captain Lory, who had risen from the ranks.
The captain, moody and silent, moved with a heavy but confident step;
the lieutenant, light and agile, played with a twig which he had plucked
from the bushes that lined the read.

“Well, Captain, what ails you? You seem depressed.”

“And I should say I had good cause,” replied the old officer, without
raising his eyes.

“Come, come, no regrets! Look at me. Am I depressed? And yet I would
wager that I have quite as much cause as you.”

“I doubt it, Baron Randmer; I have lost all I possessed; I have lost
everything I loved.”

“Captain Lory, our misfortunes are precisely the same. It is not a
fortnight since Lieutenant Alberick won my castle and estate at a single
deal of the cards. I am ruined; but am I the less gay?”

The captain answered in a very melancholy tone: “Lieutenant, you have
only lost your castle; but I have lost my dog.”

At this answer the light-minded baron seemed uncertain whether to laugh
or sympathize; but he said: “Be comforted, Captain. Only think, I, who
have lost my castle--”

The captain broke in upon his words:--

“What of that? Besides, you may win back another castle.”

“And you may find another dog.”

The old man shook his head.

“I may find another dog, but I shall never find my poor Drake.”

He paused; great tears gathered in his eyes and rolled one by one down
his hard, stern face.

“He was all I ever had to love,” he added; “I never knew my parents. God
grant them peace, and my poor Drake too! Lieutenant Randmer, he saved my
life in the Pomeranian war. I called him Drake in honor of the famous
admiral. My good dog! He never changed, as did my fortunes. After the
battle of Oholfen, the great General Schack patted him, and said:
‘You’ve a fine dog there, Sergeant Lory!’--for I was only a sergeant
then.”

“Ah!” interrupted the young baron, slashing his switch, “how queer it
must seem to be a sergeant.”

The old soldier of fortune did not hear him; he appeared to be talking
to himself, and Randmer could only catch a word here and there.

“Poor Drake! After surviving so many breaches and trenches, to be
drowned like a blind kitten in that confounded Throndhjem fjord! My poor
dog! my trusty friend! You deserved to die on the field of battle, as I
hope to do.”

“Come, come, Captain!” cried the lieutenant, “how can you be so
despondent? We may get a chance to fight to-morrow.”

“Yes,” contemptuously answered the old captain, “with a pretty enemy!”

“What! do you despise those rascally miners, those devilish
mountaineers?”

“Stone-cutters, highwaymen, fellows who don’t know the first rudiments
of warfare! A fine set of blackguards to face a man like me, who has
served in all the wars in Pomerania and Holstein, in the campaigns of
Scania and Dalecarlia; who fought under the glorious General Schack and
the brave Count Guldenlew!”

“But don’t you know,” interrupted Randmer, “that these fellows are led
by a formidable chief,--a giant as big and as brutal as Goliath, a
rascal who drinks nothing but human blood, a very Satan incarnate?”

“And who may he be?” asked the captain.

“Why, the famous Hans of Iceland!”

“Pooh! I’ll wager that this great general does not know how to shoulder
a musket or handle a carbine properly.”

Randmer laughed.

“Yes, you may laugh,” continued the captain. “It will be very funny, no
doubt, to cross swords with scurvy pickaxes, and pikes with pitchforks!
Here are worthy foes indeed! My brave Drake would have scorned to snap
at their heels!”

The captain was still giving free vent to his indignation, when he was
interrupted by the arrival of an officer, who ran up to them all out of
breath,--

“Captain Lory! my dear Randmer!”

“Well?” asked both at once.

“My friends, I am faint with horror! D’Ahlefeld, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld,
the lord chancellor’s son! You know, my dear Randmer, that
Frederic--such a dandy! such a fop!”

“Yes,” replied the young baron, “a great dandy! Still, at the last ball
at Charlottenburg my costume was in much better taste than his. But what
has happened to him?”

“I know whom you mean,” said Lory; “you mean Frederic d’Ahlefeld,
lieutenant of Company Three. The men wear blue facings. He neglects his
duty sadly.”

“You will not have to complain of him again, Captain Lory.”

“Why not?” said Randmer.

“He is garrisoned at Wahlstrom,” coldly added the old officer.

“Exactly,” said the new-comer; “the colonel has just received a message.
Poor Frederic!”

“But what has happened? Captain Bollar, you alarm me.”

Old Lory added: “Nonsense! The popinjay was absent from roll-call, I
suppose, and the captain has sent the lord chancellor’s son to prison:
that is the misfortune which distresses you so sadly; I am sure it is.”

Bollar clapped him on the shoulder.

“Captain Lory, Lieutenant d’Ahlefeld has been devoured alive.”

The two captains looked each other in the face; and Randmer, startled
for an instant, suddenly burst out laughing.

“Oh, Captain Bollar, I see you are as fond of a joke as ever! But you
can’t fool me in that way, I warn you.”

And the lieutenant, folding his arms, gave way to mirth, swearing that
what amused him the most was to see how readily Lory swallowed all
Bollar’s ridiculous stories. As for the story, he said it was a capital
one; and it was a most clever idea to pretend that Frederic, who took
such dainty, such absurd care of his complexion, had been swallowed raw.

“Randmer,” said Bollar, seriously, “you act like a fool. I tell you
d’Ahlefeld is dead; I have it from the colonel,--dead!”

“Oh, how well you play your part!” rejoined the baron, still laughing;
“what a funny fellow you are!”

Bollar shrugged his shoulders, and turned to old Lory, who quietly asked
the particulars.

“Oh, yes, my dear Captain Bollar,” added the irrepressible mocker; “tell
us who ate the poor devil. Did he serve as breakfast for a wolf, or
supper for a bear?”

“The colonel,” said Bollar, “received a despatch just now, informing
him, in the first place, that the Wahlstrom garrison is retreating
toward us, driven back by a large party of rebels.”

Old Lory frowned.

“In the second place,” resumed Bollar, “that Lieutenant Frederic
d’Ahlefeld, having gone into the mountains three days since to hunt, was
captured near Arbar ruins by a monster, who carried him to his lair and
there devoured him.”

At this, Lieutenant Randmer’s merriment increased.

“Oh, how our good Lory swallows your stories! That’s right; keep up a
sober face, Bollar. You are wonderfully amusing; but you don’t tell us
what this monster, this ogre, this vampire was, that carried off and ate
up the lieutenant like a week-old kid!”

“I will not tell you,” impatiently answered Bollar; “but I will tell
Lory, who is not such an incredulous fool. Lory, my dear fellow, the
monster who drank Frederic’s blood was Hans of Iceland.”

“The leader of the rebels!” exclaimed the old officer.

“Well, Lory,” rejoined the scoffer, “do you think a man who handles his
jaw so ably needs to know how to shoulder a musket?”

“Baron Randmer,” said Bollar, “you are very like d’Ahlefeld in
character; beware lest you meet with the same fate.”

“I declare,” cried Randmer, “that Captain Bollar’s immovable gravity
amuses me beyond expression.”

“And Lieutenant Randmer’s inexhaustible laughter alarms me more than I
can say.”

At this moment a group of officers, engaged in eager conversation,
approached our three speakers.

“Zounds!” cried Randmer, “I must amuse them with Bollar’s story.”

“Comrades,” he added, advancing to meet them; “have you heard the news?
Poor Frederic d’Ahlefeld has been eaten alive by the barbarous Hans of
Iceland.”

As he said these words, he could not repress a burst of laughter, which,
to his great surprise, was received by the new-comers almost with shouts
of indignation.

“What! can you laugh? I did not think, Randmer, that you would repeat
such a dreadful piece of news so lightly. How can you laugh at such a
misfortune?”

“What!” said Randmer, much confused, “is it really true?”

“Why, you just told us of it yourself!” was the general cry. “Don’t you
believe your own words?”

“But I thought it was one of Bollar’s jokes.”

An old officer interposed.

“Such a joke would be in very bad taste; but unfortunately it is no
joke. Baron Vœthaün, our colonel, has just received the sad news.”

“A fearful affair! It is really awful!” repeated a dozen voices.

“So we are to fight wolves and bears with human faces,” said one.

“We are to be shot down,” said another, “without knowing whence the
bullet comes; we are to be picked off one by one, like birds in a cage.”

“D’Ahlefeld’s death,” said Bollar, in a solemn tone, “makes me shudder.
Our regiment is unlucky. Dispolsen’s murder, that of those poor soldiers
found dead at Cascadthymore, d’Ahlefeld’s awful fate,--here are three
tragic events in a very short space of time.”

Young Baron Randmer, who had been silent, looked up.

“It is incredible,” said he; “Frederic, who danced so well!”

And after this weighty remark he relapsed into silence, while Captain
Lory declared that he was greatly distressed at the young lieutenant’s
death, and drew the attention of private Toric-Belfast to the fact that
the brass clasp of his shoulder-belt was not so bright as usual.




XXXI.

     “Hush, hush! here comes a man climbing down a ladder.”

            *       *       *       *       *

     “Oh, yes; he is a spy.”

     “Heaven could grant me no greater favor than to let me offer
     you--my life. I am yours; but tell me, for mercy’s sake, to whom
     does this army belong?”

     “To a count from Barcelona.”

     “What count?”

            *       *       *       *       *

     “What is it?”

     “General, one of the enemy’s spies.”

     “Whence come you?”

     “I came here, little dreaming what I should find; little thinking
     what I should see.”--LOPE DE VEGA: _La Fuerza Lastimosa_.


There is something desolate and forbidding in the aspect of a bare, flat
region when the sun has set, when one is alone; when, as he walks, he
tramples the dry grass beneath his feet, the dead brown leaves drop
rustling from the trees, he hears the monotonous cry of the cricket,
and sees huge, shapeless clouds sink slowly on the horizon like dead
ghosts.

Such were Ordener’s gloomy reflections on the night of his vain
encounter with the Iceland robber. Startled by his abrupt disappearance,
he at first tried to pursue him; but he lost his way in the heather, and
wandered all day through a wild and uncultivated country, where he found
no trace of man. At nightfall he was in a vast plain stretching to the
horizon on every side, where there seemed no hope of shelter for the
young traveller exhausted by fatigue and hunger.

It would have been a slight relief if his bodily suffering had not been
aggravated by mental distress; but all was over. He had reached his
journey’s end without accomplishing his purpose. He could not even
cherish those foolish illusions of hope which had urged him to pursue
the monster; and now that nothing was left to sustain his courage,
countless discouraging thoughts, for which he had hitherto had no room,
assailed him. What could he do? How could he return to Schumacker unless
he could take with him Ethel’s salvation? What was the frightful nature
of the misfortune which the possession of the fatal casket would
prevent, and what of his marriage to Ulrica d’Ahlefeld? If he could only
free his Ethel from her undeserved captivity; if he could fly with her,
and enjoy uninterrupted happiness in some distant exile!

He wrapped himself in his mantle, and threw himself upon the ground. The
sky was dark; a tempestuous light ever and anon appeared in the clouds
as if through a veil of crape and then vanished; a cold wind swept
across the plain. The young man scarcely heeded these signs of an
immediate and violent storm; and besides, even could he have found
shelter from the tempest and a place to rest from his fatigues, could he
have found a spot where he might avoid his misery or rest from thought?

All at once confused sounds of men’s voices fell upon his ear. In
surprise, he rose upon his elbow, and perceived at some distance a
number of shadowy forms moving through the darkness. He looked again; a
light shone in the midst of the mysterious group, and Ordener, with
astonishment which may easily be imagined, saw the weird forms sink one
after the other into the centre of the earth, until all had disappeared.

Ordener was above the superstitions of his age and country. His serious
and mature mind knew none of those vain beliefs, those strange terrors,
which torture the childhood of a race as well as the childhood of a man.
And yet there was something supernatural about this singular vision
which filled him with devout distrust against his better judgment; for
who can tell whether the spirits of the dead may not sometimes return to
earth?

He rose, made the sign of the cross, and walked toward the spot where
the apparition vanished.

Big drops of rain now began to fall; his cloak filled like a sail, and
the feather in his cap, beaten by the wind, flapped in his face.

He stopped suddenly. A flash of lightning revealed just at his feet a
large, round well, into which he must inevitably have fallen headlong
had it not have been for this friendly warning. He approached the abyss.
A faint light was visible at a fearful depth, and cast a red glow over
the bottom of this huge opening in the bowels of the earth. The light,
which seemed like a magic fire kindled by elves, only increased the
immeasurable darkness which the eye was forced to pierce before reaching
it.

The dauntless youth leaned over the abyss and listened. A distant murmur
of voices rose to his ear. He no longer doubted that the beings who had
so strangely appeared and disappeared before his very eyes had plunged
into this gulf, and he felt an unconquerable desire, doubtless because
it was so fated, to follow them, even should he pursue spectres to the
mouth of hell. Moreover, the tempest now burst with fury, and this hole
would afford him a shelter; but how was he to descend? What road had
those he longed to follow taken, if indeed they were not phantoms? A
second flash came to his aid, and showed him at his feet a ladder
leading into the depths of the well. It consisted of a strong upright
beam, crossed at regular intervals by short iron bars for the hands and
feet of those who might venture into the gulf below.

Ordener did not hesitate. He swung himself boldly down upon the dreadful
ladder, and plunged into the abyss without knowing whether it reached
the bottom or not,--without reflecting that he might never again see the
sun. Soon he could only distinguish the sky from the darkness overhead
by the bluish flashes which lit it up at brief intervals; soon the rain
pouring in torrents upon the surface of the earth, reached him merely as
a fine, vaporous mist. Then the whirlwind, rushing violently into the
well, was lost above him in a prolonged moan. He went down and down, and
yet seemed scarcely nearer to the subterranean light. He went on without
losing heart, never looking below lest he should become dizzy and fall.

However, the air becoming more and more stifling, the sound of voices
more and more distinct, and the purplish glow which began to tinge the
walls of the pit, warned him that he was not far from the bottom. He
descended a few more rounds, and saw plainly at the foot of the ladder
the entrance to an underground passage lighted by a flickering red
flame, while his ear caught words which won his entire attention.

“Kennybol does not come,” said an impatient voice.

“What can detain him?” repeated the same voice, after a brief pause.

“No one knows, Mr. Hacket,” was the reply.

“He intended to spend the night with his sister, Maase Braal, in the
village of Surb,” added a different voice.

“You see,” rejoined the first speaker, “I keep my promises. I agreed to
bring Hans of Iceland for your leader. I have brought him.”

An indistinct murmur followed these words. Ordener’s curiosity, already
aroused by the name of Kennybol, who had so astonished him the night
before, was redoubled at the name of Hans of Iceland.

The same voice continued:--

“My friends, Jonas, Norbith, what matters it if Kennybol is late? There
are enough of us; we need fear nothing. Did you find your standards at
Crag ruins?”

“Yes, Mr. Hacket,” replied several voices.

“Well, raise your banners; it is high time! Here is gold! Here is your
invincible chief! Courage! March to the rescue of the noble Schumacker,
the unfortunate Count Griffenfeld!”

“Hurrah! hurrah for Schumacker!” repeated many voices; and the name of
Schumacker echoed and re-echoed from the subterranean arches.

Ordener, more and more curious, more and more amazed, listened, hardly
daring to breathe. He could neither believe nor understand what he
heard. Schumacker connected with Kennybol and Hans of Iceland! What was
this dark drama, one scene in which he, an unsuspected spectator, had
witnessed? Whose life did they wish to shield? Whose head was at stake?

“In me,” continued the same voice, “you see the friend and confidant of
the noble Count Griffenfeld.”

The voice was wholly unfamiliar to Ordener. It went on: “Put implicit
trust in me, as he does. Friends, everything is in your favor; you will
reach Throndhjem without meeting an enemy.”

“Let us be off, Mr. Hacket,” interrupted a voice. “Peters told me that
he saw the whole regiment from Munkholm marching through the
mountain-passes to attack us.”

“He deceived you,” replied the other, in authoritative tones. “The
government as yet knows nothing of your revolt, and it is so wholly
unsuspicious that the man who rejected your just complaints--your
oppressor, the oppressor of the illustrious and unfortunate Schumacker,
General Levin de Knud--has left Throndhjem for the capital, to join in
the festivities on the occasion of the marriage of his ward, Ordener
Guldenlew, and Ulrica d’Ahlefeld.”

Ordener’s feelings may be imagined. To hear all these names which
interested him so deeply, and even his own, uttered by unknown voices in
this wild, desolate region, in this mysterious tunnel! A frightful
thought pierced his soul. Could it be true? Was it indeed an agent of
Count Griffenfeld whose voice he heard? What! could Schumacker, that
venerable old man, his noble Ethel’s noble father, revolt against his
royal master, hire brigands, and kindle a civil war? And it was for this
hypocrite, this rebel, that he, the son of the Norwegian viceroy, the
pupil of General Levin, had compromised his future and risked his life!
It was for his sake that he had sought and fought with that Iceland
bandit with whom Schumacker seemed to be in league, since he placed him
at the head of these scoundrels! Who knows but that casket for which he,
Ordener, was on the point of shedding his lifeblood, contained some of
the base secrets of this vile plot? Or had the revengeful prisoner of
Munkholm made a fool of him? Perhaps he had found out his name;
perhaps--and this thought was painful indeed to the generous youth--he
wished to ruin the son of an enemy by urging him to this fatal journey!

Alas! when we have long loved and revered the name of an unfortunate
man, when in our secret soul we have vowed everlasting devotion to his
misfortunes, it is bitter to be repaid with ingratitude, to feel that we
are forever disenchanted with generosity, and that we must renounce the
pure, sweet joys of loyal self-sacrifice. We grow old in an instant with
the most melancholy form of old age; we grow old in experience, and we
lose the most beautiful illusion of a life whose only beauty lies in its
illusions.

Such were the dispiriting thoughts that crowded confusedly upon
Ordener’s mind. The noble youth longed to die at that instant; he felt
that his happiness had vanished. True, there were many things in the
assertions of the man who described himself as Griffenfeld’s envoy which
struck him as false or doubtful; but these statements, being only meant
to deceive a set of poor rustics, Schumacker was but the more guilty in
his eyes; and this same Schumacker was his Ethel’s father!

These reflections agitated him the more violently because they all
thronged upon him at once. He reeled against the rounds of the ladder on
which he stood, and listened still; for we sometimes wait with
inexplicable impatience and fearful eagerness for the misfortunes which
we dread the most.

“Yes,” added the voice of the envoy, “you are to be commanded by the
much-dreaded Hans of Iceland. Who will dare resist you? You fight for
your wives and your children, basely despoiled of their inheritance; for
a noble and unfortunate man, who for twenty years has languished
unjustly in an infamous prison. Come, for Schumacker and liberty await
you. Death to tyrants!”

“Death!” repeated a thousand voices; and the clash of arms rang through
the winding cave, mingled with the hoarse note of the mountaineer’s
horn.

“Stop!” cried Ordener.

He hurriedly descended the remainder of the ladder; for the idea that he
might save Schumacker from committing a crime and spare his country
untold misery had taken entire possession of him. But as he stood at the
mouth of the cave, fear lest he might destroy his Ethel’s father, and
perhaps his Ethel herself, by rash invectives, took the place of every
other consideration, and he remained rooted to the spot, pale, and
casting an amazed glance at the singular scene before him.

It was like a vast square in some underground city, whose limits were
lost amid endless columns supporting the vaulted roof. These pillars
glittered like crystal in the rays of countless torches borne by a
multitude of men, armed with strange weapons, and scattered in confusion
about the cave. From all these points of light and all these fearful
figures straying among the shadows, it might have passed for one of the
legendary gatherings described by ancient chroniclers,--an assembly of
wizards and demons, bearing stars for torches, and illuminating antique
groves and ruined castles by night.

A prolonged shout arose.

“A stranger! Kill him! kill him!”

A hundred arms were raised to strike Ordener down. He put his hand to
his side in search of his sword Noble youth! In his generous ardor he
had forgotten that he was alone and unarmed.

“Stay! stay!” cried a voice,--the voice of one whom Ordener recognized
as Schumacker’s envoy.

He was a short, stout man, dressed in black, with a deceitful smile. He
advanced toward Ordener, saying: “Who are you?”

Ordener made no answer; he was threatened on every side, and there was
not an inch of his breast uncovered by a sword-point or the mouth of a
pistol.

“Are you afraid?” asked the little man, with a sneer.

“If your hand were upon my heart, instead of these swords,” coldly
answered Ordener, “you would see that it beats no faster than your own,
if indeed you have a heart.”

“Ah, ha!” said the little man; “so you defy us! Well, then let him die!”
And he turned his back.

“Give me death,” returned Ordener; “it is the only thing that I would
accept from you.”

“One moment, Mr. Hacket,” said an old man, with a thick beard, who stood
leaning on a long musket. “You are my guests, and I alone have the right
to send this fellow to tell the dead what he has seen.”

Mr. Hacket laughed.

“Faith, my dear Jonas, let it be as you please! It matters little to me
who judges this spy, so long as he is condemned.”

The old man turned to Ordener.

“Come, tell us who you are, since you are so boldly curious to know who
we are.”

Ordener was silent. Surrounded by the strange allies of that Schumacker
for whom he would so willingly have shed his blood, he felt only an
infinite longing to die.

“His worship will not answer,” said the old man. “When the fox is
caught, he cries no more. Kill him!”

“My brave Jonas,” rejoined Hacket, “let this man’s death be Hans of
Iceland’s first exploit among you.”

“Yes, yes!” cried many voices.

Ordener, astounded, but still undaunted, looked about him for Hans of
Iceland, with whom he had so valiantly disputed his life that very
morning, and saw with increased surprise a man of colossal size, dressed
in the garb of the mountaineers. This giant stared at Ordener with
brutal stupidity, and called for an axe.

“You are not Hans of Iceland!” emphatically exclaimed Ordener.

“Kill him! kill him!” cried Hacket, angrily.

Ordener saw that he must die. He put his hand in his bosom to draw out
his Ethel’s hair and give it one last kiss. As he did so, a paper fell
from his belt.

“What is that paper?” asked Hacket. “Norbith, seize that paper.”

Norbith was a young man, whose stern, dark features bore the stamp of
true nobility. He picked up the paper and unfolded it. “Good God!” he
exclaimed, “it is the passport of my poor friend, Christopher Nedlam,
that unfortunate fellow who was beheaded not a week ago in Skongen
market-place, for coining counterfeit money.”

“Well,” said Hacket, in a disappointed tone, “you may keep the bit of
paper. I thought it was something more important. Come, my dear Hans,
despatch your man.”

Young Norbith threw himself before Ordener, crying: “This man is under
my protection. My head shall fall before you touch a hair of his. I
will not suffer the safe-conduct of my friend Christopher Nedlam to be
violated.”

Ordener, so miraculously preserved, hung his head and felt humiliated;
for he remembered how contemptuously he had inwardly received Chaplain
Athanasius Munder’s touching prayer,--“May the gift of the dying benefit
the traveller!”

“Pooh! pooh!” said Hacket, “you talk nonsense, good Norbith. The man is
a spy; he must die.”

“Give me my axe,” repeated the giant.

“He shall not die!” cried Norbith. “What would the spirit of my poor
Nedlam say, whom they hung in such cowardly fashion? I tell you he shall
not die; for Nedlam will not let him die!”

“As far as that goes,” said old Jonas, “Norbith is right. Why should we
kill this stranger, Mr. Hacket? He has Christopher Nedlam’s pass.”

“But he is a spy, a spy!” repeated Hacket.

The old man took his stand with the young one at Ordener’s side, and
both said quietly: “He has the pass of Christopher Nedlam, who was hung
at Skongen.”

Hacket saw that he must needs submit; for all the others began to
murmur, and to say that this stranger should not die, as he had the
safe-conduct of Nedlam the counterfeiter.

“Very well,” he hissed through his teeth with concentrated rage; “then
let him live. After all, it is your business, and not mine.”

“If he were the Devil himself I would not kill him,” said the triumphant
Norbith.

With these words he turned to Ordener.

“Look here,” he added, “you must be a good fellow as you have my poor
friend Nedlam’s pass. We are the royal miners. We have rebelled to rid
ourselves of the protectorate of the Crown. Mr. Hacket, here, says that
we have taken up arms for a certain Count Schumacker; but I for one know
nothing about him. Stranger, our cause is just. Hear me, and answer as
if you were answering your patron saint. Will you join us?”

An idea flashed through Ordener’s mind.

“Yes,” replied he.

Norbith offered him a sword, which Ordener silently accepted.

“Brother,” said the youthful leader; “if you mean to betray us, begin by
killing me.”

At this instant the sound of the horn rang through the arched galleries
of the mine, and distant voices were heard exclaiming, “Here comes
Kennybol!”




XXXII.

     There are thoughts as high as heaven.--_Old Spanish Romanes._


The soul sometimes has sudden inspirations, brilliant flashes whose
extent can no more be expressed, whose depth can no more be sounded by
an entire volume of thoughts and reflections, than the brightness of a
thousand torches can reproduce the intense, swift radiance of a flash of
lightning.

We will not, therefore, try to analyze the overwhelming and secret
impulse which upon young Norbith’s proposal led the noble son of the
Norwegian viceroy to join a party of bandits who had risen in revolt to
defend a proscribed man. It was doubtless a generous desire to fathom
this dark scheme at any cost, mixed with a bitter loathing for life, a
reckless indifference to the future; perhaps some vague doubt of
Schumacker’s guilt, inspired by all the various incidents which struck
the young man as equivocal and false, by a strange instinct for the
truth, and above all by his love for Ethel. In short, it was certainly a
secret sense of the help which a clear-sighted friend, in the midst of
his blind partisans, might render Schumacker.




XXXIII.

     Is that the chief? His look alarms me; I dare not speak to
     him.--MATURIN: _Bertram_.


On hearing the shouts which announced the arrival of the famous hunter
Kennybol, Hacket sprang forward to meet him, leaving Ordener with the
two other leaders.

“Here you are at last, my dear Kennybol! Come, let me present you to
your much-dreaded commander, Hans of Iceland.”

At this name, Kennybol, pale, breathless, his hair standing on end, his
face bathed in perspiration, and his hands stained with blood, started
back.

“Hans of Iceland!”

“Come,” said Hacket, “don’t be alarmed! He is here to help you. You must
look upon him as a friend and comrade.”

Kennybol did not heed him.

“Hans of Iceland here!” he repeated.

“To be sure,” said Hacket, with ill-suppressed laughter; “are you afraid
of him?”

“What!” for the third time interrupted the hunter; “do you really mean
it,--is Hans of Iceland here, in this mine?”

Hacket turned to the bystanders: “Has our brave Kennybol lost his wits?”

Then, addressing Kennybol: “I see that it was your dread of Hans of
Iceland which made you so late.”

Kennybol raised his hands to heaven.

“By Ethelreda, the holy Norwegian saint and martyr, it was not fear of
Hans of Iceland, but Hans of Iceland himself, I swear, that delayed me
so long.”

These words caused a murmur of surprise to run through the crowd of
miners and mountaineers surrounding the two speakers, and clouded
Hacket’s face as the sight and the rescue of Ordener had but a moment
before.

“What! What do you mean?” he asked, dropping his voice.

“I mean, Mr. Hacket, that but for your confounded Hans of Iceland I
should have been here before the owl’s first hoot.”

“Indeed! and what did he do to you?”

“Oh, do not ask me. I only hope that my beard may turn as white as an
ermine’s skin in a single day if I am ever caught again hunting a white
bear, since I escaped this time with my life.”

“Did you come near being eaten by a bear?”

Kennybol shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“A bear! a terrible foe that would be! Kennybol eaten by a bear! For
what do you take me, Mr. Hacket?”

“Oh, pardon me!” said Hacket, with a smile.

“If you knew what had happened to me, good sir,” interrupted the old
hunter, in a low voice, “you would not persist in telling me that Hans
of Iceland is here.”

Hacket again seemed embarrassed. He seized Kennybol abruptly by the arm,
as if he feared lest he should approach the spot where the giant’s huge
head now loomed up above those of the miners.

“My dear Kennybol,” said he, solemnly, “tell me, I entreat you, what
caused your delay. You must understand that at this time anything may be
of the utmost importance.”

“That is true,” said Kennybol, after a brief pause.

Then, yielding to Hacket’s repeated requests, he told him how that very
morning, aided by six comrades, he had pursued a white bear into the
immediate vicinity of Walderhog cave, without noticing, in the
excitement of the chase, that they were so near that dreadful place; how
the growls of the bear at bay had attracted a little man, a monster, or
demon, who, armed with a stone axe, had rushed upon them to defend the
bear. The appearance of this devil, who could be no other than Hans, the
demon of Iceland, had petrified all seven of them with terror. Finally,
his six companions had fallen victims to the two monsters, and he,
Kennybol, only owed his safety to speedy flight, assisted by his own
nimbleness, Hans of Iceland’s fatigue, and above all, by the protection
of that blessed patron saint of hunters, Saint Sylvester.

“You see, Mr. Hacket,” he concluded his tale, which was still somewhat
incoherent from fright, and adorned with all the flowers of the
mountain dialect,--“you see that if I am late you should not blame me,
and that it is impossible for the demon of Iceland, whom I left this
morning with his bear wreaking their fury upon the corpses of my six
poor friends on Walderhog heath, to be here now in the guise of a
friend. I protest that it cannot be. I know him now, that fiend
incarnate; I have seen him!”

Hacket, who had listened attentively, said gravely: “My brave friend
Kennybol, nothing is impossible to Hans or to the Devil; I knew all this
before.”

The savage features of the old hunter from the mountains of Kiölen
assumed an expression of extreme amazement and childlike credulity.
“What!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” added Hacket, in whose face a more skilful observer might have
read grim triumph; “I knew it all, except that you were the hero of this
unfortunate adventure. Hans of Iceland told me the whole story on our
way here.”

“Really!” said Kennybol; and he gazed at Hacket with respect and awe.

Hacket continued with the same perfect composure: “To be sure. But now
calm yourself; I will present you to this dreadful Hans of Iceland.”

Kennybol uttered an exclamation of fright.

“Be calm, I say,” repeated Hacket. “Consider him as your friend and
leader; but be careful not to remind him in any way of what occurred
this morning. Do you understand?”

Resistance was useless; but it was not without a severe mental struggle
that he agreed to be presented to the demon. They advanced to the group
where Ordener stood with Jonas and Norbith.

“May God guard you, good Jonas, dear Norbith!” said Kennybol.

“We need his protection, Kennybol,” said Jonas.

At this instant Kennybol’s eye met that of Ordener, who was trying to
attract his attention.

“Ah! there you are, young man,” said he, going up to him eagerly and
offering him his hard, wrinkled hand; “welcome! It seems that your
courage met with its reward.”

Ordener, who could not imagine how this mountaineer happened to
understand him so well, was about to ask an explanation, when Norbith
exclaimed: “Then you know this stranger, Kennybol?”

“By my patron saint, I do! I love and esteem him. He is devoted, like
ourselves, to the good cause which we all serve.”

And he cast another meaning look at Ordener, which the latter was on the
point of answering, when Hacket, who had gone in search of his giant,
whose company all the insurgents seemed to avoid, came up to our four
friends, saying: “Kennybol, my valiant hunter, here is your leader, the
famous Hans of Klipstadur!”

Kennybol glanced at the huge brigand with more surprise than terror, and
whispered in Hacket’s ear: “Mr. Hacket, the Hans of Iceland whom I met
this morning was a short man.”

Hacket answered in low tones: “You forget, Kennybol; he is a demon!”

“True,” said the credulous hunter; “I suppose he has changed his shape.”

And he turned aside with a shudder to cross himself secretly.




XXXIV.

     The mask approaches; it is Angelo himself. The rascal knows his
     business well; he must be sure of his facts.--LESSING.


In a dark grove of old oaks, whose dense leaves the pale light of dawn
can scarcely penetrate, a short man approaches another man who is alone,
and seems to waiting for him. The following conversation begins in low
tones:--

“Your worship must excuse me for keeping you waiting; several things
detained me.”

“Such as what?”

“The leader of the mountain men, Kennybol, did not reach the appointed
place until midnight; and we were also disturbed by an unlooked-for
witness.”

“Who?”

“A fellow who thrust himself like a fool into the mine in the midst of
our secret meeting. At first I took him for a spy, and would have put
him to death; but he turned out to be the bearer of a safe-conduct from
some gallows-bird held in great respect by our miners, and they
instantly took him under their protection. When I came to consider the
matter, I made up my mind that he was probably a curious traveller or a
learned fool. At any rate, I have taken all necessary precautions in
regard to him.”

“Is everything else going well?”

“Very well. The miners from Guldsbrandsdal and the Färöe Islands, led by
young Norbith and old Jonas, with the mountain men from Kiölen, under
Kennybol, are probably on the march at this moment. Four miles from Blue
Star, their comrades from Hubfallo and Sund-Moer will join them; those
from Kongsberg and the iron-workers from Lake Miösen, who have already
compelled the Wahlstrom garrison to retreat, as your lordship knows,
will await them a few miles farther on; and finally, my dear and honored
master, these combined forces will halt for the night some two miles
away from Skongen, in the gorges of Black Pillar.”

“But how did they receive your Hans of Iceland?”

“With perfect confidence.”

“Would that I could avenge my son’s death on that monster! What a pity
that he should escape us!”

“My noble lord, first use Hans of Iceland’s name to wreak your revenge
upon Schumacker; then it will be time enough to think of vengeance
against Hans himself. The insurgents will march all day, and halt
to-night in Black Pillar Pass, two miles from Skongen.”

“What! can you venture to let so large a force advance so close to
Skongen? Musdœmon, take care!”

“You are suspicious, noble Count. Your worship may send a messenger at
once to Colonel Vœthaün, whose regiment is probably at Skongen now;
inform him that the rebel forces will encamp to-night in Black Pillar
Pass, and have no misgivings. The place seems made purposely for
ambuscades.”

“I understand you; but why, my dear fellow, did you muster the rebels in
such numbers?”

“The greater the insurrection, sir, the greater will be Schumacker’s
crime and your merit. Besides, it is important that it should be crushed
at a single blow.”

“Very good; but why did you order them to halt so near Skongen?”

“Because it is the only spot in the mountains where all resistance is
impossible. None will ever leave it alive but those whom we select to
appear before the court.”

“Capital! Something tells me, Musdœmon, to finish this business quickly.
If all looks well in this quarter, it looks stormy in another. You know
that we have been making secret search at Copenhagen for the papers
which we feared had fallen into the possession of Dispolsen?”

“Well, sir?”

“Well, I have just discovered that the scheming fellow had mysterious
relations with that accursed astrologer, Cumbysulsum.”

“Who died recently?”

“Yes; and that the old sorcerer delivered certain papers to Schumacker’s
agent before he died.”

“Damnation! He had letters of mine,--a statement of our plot!”

“_Your_ plot, Musdœmon!”

“A thousand pardons, noble Count! But why did your worship put yourself
in the power of such a humbug as Cumbysulsum?--the old traitor!”

“You see, Musdœmon, I am not a sceptic and unbeliever, like you. It is
not without good reason, my dear fellow, that I have always put my trust
in old Cumbysulsum’s magic skill.”

“I wish your worship had had as much doubt of his loyalty as you had
trust in his skill. However, let us not take fright too soon, noble
master. Dispolsen is dead, his papers are lost; in a few days we shall
be safely rid of those whom they might benefit.”

“In any event, what charge could be brought against me?”

“Or me, protected as I am by your Grace?”

“Oh, yes, my dear fellow, of course you can count upon me; but let us
bring this business to a head. I will send the messenger to the colonel.
Come, my people are waiting for me behind those bushes, and we must
return to Throndhjem, which the Mecklenburger must have left ere now.
Continue to serve me faithfully, and in spite of all the Cumbysulsums
and Dispolsens upon earth, you can count on me in life and death!”

“I beg your Grace to believe--The Devil!”

Here they plunged into the thicket, among whose branches their voices
gradually died away; and soon after, no sound was heard save the tread
of their departing steeds.




XXXV.

     Beat the drums! They come, they come! They have all sworn, and all
     the same oath, never to return to Castile without the captive
     count, their lord.

     They have his marble statue in a chariot, and are resolved never to
     turn back until they see the statue itself turn back.

     And in token that the first man who retraces his steps will be
     regarded as a traitor, they have all raised their right hand and
     taken an oath.

            *       *       *       *       *

     And they marched toward Arlançon as swiftly as the oxen which drag
     the chariot could go; they tarry no more than does the sun.

     Burgos is deserted; only the women and children remain behind; and
     so too in the suburbs. They talk, as they go, of horses and
     falcons, and question whether they should free Castile from the
     tribute she pays Leon.

     And before they enter Navarre, they meet upon the frontier....

                                               _Old Spanish Romance._




While the preceding conversation was going on in one of the forests on
the outskirts of Lake Miösen, the rebels, divided into three columns,
left Apsyl-Corh lead-mine by the chief entrance, which opens, on a level
with the ground, in a deep ravine.

Ordener, who, in spite of his desire for a closer acquaintance with
Kennybol, had been placed under Norbith’s command, at first saw nothing
but a long line of torches, whose beams, vying with the early light of
dawn, were reflected back from hatchets, pitchforks, mattocks, clubs
with iron heads, huge hammers, pickaxes, crowbars, and all the rude
implements which could be borrowed from their daily toil, mingled with
genuine weapons of warfare, such as muskets, pikes, swords, carbines,
and guns, which showed that this revolt was a conspiracy. When the sun
rose, and the glow of the torches was no more than smoke, he could
better observe the aspect of this strange army, which advanced in
disorder, with hoarse songs and fierce shouts, like a band of hungry
wolves in pursuit of a dead body. It was divided into three parts. First
came the mountaineers from Kiölen, under command of Kennybol, whom they
all resembled in their dress of wild beasts’ skins, and in their bold,
savage mien. Then followed the young miners led by Norbith, and the
older ones under Jonas, with their broad-brimmed hats, loose trousers,
bare arms, and blackened faces, gazing at the sun in mute surprise.
Above this noisy band floated a confused sea of scarlet banners, bearing
various mottoes, such as, “Long live Schumacker!” “Let us free our
Deliverer!” “Freedom for Miners!” “Liberty for Count Griffenfeld!”
“Death to Guldenlew!” “Death to all Oppressors!” “Death to d’Ahlefeld!”
The rebels seemed to regard these standards rather in the light of a
burden than an ornament, and they were passed frequently from hand to
hand when the color-bearers were tired, or desired to mingle the
discordant notes of their horns with the psalm-singing and shouts of
their comrades.

The rear-guard of this strange army consisted of ten or a dozen carts
drawn by reindeer and strong mules, doubtless meant to carry ammunition;
and the vanguard, of the giant, escorted by Hacket, who marched alone,
armed with a mace and an axe, followed at a considerable distance, with
no small terror, by the men under command of Kennybol, who never took
his eyes from him, as if anxious not to lose sight of his diabolical
leader during the various transformations which he might be pleased to
undergo.

This stream of insurgents poured down the mountainside with many
confused noises, filling the pine woods with the sound of their horns.
Their numbers were soon swelled by various reinforcements from
Sund-Moer, Hubfallo, Kongsberg, and a troop of iron-workers from Lake
Miösen, who presented a singular contrast to the rest of the rebels.
They were tall, powerful men, armed with hammers and tongs, their broad
leather aprons being their only shield, a huge wooden cross their only
standard, as they marched soberly and rhythmically, with a regular tread
more religious than military, their only war-song being Biblical psalms
and canticles. They had no leader but their cross-bearer, who walked
before them unarmed.

The rebel troop met not a single human being on their road. As they
approached, the goat-herd drove his flocks into a cave, and the peasant
forsook his village; for the inhabitant of the valley and plain is
everywhere alike,--he fears the bandit’s horn as much as the bowman’s
blast.

Thus they traversed hills and forests, with here and there a small
settlement, followed winding roads where traces of wild beasts were more
frequent than the footprint of man, skirted lakes, crossed torrents,
ravines, and marshes. Ordener recognized none of these places. Once only
his eye, as he looked up, caught upon the horizon the dim, blue outline
of a great sloping rock. He turned to one of his rude companions, and
asked, “My friend, what is that rock to the south, on our right?”

“That is the Vulture’s Neck, Oëlmœ Cliff,” was the reply.

Ordener sighed heavily.




XXXVI.

     God keep and bless you, my daughter.--RÉGNIER.


Monkey, paroquets, combs, and ribbons, all were ready to receive
Lieutenant Frederic. His mother had sent, at great expense, for the
famous Scudéry’s latest novel. By her order it had been richly bound,
with silvergilt clasps, and placed, with the bottles of perfume and
boxes of patches, upon the elegant toilet-table, with gilded feet, and
richly inlaid, with which she had furnished her dear son Frederic’s
future sitting-room. When she had thus fulfilled the careful round of
petty maternal cares which had for a moment caused her to forget her
hate, she remembered that she had now nothing else to do but to injure
Schumacker and Ethel. General Levin’s departure left them at her mercy.

So many things had happened recently at Munkholm of which she could
learn but little! Who was the serf, vassal, or peasant, who, if she was
to credit Frederic’s very ambiguous and embarrassed phrases, had won the
love of the ex-chancellor’s daughter? What were Baron Ordener’s
relations with the prisoners of Munkholm? What were the incomprehensible
motives for Ordener’s most peculiar absence at a time when both kingdoms
were given over to preparations for his marriage to that Ulrica
d’Ahlefeld whom he seemed to disdain? And lastly, what had occurred
between Levin de Knud and Schumacker? The countess was lost in
conjectures. She finally resolved, in order to clear up all these
mysteries, to risk a descent upon Munkholm,--a step to which she was
counselled both by her curiosity as a woman and her interests as an
enemy.

One evening, as Ethel, alone in the donjon garden, had just written, for
the sixth time, with a diamond ring, some mysterious monogram upon the
dusty window in the postern gate through which her Ordener had
disappeared, it opened. The young girl started. It was the first time
that this gate had been opened since it closed upon him.

A tall, pale woman, dressed in white, stood before her. She gave Ethel a
smile as sweet as poisoned honey, and behind her mask of quiet
friendliness there lurked an expression of hatred, spite, and
involuntary admiration.

Ethel looked at her in astonishment, almost fear. Except her old nurse,
who had died in her arms, this was the first woman she had seen within
the gloomy walls of Munkholm.

“My child,” gently asked the stranger, “are you the daughter of the
prisoner of Munkholm?”

Ethel could not help turning away her head; she instinctively shrank
from the stranger, and she felt as if there were venom in the breath
which uttered such sweet tones. She answered: “I am Ethel Schumacker. My
father tells me that in my cradle I was called Countess of Tönsberg and
Princess of Wollin.”

“Your father tells you so!” exclaimed the tall woman, with a sneer which
she at once repressed. Then she added: “You have had many misfortunes!”

“Misfortune received me, at my birth, in its cruel arms,” replied the
youthful captive; “my noble father says that it will never leave me
while I live.”

A smile flitted across the lips of the stranger, as she rejoined in a
pitying tone: “And do you never murmur against those who flung you into
this cell? Do you not curse the authors of your misery?”

“No, for fear that our curse might draw down upon their heads evils like
those which they make us endure.”

“And,” continued the pale woman, with unmoved face, “do you know the
authors of these evils of which you complain?”

Ethel considered a moment, and said: “All that has happened to us is by
the will of Heaven.”

“Does your father never speak to you of the king?”

“The king? I pray for him every morning and evening, although I do not
know him.”

Ethel did not understand why the stranger bit her lip at this reply.

“Does your unhappy father never, in his anger, mention his relentless
foes, General Arensdorf, Bishop Spolleyson, and Chancellor d’Ahlefeld?”

“I don’t know whom you mean.”

“And do you know the name of Levin de Knud?”

The recollection of the scene which had occurred but two days before,
between Schumacker and the governor of Throndhjem, was so fresh in
Ethel’s mind that she could not but be struck by the name of Levin de
Knud.

“Levin de Knud?” said she; “I think that he is the man for whom my
father feels so much esteem, almost affection.”

“What!” cried the tall woman.

“Yes,” resumed the girl; “it was Levin de Knud whom my father defended
so warmly, day before yesterday, against the governor of Throndhjem.”

These words increased her hearer’s surprise.

“Against the governor of Throndhjem! Do not trifle with me, girl. I am
here in your interests. Your father took General Levin de Knud’s part
against the governor of Throndhjem, you say?”

“General! I thought he was a captain. But no; you are right. My father,”
added Ethel, “seemed to feel as much attachment for this General Levin
de Knud as dislike for the governor of Throndhjem.”

“Here is a strange mystery indeed!” thought the tall, pale woman, whose
curiosity increased momentarily. “My dear child, what happened between
your father and the governor?”

All these questions wearied poor Ethel, who looked fixedly at the tall
woman, saying: “Am I a criminal, that you should cross-examine me thus?”

At these simple words the stranger seemed thunderstruck, as if she saw
the reward of her skill slipping through her fingers. She replied,
nevertheless, in a tremulous voice: “You would not speak to me so if you
knew why and for whom I come.”

“What!” said Ethel; “do you come from him? Do you bring me a message
from him?” And all the blood in her body rushed to her fair face; her
heart throbbed in her bosom with impatience and alarm.

“From whom?” asked the stranger.

The young girl hesitated as she was about to utter the adored name. She
saw a flash of wicked joy gleam in the stranger’s eye like a ray from
hell. She said sadly:--

“You do not know the person whom I mean.”

An expression of disappointment again appeared upon the stranger’s
apparently friendly face.

“Poor young girl!” she cried; “what can I do to help you?”

Ethel did not hear her. Her thoughts were beyond the mountains of the
North, in quest of the daring traveller. Her head sank upon her breast,
and her hands were unconsciously clasped.

“Does your father hope to escape from this prison?”

This question, twice repeated by the stranger, brought Ethel to herself.

“Yes,” said she, and tears sparkled on her cheek.

The stranger’s eyes flashed.

“He does! Tell me how; by what means; when!”

“He hopes to escape from this prison because he hopes ere long to die.”

There is sometimes a power in the very simplicity of a gentle young
spirit which outwits the artifices of a heart grown old in wickedness.
This thought seemed to occur to the great lady, for her expression
suddenly changed, and laying her cold hand on Ethel’s arm, she said in a
tone which was almost sincere: “Tell me, have you heard that your
father’s life is again threatened by a fresh judicial inquiry? That he
is suspected of having stirred up a revolt among the miners of the
North?”

The words “revolt” and “inquiry” conveyed no clear idea to Ethel’s mind.
She raised her great dark eyes to the stranger’s face as she asked:
“What do you mean?”

“That your father is conspiring against the State; that his crime is all
but discovered; that this crime will be punished with death.”

“Death! crime!” cried the poor girl.

“Crime and death,” said the strange lady, seriously.

“My father! my noble father!” continued Ethel. “Alas! he spends his days
in hearing me read the Edda and the Gospel! He conspire! What has he
done to you?”

“Do not look at me so fiercely. I tell you again I am not your enemy.
Your father is suspected of a grave crime; I am here to warn you of it.
Perhaps, instead of such a show of dislike, I might lay claim to your
gratitude.”

This reproach touched Ethel.

“Oh, forgive me, noble lady, forgive me! What human being have I ever
seen who was not an enemy? I have doubted you. You will forgive me, will
you not?”

The stranger smiled.

“What, my girl! have you never met a friend until to-day?”

A hot blush mantled Ethel’s brow. She hesitated an instant.

“Yes. God knows the truth, we have found a friend, noble lady,--one
only!”

“One only!” said the great lady, hastily. “His name, I implore. You do
not know how important it is; it is for your father’s safety. Who is
this friend?”

“I do not know,” said Ethel.

The stranger turned pale.

“Is it because I wish to serve you that you trifle with me? Consider
that your father’s life is at stake. Tell me, who is this friend of whom
you speak?”

“Heaven knows, noble lady, that I know nothing of him but his name,
which is Ordener.”

Ethel uttered these words with that difficulty which we all feel in
pronouncing before an indifferent person the sacred name which wakes
within us every emotion of love.

“Ordener! Ordener!” repeated the stranger, with singular agitation,
while her hands crumpled the white embroideries of her veil. “And what
is his father’s name?” she asked in a troubled voice.

“I do not know,” replied the girl. “What are his family and his father
to me? This Ordener, noble lady, is the most generous of men.”

Alas! the accent with which these words were spoken revealed Ethel’s
secret to the sharp-sighted stranger.

She assumed an air of calm composure, and asked, without taking her eyes
from the girl’s face: “Have you heard of the approaching marriage of the
viceroy’s son to the daughter of the present lord chancellor,
d’Ahlefeld?”

She was obliged to repeat her question before Ethel’s mind could grasp
an idea which did not interest her.

“I believe I have,” was her answer.

Her calmness, and her indifferent manner, seemed to surprise the
stranger.

“Well, what do you think of this marriage?”

It was impossible to note the slightest change in Ethel’s large eyes as
she replied: “Nothing, truly. May their union be a happy one!”

“Counts Guldenlew and d’Ahlefeld, the fathers of the young couple, are
both bitter enemies of your father.”

“May their marriage be blessed!” gently repeated Ethel.

“I have an idea,” continued the crafty stranger. “If your father’s life
be really threatened, you might obtain his pardon through the viceroy’s
son upon the occasion of this great marriage.”

“May the saints reward you for your kind thought for us, noble lady; but
how should my petition reach the viceroy’s son?”

These words were spoken in such good faith that they drew a gesture of
surprise from the stranger.

“What! do you not know him?”

“That powerful lord!” cried Ethel. “You forget that I have never been
outside the walls of this fortress.”

“Truly,” muttered the tall woman between her teeth. “What did that old
fool of a Levin tell me? She does not know him. Still, that is
impossible,” said she; then, raising her voice: “You must have seen the
viceroy’s son; he has been here.”

“That may be, noble lady; of all the men who have been here, I have
never seen but one,--my Ordener.”

“Your Ordener!” interrupted the stranger. She added, without seeming to
notice Ethel’s blushes: “Do you know a young man with noble face,
elegant figure, grave and dignified bearing? His expression is gentle,
yet firm; his complexion fresh as that of a maiden; his hair chestnut.”

“Oh!” cried poor Ethel, “that is he; it is my betrothed, my adored
Ordener! Where did you meet him? He told you that he loved me, did he
not? He told you that he has my whole heart. Alas! a poor prisoner has
nothing but her love to give. My noble friend! It was but a week ago,--I
can see him still on this very spot, with his green mantle, beneath
which beats so generous a heart, and that black plume, which waved so
gracefully above his broad brow.”

She did not finish her sentence. The tall stranger tottered, turned
pale, then red, and cried in her ears in tones of thunder: “Wretched
girl, you love Ordener Guldenlew, the betrothed of Ulrica d’Ahlefeld,
the son of your father’s deadly foe, the viceroy of Norway!”

Ethel fell fainting on the ground.




XXXVII.

     _Caupolican._ Walk so cautiously that the earth itself may not
     catch your footfall. Redouble your precautions, friends. If we
     arrive unheard, I will answer for the victory.

     _Tucapel._ Night veils all; fearful darkness covers the earth. We
     hear no sentinel; we have seen no spies.

     _Ringo._ Let us advance!

            *       *       *       *       *

     _Tucapel._ What do I hear? Are we discovered?

                    LOPE DA VEGA: _The Conquest of Arauco_.




“I say, Guldon Stayper, old fellow, the evening breeze is beginning to
blow my hairy cap about my head rather vigorously.”

These words were spoken by Kennybol, as his eyes wandered for a moment
from the giant who marched at the head of the insurgents, and half
turned toward a mountaineer whom the accident of a disorderly progress
had placed beside him.

His friend shook his head and shifted his banner from one shoulder to
the other, with a deep sigh of fatigue, as he answered:--

“Hum! I fancy, Captain, that in these confounded Black Pillar gorges,
through which the wind rushes like a torrent let loose, we shall not be
as warm to-night as if we were flames dancing on the hearth.”

“We must make such rousing fires that the old owls will be scared from
their nests among the rocks in their ruined palace. I can’t endure owls.
On that horrid night when I saw the fairy Ubfem she took the shape of an
owl.”

“By Saint Sylvester!” interrupted Guldon Stayper, turning his head, “the
angel of the storm beats his wings most furiously! Take my advice,
Captain Kennybol, and set fire to all the pine-trees on the mountain. It
would be a fine sight to see an army warm itself with a whole forest.”

“Heaven forbid, my dear Guldon! Think of the deer, and the gerfalcons,
and the pheasants! Roast the game, if you will, but do not burn it
alive.”

Old Guidon laughed: “Oh, Captain, you are the same devil of a
Kennybol,--the wolf of deer, the bear of wolves, and the buffalo of
bears!”

“Are we far from Black Pillar?” asked a voice from the huntsmen.

“Comrade,” replied Kennybol, “we shall enter the gorge at nightfall; we
shall reach the Four Crosses directly.”

There was a brief silence, during which nothing was heard but the tramp
of many feet, the moaning of the wind, and the distant song of the
regiment of iron-workers from Lake Miösen.

“Friend Guldon Stayper,” resumed Kennybol, when he had whistled an old
hunting-song, “you have just passed a few days at Throndhjem, have you
not?”

“Yes, Captain; my brother George, the fisherman, was ill, and I took his
place in the boat for a short time, so that his poor family might not
starve while he was ill.”

“Well, as you come from Throndhjem, did you happen to see this count,
the prisoner--Schumacker--Gleffenhem--what is his name, now? I mean that
man in whose behalf we have rebelled against the royal protectorate, and
whose arms I suppose you have on that big red flag.”

“It is heavy enough, I can tell you!” said Guldon. “Do you mean the
prisoner in Munkholm fortress,--the count, if you choose to call him so;
and how do you suppose, Captain, that I should see him? I should have
needed,” he added, lowering his voice, “the eyes of that demon marching
in front of us, though he does not leave a smell of brimstone behind
him; of that Hans of Iceland, who can see through stone walls; or the
ring of Queen Mab, who passes through keyholes. There is but one man
among us now, I am sure, who ever saw the count,--the prisoner to whom
you refer.”

“But one? Ah! Mr. Hacket? But this Hacket is no longer with us; he left
us to-day to return to--”

“I do not mean Mr. Hacket, Captain.”

“And who then?”

“That young man in the green mantle, with the black plume, who burst
into our midst last night.”

“Well?”

“Well!” said Guldon, drawing closer to Kennybol; “he knows the
count,--this famous count, as well as I know you, Captain Kennybol.”

Kennybol looked at Guldon, winked his left eye, smacked his lips, and
clapped his friend on the shoulder with that triumphant exclamation
which so often escapes us when we are satisfied with our own
penetration,--“I thought as much!”

“Yes, Captain,” continued Guldon Stayper, changing his flame-colored
banner to the other shoulder; “I assure you that the young man in green
has seen Count--I don’t know what you call him, the one for whom we are
fighting--in Munkholm keep; and he seemed to think no more of walking
into that prison than you or I would of shooting in a royal park.”

“And how happen you to know this, brother Guldon?”

The old mountaineer seized Kennybol by the arm, and half opening his
otter-skin waistcoat with a caution which was almost suspicious, he
said, “Look there!”

“By my most holy patron saint!” exclaimed Kennybol; “it glitters like
diamonds!”

It was indeed a superb diamond buckle, which fastened Guldon Stayper’s
rough belt.

“And they are real diamonds,” he replied, closing his waistcoat. “I am
just as sure of it as I am that the moon is two days’ journey from the
earth, and that my belt is made of buffalo leather.”

Kennybol’s face clouded, and his expression changed from surprise to
distress. He cast down his eyes, and said with savage sternness: “Guldon
Stayper, of Chol-Sœ village, in the Kiölen mountains, your father,
Medprath Stayper, died at the age of one hundred and two, without
reproach; for it was no crime to kill one of the king’s deer or elk by
mistake. Guldon Stayper, fifty-seven good years have passed over your
gray head, which cannot be called youth except for an owl. Guldon
Stayper, old friend, I would rather for your sake that the diamonds in
that buckle were grains of millet, if you did not come by them
honestly,--as honestly as a royal pheasant comes by a leaden bullet.”

As he pronounced this strange sermon, the mountaineer’s tone was both
impressive and menacing.

“As truly as Captain Kennybol is the boldest hunter in Kiölen,” replied
Guldon, unmoved, “and as truly as these diamonds are diamonds, they are
my lawful property.”

“Indeed!” said Kennybol, in accents which wavered between confidence and
doubt.

“God and my patron saint know,” replied Guldon, “that one evening, just
as I was pointing out the Throndhjem Spladgest to some sons of our good
mother Norway, who were carrying thither the body of an officer found
dead on Urchtal Sands,--this was about a week ago,--a young man stepped
up to my boat. ‘To Munkholm!’ says he to me. I was not at all anxious to
obey, Captain; a free bird never likes to fly into the neighborhood of a
cage. But the young gentleman had a haughty, lordly manner; he was
followed by a servant leading two horses; he leaped into my boat with an
air of authority; I took up my oars, that is to say, my brother’s oars.
It was my good angel that willed me to do so. When we reached the
fortress, my young passenger, after exchanging a few words with the
officer on guard, flung me in payment--as God hears me, he did,
Captain--this diamond buckle which I showed you, and which would have
belonged to my brother George, and not to me, if at the time that the
traveller--Heaven help him!--engaged me, the day’s work which I was
doing for George had not been done. This is the truth, Captain
Kennybol.”

“Very good.”

Little by little the captain’s features had cleared as much as their
naturally hard and gloomy expression would permit, and he asked Guidon
in a softened voice: “And are you sure, old fellow, that this young man
is the same who is now behind us with Norbith’s followers?”

“Sure! I could not mistake among a thousand faces the face of him who
made my fortune; besides, it is the same cloak, the same black plume.”

“I believe you, Guldon!”

“And it is clear that he went there to see the famous prisoner; for if
he were not bound on some very mysterious errand, he would never have
rewarded so handsomely the boatman who rowed him over and besides, now
that he has joined us--”

“You are right.”

“And I imagine, Captain, that this young stranger may have far greater
influence with the count whom we are about to set free than Mr. Hacket,
who strikes me, by my soul! as only fit to mew like a wildcat.”

Kennybol nodded his head expressively.

“Comrade, you have said just what I meant to say. I should be much more
inclined in this whole matter to obey that young gentleman than the
envoy Hacket. Saint Sylvester and Saint Olaf help me! but if the Iceland
demon be our commander, I believe, friend Guldon, that we owe it far
less to that magpie Hacket than to this stranger.”

“Really, Captain?” inquired Guldon.

Kennybol opened his mouth to answer, when he felt a hand on his
shoulder; it was Norbith.

“Kennybol, we are betrayed! Gormon Woëstrœm has just come from the
South. The entire regiment of musketeers is marching against us. The
Schleswig lancers are at Sparbo; three companies of Danish dragoons
await the cavalry at Loevig. All along the road he saw as many green
jackets as there were bushes. Let us hasten toward Skongen; let us not
pause until we reach that point. There, at least, we can defend
ourselves. One thing more; Gormon thinks that he saw the gleam of
muskets among the briers as he came through the defiles of Black
Pillar.”

The young leader was pale and agitated; but his face and voice still
showed courage and resolution.

“Impossible!” cried Kennybol.

“It is certain! certain!” said Norbith.

“But Mr. Hacket--”

“Is a traitor or a coward. Depend on what I say, friend Kennybol. Where
is this Hacket?”

At this moment old Jonas approached the two chiefs. By the deep
discouragement stamped upon his features it was easily seen that he had
learned the fatal news.

The eyes of the two elder men, Jonas and Kennybol, met, and they shook
their heads with one accord.

“Well, Jonas! Well, Kennybol!” said Norbith.

But the aged leader of the Färöe miners slowly passed his hand across
his wrinkled brow, and in a low voice answered the appealing look of the
aged leader of the Kiölen mountaineers: “Yes, it is but too true; it is
but too certain. Gormon Woëstrœm saw them.”

“If it be so,” said Kennybol, “what is to be done?”

“What is to be done?” answered Jonas.

“I consider, friend Jonas, that we should do well to halt.”

“And better still, brother Kennybol, to retreat.”

“Halt! retreat!” exclaimed Norbith; “we must push forward.”

The two elders looked at the young man in cold surprise.

“Push forward!” said Kennybol; “and how about the Munkholm musketeers?”

“And the Schleswig lancers?” added Jonas.

“And the Danish dragoons?” continued Kennybol.

Norbith stamped his foot.

“And the royal protectorate; and my mother dying of cold and hunger?”

“The devil, the royal protectorate!” said the miner Jonas, with a
shudder.

“Never mind!” said Kennybol.

Jonas took Kennybol by the hand, saying: “Old fellow, you have not the
honor to be a ward of our glorious sovereign, Christian IV. May the
blessed king Olaf, in heaven, deliver us from the protectorate!”

“You had better trust to your sword for that benefit!” said Norbith, in
a fierce tone.

“Bold words are easy to a young man, friend Norbith,” answered Kennybol;
“but consider that if we advance, all these green jackets--”

“I think that it would be useless for us to return to our mountains,
like foxes running from wolves, for our names and our revolt are known;
and if we needs must die, I prefer a musket-ball to the hangman’s rope.”

Jonas nodded assent.

“The devil! the protectorate for our brothers, the gallows for us!
Norbith may be right, after all.”

“Give me your hand, good Norbith,” said Kennybol; “there is danger in
either course. We may as well march straight to the edge of the
precipice as fall over it backwards.”

“Come on! come on!” cried old Jonas, striking his sword-hilt.

Norbith grasped them by the hand.

“Listen, brothers! Be bold, like me; I will be prudent, like you. Let us
not pause until we reach Skongen; the garrison is weak, and we will
overwhelm it. Let us pass, since we must, through the defiles of Black
Pillar, but in utter silence. We must traverse them, even if they be
guarded by the enemy.”

“I do not think that the musketeers have come so far as Ordals bridge,
beyond Skongen; but it matters not. Silence!”

“Silence! so be it!” repeated Kennybol.

“Now, Jonas,” said Norbith, “let us return to our posts. To-morrow we
may be at Throndhjem in spite of musketeers, lancers, dragoons, and all
the green jerkins of the South.”

The three chiefs parted. Soon the watchword, “Silence!” passed from rank
to rank, and the insurgents, a moment before so tumultuous, looked, in
those waste places darkened by approaching night, like a band of mute
ghosts roaming noiselessly through the winding paths of a cemetery.

But their road became narrower every moment, and seemed by degrees to
dive between two walls of rock which grew steeper and steeper. As the
red moon rose among a mass of cold clouds hovering about her with weird
inconstancy, Kennybol turned to Guldon Stayper, saying, “We are about to
enter Black Pillar Pass. Silence!”

In fact, they already heard the roar of the torrent which follows every
turn of the road between the two mountains, and they saw, to the south,
the huge granite pyramid known as the Black Pillar, outlined against the
gray sky and the surrounding snow-capped mountains; while the western
horizon, veiled in mists, was bounded by the extreme verge of Sparbo
forest, and by huge piles of rocks, terraced as if a stairway for
giants.

The rebels, forced to stretch their columns over this crooked road
compressed between two mountains, continued their march. They
penetrated those dark valleys without lighting a torch, without uttering
a sound. The very sound of their footsteps was unheard amid the
deafening crash of waterfalls and the roar of a furious blast which
bowed the Druidical woods, and drove the clouds in eddying whirls about
tall peaks clad in snow and ice. Lost in the dark depths of the gorge,
the light of the moon, which was veiled now and again, did not reach the
heads of their pikes, and the white eagles flying overhead did not guess
that so vast a multitude of men was troubling their solitude.

Once old Guldon Stayper touched Kennybol’s shoulder with the butt-end of
his carbine, saying, “Captain, Captain, something glimmers behind that
tuft of holly and broom.”

“So it does,” replied the mountain chief; “it is the water of the stream
reflecting the clouds.” And they passed on.

Again Guldon grasped his leader quickly by the arm.

“Look!” he said; “are not those muskets, shining yonder in the shadow of
that rock?”

Kennybol shook his head; then, after looking attentively, he said,
“Never fear, brother Guldon; it is a moonbeam falling on an icy peak.”

No further cause for alarm appeared, and the various bands, as they
marched quietly through the winding gorge, insensibly forgot all the
danger of their position.

After two hours of often painful progress, over the treetrunks and
granite bowlders which blocked the road, the vanguard entered the
mountainous group of pine-trees at the end of Black Pillar Pass,
overhung by high, black, moss-grown cliffs.

Guldon Stayper approached Kennybol, declaring that he was delighted that
they were at last almost out of this cursed cut-throat place, and that
they must render thanks to Saint Sylvester that the Black Pillar had not
been fatal to them.

Kennybol laughed, swearing that he had never shared such old-womanish
fears; for with most men, when danger is over it ceases to exist, and
they try to prove by their incredulity the courage which they perhaps
failed to display before.

At this moment two small round lights, like two live coals, moving in
the thick underwood, attracted his attention.

“By my soul’s salvation!” he whispered, pulling Guldon’s arm, “see;
those two blazing eyes must surely belong to the fiercest wildcat that
ever mewed in a thicket.”

“You are right,” replied old Stayper; “and if he were not marching in
front of us, I should rather think that they were the wicked eyes of the
demon of Ice--”

“Hush!” cried Kennybol. Then, seizing his carbine, he added, “Truly, it
shall not be said that such fine game passed before Kennybol in vain.”

The shot was fired before Guldon Stayper, who threw himself upon the
rash hunter, could prevent it. It was not the shrill cry of a wildcat
that answered the discharge of the gun; it was the fearful howl of a
tiger, followed by a burst of human laughter more frightful still.

No one heard the report as its dying echoes were prolonged from rock to
rock; for the flash of the powder had no sooner lighted up the darkness,
the fatal crack of the gun had no sooner burst upon the silence, than a
thousand terrible voices rang out unexpectedly from mountain, valley,
and forest; a shout of “Long live the king!” loud as the rolling
thunder, swept over the heads of the rebels, close beside them, behind
and before them, and the murderous light of a dreadful volley of
musketry, bursting from every hand, and striking them down, at the same
time disclosed, amid red clouds of smoke, a battalion behind every rock,
and a soldier behind every tree.




XXXVIII.

    To arms! to arms! ye captains!
                 _The Prisoner of Ochali._


We must now ask the reader to retrace with us the day which has just
passed, and to return to Skongen, where, while the insurgents were
leaving Apsyl-Corh lead-mine, the regiment of musketeers, which we saw
on the march in an earlier chapter of this very truthful tale, had just
arrived.

After giving a few orders in regard to billeting the soldiers under his
command, Baron Vœthaün, colonel of the musketeers, was about to enter
the house assigned to him, near the city gate, when a heavy hand was
placed familiarly upon his shoulder. He turned and saw a short man,
whose face was almost wholly hidden by a broad-brimmed straw hat. He had
a bushy red beard, and was closely wrapped in the folds of a gray serge
cloak, which, by the tattered cowl still hanging from it, seemed once to
have been a hermit’s gown. His hands were covered with thick gloves.

“Well, my good man,” asked the colonel, sharply, “what the deuce do you
want?”

“Colonel of the Munkholm musketeers,” replied the fellow, with an odd
look, “follow me for a moment; I have news for you.”

At this singular request, the baron paused for a moment in silent
surprise.

“Important news, Colonel!” repeated the man with the thick gloves.

This persistence decided Baron Vœthaün. At such a crisis, and with such
a mission as his, no information was to be despised. “So be it,” said
he.

The little man preceded him, and as soon as they were outside the town,
he stopped. “Colonel, would you really like to destroy all the
insurgents at a single blow?”

The colonel laughed, saying, “Why, that would not be a bad way to open
the campaign.”

“Very well! Then station your men in ambush this very day, in Black
Pillar Pass, two miles distant from the town; the rebels are to encamp
there to-night. When you see their first fire blaze, fall upon them with
your troops. Victory will be easy.”

“Excellent advice, my good man, and I thank you for it; but how did you
learn all this?”

“If you knew me, Colonel, you would rather ask me how I could fail to
know it.”

“Who are you, then?”

The man stamped his foot. “I did not come here to answer such
questions.”

“Fear nothing. Whoever you may be, the service which you have done us
must be your safeguard. Perhaps you were one of the rebels?”

“I refused to join them.”

“Then why conceal your name, if you are a loyal subject of the king?”

“What is that to you?”

The colonel made another attempt to gain a little information as to this
singular giver of advice. “Tell me, is it true that the insurgents are
under command of the famous Hans of Iceland?”

“Hans of Iceland!” repeated the little man, with peculiar emphasis.

The baron repeated his question. A burst of laughter, which might have
passed for the roar of a wild beast, was the only answer which he could
obtain. He ventured a few more questions as to the number and the
leaders of the miners; the little man silenced him.

“Colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, I have told you all that I have to
tell. Lie in wait to-day in Black Pillar Pass with your entire regiment,
and you may destroy the whole rebel force.”

“You will not tell me who you are; you thus prevent the king from
proving his gratitude; but it is only right that I should reward you for
the service which you have done me.”

The colonel threw his purse at the small man’s feet.

“Keep your gold, Colonel,” said he; “I do not need it. And,” he added,
pointing to a large bag which hung from his rope girdle, “if you wish
pay for killing these men, I have money enough, Colonel, to give you for
their blood.”

Before the colonel could recover from the surprise caused by this
mysterious being’s inexplicable words, he had vanished.

Baron Vœthaün slowly retraced his steps, wondering whether he should
place any faith in the fellow’s news. As he entered his quarters, he was
handed a letter, sealed with the lord chancellor’s arms. It contained a
message from Count d’Ahlefeld, which the colonel found, with amazement
that may be readily imagined, consisted of the same piece of news and
the same advice just given him outside the city gate by the
incomprehensible character with the straw hat and the thick gloves.




XXXIX.

    All must perish!
    The sword cleaveth the helmet;
    The strong armor is pierced by the lance;
    Fire devoureth the dwelling of princes;
    Engines break down the fences of the battle.
    All must perish!
    The race of Hengist is gone--
    The name of Horsa is no more!
    Shrink not then from your doom, sons of the sword!
    Let your blades drink blood like wine;
    Feast ye in the banquet of slaughter,
    By the light of the blazing halls!
    Strong be your swords while your blood is warm,
    And spare neither for pity nor fear,
    For vengeance hath but an hour;
    Strong hate itself shall expire!
    I also must perish!
                WALTER SCOTT: _Ivanhoe_.


We will not try to describe the fearful confusion which broke the
already straggling ranks of the rebels, when the fatal defile suddenly
revealed to them all its steep and bristling peaks, all its caverns
peopled with unlooked-for foes. It would be hard to say whether the
prolonged shout, made up of a thousand shrieks, which rose from the
columns of men thus unexpectedly mowed down, was a yell of despair, of
terror, or of rage. The dreadful fire vomited against them from every
side by the now unmasked platoons of the royal troops, grew hotter every
moment; and before another shot from their lines followed Kennybol’s
unfortunate volley, they were wrapped in a stifling cloud of burning
smoke, through which death flew blindly, where each man, shut off from
his friends, could but dimly distinguish the musketeers, lancers, and
dragoons, moving vaguely among the cliffs and upon the edge of the
thickets, like demons in a red-hot furnace.

The insurgents, thus scattered over a distance of a mile, upon a narrow,
winding road, bordered on one side by a deep torrent, on the other by a
rocky wall, which made it impossible for them to turn and fall back,
were like a serpent destroyed by a blow on the back, when he has unwound
all his spirals, and, though cut to pieces, still tries to turn and
coil, striving to unite his separate fragments.

When their first surprise was past, a common despair seemed to animate
all these men, naturally fierce and intrepid. Frantic with rage to be
thus overwhelmed without the possibility of defence, the rebels uttered
a simultaneous shout,--a shout which in an instant drowned the clamor of
their triumphant foes; and when the latter saw these men, without
leaders, in dire disorder, almost destitute of weapons, climbing
perpendicular cliffs, under a terrible fire, clinging with tooth and
nail to the bushes growing on the verge of the precipice, brandishing
hammers and pitchforks, the well-armed troops, well-drilled, securely
posted as they were, although they had not yet lost a single man, could
not resist a moment of involuntary panic.

Several times these barbarians clambered over a bridge of dead bodies,
or upon the shoulders of their comrades planted against the rock like a
living ladder, to the heights held by their assailants; but they had
scarcely cried, “Liberty!” had scarcely lifted their hatchets or their
knotted clubs,--they had scarcely showed their blackened faces, foaming
with convulsive rage, ere they were hurled into the abyss, dragging with
them such of their rash companions as they encountered in their fall,
hanging to some bush or hugging some cliff.

The efforts of these unfortunates to fly and to defend themselves were
fruitless. Every outlet was guarded; every accessible point swarmed with
soldiers. The greater part of the luckless rebels bit the dust,
perishing when they had shattered scythe or cutlass upon some granite
fragment; some, folding their arms, their eyes fixed upon the ground,
sat by the roadside, silently waiting for a ball to hurl them into the
torrent below; those whom Hacket’s forethought had provided with
wretched muskets, fired a few chance shots at the summit of the cliffs
and the mouth of the caves, from which a ceaseless rain of shot fell
upon their heads. A tremendous uproar, in which the furious shouts of
the rebel leaders and the quiet commands of the king’s officers were
plainly distinguishable, was mingled with the intermittent and frequent
din of musketry, while a bloody vapor rose and floated above the scene
of carnage, veiling the face of the mountains in tremulous mists; and
the stream, white with foam, flowed like an enemy between the two bodies
of hostile men, bearing away upon its bosom its prey of corpses.

In the earlier stage of the action, or rather of the slaughter, the
Kiölen mountaineers, under the brave and reckless Kennybol, were the
greatest sufferers. It will be remembered that they formed the
advance-guard of the rebel army, and that they had entered the pine wood
at the head of the pass. The ill-fated Kennybol had no sooner fired his
gun, than the forest, peopled as by magic with hostile sharpshooters,
surrounded them with a ring of fire; while from a level height,
commanded by a number of huge bowlders, an entire battalion of the
Munkholm regiment, formed in a hollow square, battered them unceasingly
with a fearful musketry. In this horrible emergency, Kennybol,
distracted and aghast, gazed at the mysterious giant, his only hope of
safety lying in some superhuman power such as that of Hans of Iceland;
but, alas! the awful demon did not suddenly unfold broad wings and soar
above the combatants, spitting forth fire and brimstone upon the
musketeers; he did not grow and grow until he reached the clouds, and
overthrow a mountain upon the foe, or stamp upon the earth and open a
yawning gulf to swallow up the ambushed army. The dreadful Hans of
Iceland shrank like Kennybol from the first volley of shot, and
approaching him, with troubled countenance asked for a carbine,
because, he said, in a very commonplace tone, at such a time his axe was
quite as useless as any old woman’s spindle.

Kennybol, amazed, but still credulous, offered his own musket to the
giant with a terror which almost made him forget his fear of the balls
showering about him. Still expecting a miracle, he looked to see his
fatal weapon become as big as a cannon in the hands of Hans of Iceland,
or to see it change into a winged dragon darting fire from eyes, mouth,
and nostrils. Nothing of the sort occurred, and the poor hunter’s
astonishment reached its climax when he saw the demon load the gun with
ordinary powder and shot, just as he himself might have done, take aim
like himself, and fire, though with far less skill than he would have
shown. He stared at him in stupid surprise, as this purely mechanical
act was repeated again and again; and convinced at last that all hope of
a miracle must be abandoned, he turned his thoughts to rescuing his
companions and himself from their evil predicament by some human means.
Already his poor old friend Guldon Stayper lay beside him, riddled with
bullets; already his followers, terrified and unable to escape,
surrounded on every hand, huddled together without a thought of defence,
uttering distressing cries. Kennybol saw what an easy target this mass
of men afforded the enemy’s guns, each discharge destroying a score of
the insurgents. He ordered his unfortunate companions to scatter, to
take refuge in the bushes along the road,--much thicker and larger at
this point than anywhere else in Black Pillar Pass,--to hide in the
underbrush, and to reply as best they could to the more and more
murderous fire from the sharpshooters and the Munkholm battalion. The
mountaineers, for the most part well armed, being all hunters, carried
out their leader’s order with a readiness which they might not have
displayed at a less critical moment; for in the face of danger men
usually lose their head, and obey willingly any one who has presence of
mind and self-possession to act for all.

Still, this wise measure was far from insuring victory, or even safety.
More mountaineers lay stretched upon the ground than still lived, and in
spite of the example and encouragement offered them by their leader and
the giant, several of them, leaning on their useless guns or prostrate
with the wounded, obstinately persisted in waiting to be killed without
taking the trouble to kill others in return. It may seem amazing that
these men, in the habit of exposing their life every day in their
expeditions over the glaciers in pursuit of wild beasts, should lose
heart so soon; but let no one forget that in vulgar hearts courage is
purely local. A man may laugh at shot and shell, and shiver in the dark
or on the edge of a precipice; a man may face fierce animals daily, leap
across fearful abysses, and yet run from a volley of artillery.
Fearlessness is often only a habit; and one who has ceased to fear death
under certain forms, dreads it none the less.

Kennybol, surrounded by heaps of dying friends, began himself to
despair, although as yet he had received only a slight scratch on his
left arm, and the diabolical giant still kept up his fire with the most
comforting composure. All at once he saw an extraordinary confusion in
the fatal battalion posted on the heights, which could not be caused by
the slight damage inflicted by the very feeble resistance of his
followers. He heard fearful shrieks of agony, the curses of the dying,
exclamations of terror, rise from the victors.

Soon their fire slackened, the smoke cleared away, and he distinctly saw
huge masses of granite falling upon the Munkholm musketeers from the top
of the high cliff overlooking the level height upon which they were
stationed. These bowlders succeeded one another with awful rapidity;
they crashed one upon the other, and rebounded among the soldiers, who
breaking their lines rushed in dire disorder down the hill, and fled in
every direction.

At this unexpected aid, Kennybol turned; but the giant was still there!
The mountaineer was dumfounded; for he supposed that Hans of Iceland had
at last found his wings and taken his place upon the cliff, from which
he overwhelmed the enemy. He looked up to the spot whence those fearful
masses fell, and saw nothing. He could therefore only suppose that a
party of rebels had succeeded in reaching this dangerous position,
although he saw no glitter of weapons, and heard no shouts of triumph.

However, the fire from the plateau had wholly ceased; the trees hid the
remnant of the royal troops, who were probably rallying their forces at
the foot of the hill. The musketry from the sharpshooters also became
less frequent. Kennybol, like a skilful leader, took advantage of this
unexpected interval; he encouraged his men, and showed them, by the
sombre light which reddened the scene of slaughter, the pile of corpses
heaped upon the height, and the bowlders which still fell at intervals.

Then the mountaineers in their turn answered the enemy’s groans with
shouts of victory. They formed in line, and although still harassed by
sharpshooters scattered among the bushes, they resolved, filled with
fresh courage, to force their way out of this ill-omened defile.

The column thus formed was about to move; Kennybol had already given the
signal with his horn, amid loud cries of “Liberty! liberty! No more
protectorate!” when the notes of trumpet and drum sounding a charge were
heard directly in front of them. Then the rest of the battalion from the
height, strengthened by reinforcements of fresh troops, appeared within
gunshot at a turn in the road, displaying a bristling line of pikes and
bayonets upheld by rank upon rank as far as the eye could reach.
Arriving thus unexpectedly in sight of Kennybol’s division, the troops
halted, and a man, who seemed to be the commanding officer, stepped
forward, waving a white flag and escorted by a trumpeter.

The unforeseen appearance of this troop did not dismay Kennybol. In time
of danger there is a point where surprise and fear become impossible.

At the first sound of trumpet and drum the old fox of Kiölen halted his
men. As the royal troops drew up before him in line of battle, he
ordered every gun to be loaded, and formed his mountaineers in double
ranks, so that they might not offer so broad a mark for the enemy’s
fire. He placed himself at the head, the giant at his side, as in the
heat of action, for he began to feel quite familiar with him, and
observed that his eyes did not flame quite so brightly as a smithy’s
forge, and that his pretended claws were by no means as unlike ordinary
human fingernails as was claimed for them.

When the officer in command of the musketeers stepped forward as if to
surrender, and the sharpshooters ceased firing, although their loud
shouts, ringing out on every hand, declared them still ambushed in the
forests, he suspended his preparations for defence.

Meantime, the officer with the white flag had reached the centre of the
space between the two hostile columns; here he paused, and the trumpeter
accompanying him blew three loud blasts. The officer then cried in a
loud voice, distinctly heard by the mountaineers, in spite of the ever
increasing tumult of the battle raging behind them in the mountain
gorges: “In the king’s name! The king graciously pardons all those
rebels who throw down their arms and surrender their leaders to his
Majesty’s supreme justice!”

The bearer of the flag of truce had scarcely pronounced those words,
when a shot was fired from a neighboring thicket. The officer staggered,
took a few steps forward, raising his flag above his head, and fell,
exclaiming: “Treason!”

No one knew whose hand had fired the fatal shot.

“Treason! Cowardly treason!” repeated the royal troops, with a thrill of
indignation.

And a fearful volley of musketry overwhelmed the mountaineers.

“Treason!” replied the mountaineers in their turn, made furious as they
saw their brothers fall.

And a general discharge answered the unexpected attack from the royal
troops.

“At them, comrades! Death to those vile cowards! Death!” cried the
officers of the musketeers.

And both parties rushed forward with drawn swords, the two contending
columns meeting directly over the body of the unfortunate officer, with
a fearful din of arms.

The broken ranks were soon inextricably confounded. Rebel chiefs, king’s
officers, soldiers, mountaineers, all pell-mell ran their heads
together, seized one another, grappled like two bands of famished tigers
meeting in the desert. Their long pikes, bayonets, and partisans were
now useless; swords and hatchets alone gleamed above their heads, and
many of the combatants, in their hand-to-hand struggle, could use no
other weapon than their dagger or their teeth.

The same rage and fury inspired both mountaineers and musketeers; the
common cry of “Treason! Vengeance!” sprang from every mouth. The fray
had reached a point when every heart was full of brutal ferocity, when
men walked with utter indifference over heaps of wounded and dead, amid
which the dying revive only to make one last attack on him who tramples
them under foot.

At this moment a short man, whom several combatants, amid the smoke and
streaming blood, took for a wild beast, in his dress of skins, flung
himself into the thick of the carnage, with awful laughter and yells of
joy. None knew whence he came, nor upon which side he fought; for his
stone axe did not choose its victims, but smote alike the skull of a
rebel and the head of a musketeer. He seemed, however, to prefer slaying
the Munkholm troops. All gave way before him; he rushed through the fray
like a disembodied spirit; and his bloody axe whirled about him without
a pause, scattering fragments of flesh, lacerated limbs, and shattered
bones on every side.

He shrieked “Vengeance!” as did all the rest, and uttered strange words,
the name of “Gill” recurring frequently. This fearful stranger seemed to
regard the slaughter as a feast.

A mountaineer upon whom his murderous glance fell threw himself at the
feet of the giant in whom Kennybol had placed such vain trust, crying:
“Hans of Iceland, save me!”

“Hans of Iceland!” repeated the little man.

He approached the giant.

“Are you Hans of Iceland?” he asked.

The giant, by way of answer, raised his axe. The small man sprang back,
and the blade, as it fell, was buried in the skull of the wretch who had
implored his aid.

The unknown laughed aloud.

“Ho! ho! by Ingulf! I thought Hans of Iceland was more skilful.”

“It is thus that Hans of Iceland saves those who pray to him for help!”
said the giant.

“You are right.”

The two dreadful champions attacked each other madly. Stone axe and
steel axe met; they clashed so fiercely that both blades flew in
fragments, with a myriad sparks.

Quicker than thought, the little man, finding himself disarmed, seized a
heavy wooden club, dropped by some dying man, and evading the giant, who
stooped to grasp him in his arms, dealt a furious blow with both hands
on the broad brow of his colossal antagonist.

The giant uttered a stifled shriek, and fell. The little man trampled
him under foot in triumph, foaming with joy, and exclaiming, “You bore a
name too heavy for you!” and brandishing his victorious mace, he rushed
in search of fresh victims.

The giant was not dead. The force of the blow had stunned him, and he
dropped senseless, but soon opened his eyes, and gave faint signs of
returning life. A musketeer, seeing him through the uproar, threw
himself upon him, shouting, “Hans of Iceland is taken! Victory!”

“Hans of Iceland is taken!” repeated every voice, whether in tones of
triumph or distress.

The little man had vanished.

For some time the mountaineers had realized that they must perforce
submit to superior numbers; for the Munkholm musketeers had been joined
by the sharpshooters from the forest, and by detachments of lancers and
foot dragoons, who poured in from deep gorges, where the surrender of
many of the rebel leaders had put a stop to slaughter. Brave Kennybol,
wounded early in the fight, was made a prisoner. Hans of Iceland’s
capture deprived the mountaineers of such courage as they still
possessed, and they threw down their arms.

When the first beams of the rising sun gilded the sharp peaks of lofty
glaciers still half submerged in darkness, mournful peace and fearful
silence reigned in Black Pillar Pass, broken only by feeble moans borne
away by the chill breeze.

Black clouds of crows flocked to those fatal gorges from every quarter
of the horizon; and a few poor goat-herds, who passed the cliffs at
twilight, hastened home in terror, declaring that they had seen an
animal with the face of a man in Black Pillar Pass, seated on a heap of
slain, drinking their blood.




XL.

     Let him who will, burn beneath these smouldering fires.--BRANTOME.


“Open the window, daughter; those panes are very dirty, and I would fain
see the day.”

“See the day, father! It will soon be night.”

“The sun still lies on the hills along the fjord. I long to breathe the
free air through my prison bars. The sky is so clear!”

“Father, a storm is at hand.”

“A storm, Ethel! Where do you see it?”

“It is because the sky is clear, father, that I foresee a storm.”

The old man looked at his daughter in surprise.

“Had I reasoned thus in my youth, I should not be here.” Then he added
in a firmer tone: “What you say is correct, but it is not a common
inference for one of your age. I do not understand why your youthful
reasoning should be so like my aged experience.”

Ethel’s eyes fell, as if she were troubled by this serious and simple
remark. She clasped her hands sadly, and a deep sigh heaved her breast.

“Daughter,” said the aged prisoner, “for some days you have looked pale,
as if life had never warmed the blood in your veins. For several
mornings you have approached me with red and swollen lids, with eyes
that have wept and watched. I have passed several days in silence,
Ethel, with no effort on your part to rouse me from my gloomy
meditations on the past. You sit beside me more melancholy even than
myself; and yet you are not, like your father, weighed down by the
burden of a whole lifetime of empty inaction. Morning clouds vanish
quickly. You are at that period of existence when you can choose in
dreams a future independent of the present, be it what it may. What
troubles you, my daughter? Thanks to your constant captivity, you are
sheltered from all sudden calamity. What error have you committed? I
cannot think that you are grieving for me; you must by this time be
accustomed to my incurable misfortunes. Hope, to be sure, can no longer
be the subject of my discourse; but that is no reason why I should read
despair in your eyes.”

As he spoke these words, the prisoner’s stern voice melted with paternal
love. Ethel stood silently before him. All at once she turned away with
an almost convulsive motion, fell upon her knees on the stone floor, and
hid her face in her hands, as if to stifle the tears and sobs which
burst from her.

Too much woe filled full the wretched girl’s heart. What had she done to
that fatal stranger, that she should reveal to her the secret that was
eating away her very life? Alas! since she had known her Ordener’s true
name, the poor child had not closed her eyes, nor had her soul known
rest. Night brought her no alleviation, save that then she could weep
freely and unseen. All was over! He was not hers, he who was hers by
all her memories, by all her pangs, by all her prayers, he whose wife
she had held herself to be upon the faith of her dreams. For the evening
when Ordener had clasped her so tenderly in his arms was no more than a
dream to her now. And in truth that sweet dream had been repeated
nightly in her sleep. Was it a guilty love which she still cherished for
that absent friend, struggle against it as she might? Her Ordener was
betrothed to another! And who can tell what that virginal heart endured
when the strange and unknown sentiment of jealousy found entrance there
like a poisonous viper? When she tossed for long sleepless hours upon
her fevered bed, picturing her Ordener, perhaps even then, in the arms
of another, fairer, richer, nobler than herself? For, thought she, I was
mad indeed to suppose that he would brave death for me. Ordener is the
son of a viceroy, of a great lord, and I am nothing but a poor prisoner,
nothing but the daughter of a proscribed and exiled man. He has left me,
for he is free; and left me, no doubt, to wed his lovely betrothed,--the
daughter of a chancellor, a minister, a haughty count! Has my Ordener
deceived me, then? Oh, God! who would have thought that such a voice was
capable of deceit?

And the wretched Ethel wept and wept again, and saw her Ordener before
her, the man whom she had made the unwitting divinity of her whole
being, that Ordener adorned with all the splendor of his rank, advancing
to the altar amid festal preparations, and gazing upon her rival with
the smile that had once been her delight.

However, in spite of her unspeakable agony, she never for an instant
forgot her filial affection. The weak girl made the most heroic efforts
to conceal her distress from her unfortunate father; for there is
nothing more painful than to repress all outward signs of grief, and
tears unshed are far more bitter than those that flow. Several days had
passed before the silent old man observed the change in his Ethel, and
at his affectionate questions her long-repressed grief had at last burst
forth.

For some time he watched her emotion with a bitter smile and a shake of
the head; but at last he said: “Ethel, you do not live among men; why do
you weep?”

He had scarcely finished these words, when the sweet and noble girl
rose. By a great effort she checked her tears, and dried her eyes with
her scarf, saying: “Father, forgive me; it was a momentary weakness.”
And she looked at him with an attempt to smile.

She went to the back of the room, found the Edda, seated herself by her
taciturn father, and opened the book at random; then, mastering her
voice, she began to read. But her useless task was unheeded by her and
by the old man, who waved his hand.

“Enough, enough, my daughter!”

She closed her book.

“Ethel,” added Schumacker, “do you ever think of Ordener?”

The young girl started in confusion.

“Yes,” he continued, “of that Ordener who went--”

“Father,” interrupted Ethel, “why should we trouble ourselves about him?
I think as you do,--that he left us, never to return.”

“Never to return, my daughter! I cannot have said such a thing. On the
contrary, I have a strange presentiment that he will come back.”

“That was not your opinion, father, when you spoke so distrustingly of
the young man.”

“Did I speak distrustfully of him?”

“Yes, father, and I agree with you; I think that he deceived us.”

“That he deceived us, daughter! If I judged him thus, I acted like most
men who condemn without proof. I have received nothing but professions
of devotion from this Ordener.”

“And how do you know, father, that those cordial words did not hide
treacherous thoughts?”

“Usually men disregard misfortune and disgrace. If this Ordener were not
attached to me, he would not have visited my prison without a purpose.”

“Are you sure,” replied Ethel, feebly, “that he had no purpose in coming
here?”

“What could it be?” eagerly asked the old man.

Ethel was silent.

It was too great an effort for her to continue to accuse her beloved
Ordener, whom she had formerly defended against her father.

“I am no longer Count Griffenfeld,” he resumed. “I am no longer lord
chancellor of Denmark and Norway, the favored dispenser of royal bounty,
the all-powerful minister. I am a miserable prisoner of State, a
proscribed man, to be shunned like one stricken with the plague. It
shows courage even to mention my name without execration to the men
whom I overwhelmed with honors and wealth; it shows devotion for a man
to cross the threshold of this dungeon unless he be a jailer or an
executioner; it shows heroism, my girl, for a man to cross it and call
himself my friend. No; I will not be ungrateful, like the rest of
humanity. That young man merits my gratitude, were it only for letting
me see a kindly face and hear a consoling voice.”

Ethel listened in agony to these words, which would have charmed her a
few days earlier, when this Ordener was still cherished as her Ordener.
The old man, after a brief pause, resumed in a solemn tone: “Listen to
me, my daughter; for what I have to say to you is serious. I feel that I
am fading slowly; my life is ebbing. Yes, daughter, my end is at hand.”

Ethel interrupted him with a stifled groan.

“Oh God, father, say not so! For mercy’s sake, spare your poor daughter!
Alas! would you forsake me? What would become of me, alone in the world,
if I were deprived of your protection?”

“The protection of a proscribed man!” said her father, shaking his head.
“However, that is the very thing of which I have been thinking. Yes,
your future happiness occupies me even more than my past misfortunes;
hear me, therefore, and do not interrupt me again. This Ordener does not
deserve that you should judge him so severely, my daughter, and I had
not hitherto thought that you felt such dislike to him. His appearance
is frank and noble, which proves nothing, truly; but I must say that he
does not strike me as without merit, although it is enough that he has
a human soul, for it to contain the seeds of every vice and every crime.
There is no flame without smoke.”

The old man again paused, and fixing his eyes upon his daughter, added:
“Warned from within of approaching death, I have pondered much, Ethel;
and if he return, as I hope he may, I shall make him your protector and
husband.”

Ethel trembled and turned pale; at the very moment when her dream of
happiness had fled forever, her father strove to realize it. The bitter
reflection, “I might have been happy!” revived all the violence of her
despair. For some moments she was unable to speak, lest the burning
tears which filled her eyes should flow afresh.

Her father waited for her answer.

“What!” she said at last in a faint voice, “would you have chosen him
for my husband, father, without knowing his birth, his family, his
name?”

“I not only chose him, my daughter, I choose him still.”

The old man’s tone was almost imperious. Ethel sighed.

“I choose him for you, I say; and what is his birth to me? I do not care
to know his family, since I know him. Think of it; he is the only anchor
of salvation left to you. Fortunately, I believe that he does not feel
the same aversion for you which you show for him.”

The poor girl raised her eyes to heaven.

“You hear me, Ethel! I repeat, what is his birth to me? He is doubtless
of obscure rank, for those born in palaces are not taught to frequent
prisons. Do not show such proud regret, my daughter; do not forget that
Ethel Schumacker is no longer Princess of Wollin and Countess of
Tönsberg. You have fallen lower than the point from which your father
rose by his own efforts. Consider yourself happy if this man accept your
hand, be his family what it may. If he be of humble birth, so much the
better, my daughter; at least your days will be sheltered from the
storms which have tormented your father. Far from the envy and hatred of
men, under some unknown name, you will lead a modest existence, very
different from mine, for its end will be better than its beginning.”

Ethel fell on her knees.

“Oh, father, have mercy!”

He opened his arms to her in amazement.

“What do you mean, my daughter?”

“In Heaven’s name, do not describe a happiness which is not for me!”

“Ethel,” sternly answered the old man, “do not risk your whole life. I
refused the hand of a princess of the blood royal, a princess of
Holstein Augustenburg,--do you hear that?--and my pride was cruelly
punished. You despise an obscure but loyal man; tremble lest yours be as
sadly chastised.”

“Would to Heaven,” sighed Ethel, “that he were an obscure and loyal
man!”

The old man rose, and paced the room in agitation. “My daughter,” said
he, “your poor father implores and commands you. Do not let me die
uncertain as to your future; promise me that you will accept this
stranger as your husband.”

“I will obey you always, father; but do not hope that he will return.”

“I have weighed the probabilities, and I think from the tone in which
Ordener uttered your name--”

“That he loves me!” bitterly interrupted Ethel. “Oh, no; do not believe
it.”

The father answered coldly: “I do not know whether, to use your girlish
expression, he loves you; but I know that he will return.”

“Give up that idea, father; besides, you would not wish him for your
son-in-law if you knew who he is.”

“Ethel, he shall be my son-in-law, be his name and rank what they may.”

“Well!” she replied, “how if this young man, whom you regard as your
solace, whom you consider as your daughter’s support, be the son of one
of your mortal foes,--of the viceroy of Norway, Count Guldenlew?”

Schumacker started back.

“Heavens! what do you say? Ordener! that Ordener! It is impossible!”

The look of unutterable hatred which flashed from the old man’s faded
eyes froze Ethel’s trembling heart, and she vainly repented the rash
words which she had uttered.

The blow was struck. For a few moments Schumacker stood motionless, with
folded arms; his whole body quivered as if laid upon live coals; his
flaming eyes started from their sockets; and his gaze, riveted to the
pavement, seemed as if it would pierce the stones. At last these words
issued from his livid lips in a voice as faint as that of a man who
dreams. “Ordener! Yes, it must be so; Ordener Guldenlew! It is well.
Come, Schumacker, old fool, open your arms to him; the loyal youth has
come to stab you to the heart.”

Suddenly he stamped upon the ground, and went on in tones of thunder:
“So they send their whole infamous race to insult me in my disgrace and
captivity! I have already seen a d’Ahlefeld; I almost smiled upon a
Guldenlew! Monsters! Who would ever have thought that this Ordener
possessed such a soul and bore such a name? Wretched me! Wretched he!”

Then he fell exhausted into his chair, and while his breast heaved with
sighs, poor Ethel, trembling with fright, wept at his feet.

“Do not weep, my daughter,” said he, in gloomy tones “come, oh, come to
my heart!”

And he clasped her in his arms.

Ethel knew not how to explain this caress at a moment of rage, but he
resumed: “At least, girl, you were more clear-sighted than your old
father. You were not deceived by that serpent with gentle but venomous
eyes. Come! let me thank you for the hatred which you have shown me that
you feel for that contemptible Ordener.”

She shuddered at these praises, alas! so ill-deserved.

“Father,” said she, “be calm!”

“Promise me,” added Schumacker, “that you will always retain the same
feeling for the son of Guldenlew. Swear it!”

“God forbids us to swear, father.”

“Swear, swear, girl!” vehemently repeated Schumacker. “Will you always
retain the same feeling for Ordener Guldenlew?”

Ethel had scarcely strength to falter, “Always.”

The old man drew her to his heart.

“It is well, my daughter! Let me at least bequeath to you my hate, if I
cannot leave you the wealth and honors of which I was robbed. Listen!
they deprived your old father of rank and glory; they dragged him in
irons to the gallows, as if to stain him with every infamy and make him
endure every torment. Wretches! Oh, may heaven and hell hear me, and may
they be cursed in this life and cursed in their posterity!”

He was silent for a moment; then, embracing his poor daughter, terrified
by his curses: “But Ethel, my only glory and my only treasure, tell me,
how was your instinct so much more skilful than mine? How did you
discover that this traitor bears one of the abhorred names inscribed
upon my heart in gall? How did you penetrate his secret?”

She was summoning all her strength to answer, when the door opened.

A man dressed in black, carrying in his hand an ebony wand, and wearing
about his neck a chain of unpolished steel, appeared upon the threshold,
escorted by halberdiers also dressed in black.

“What do you want?” asked the captive, sharply, and in astonishment.

The man, without replying or looking at him, unrolled a long parchment,
to which was fastened by silken threads a seal of green wax, and read
aloud: “In the name of his Majesty, our most gracious sovereign and
lord, Christian the king. Schumacker, prisoner of State in the royal
fortress of Munkholm, and his daughter, are commanded to follow the
bearer of the said command.”

Schumacker repeated his question: “What do you want?”

The man in black, still immovable, prepared to re-read the document.

“That will do,” said the old man.

Then, rising, he signed to the surprised and startled Ethel to follow
with him this dismal escort.

[Illustration: _Schumacker and his Daughter made Prisoners._

Photo-Etching.--From drawing by Démarest.]




XLI.

     A doleful signal was given, an abject minister of justice knocked
     at his door and informed him that he was wanted.--JOSEPH DE
     MAISTRE.


Night had fallen; a cold wind whistled around the Cursed Tower, and the
doors of Vygla ruin rattled on their hinges, as if the same hand had
shaken all of them at once.

The wild inhabitants of the tower, the hangman and his family, had
gathered about the fire lighted in the middle of the room on the first
floor, which cast a fitful glow upon their dark faces and scarlet
garments. The children’s features were fierce as their father’s laughter
and haggard as their mother’s gaze. Their eyes, as well as those of
Becky were fixed on Orugix, who, seated on a wooden stool, seemed to be
recovering his breath, his feet covered with dust, showing that he had
but just returned from some distant trip.

“Wife, listen; listen, children. I’ve not been gone two whole days
merely to bring back bad news. If I am not made executioner to the king
before another month is out, I wish I may never tie another slip-noose
or handle an axe again. Rejoice, my little wolf-cubs; your father may
leave you the Copenhagen scaffold by way of an inheritance, after all.”

“Nychol,” asked Becky, “what has happened?”

“And you, my old gypsy,” rejoined Nychol, with his boisterous laugh,
“rejoice too! You can buy any number of blue glass necklaces to adorn
your long, skinny neck. Our agreement will soon be up; but never fear,
in a month, when you see me chief hangman of both kingdoms, you will not
refuse to break another jug with me.”[1]

“What is it, what is it, father?” asked the children, the older of whom
was playing with a bloody rack, while the little one amused himself by
plucking alive a young bird which he had stolen from the nest.

“What is it, children?--Kill that bird, Haspar; it makes as much noise
as a rusty saw; and besides, you should never be cruel. Kill it.--What
is it, you say? Nothing,--a trifle, truly; nothing, dame Becky, save
that within a week from this time ex-chancellor Schumacker, who is a
prisoner at Munkholm, after looking me so closely in the face at
Copenhagen, and the famous brigand of Iceland, Hans of Klipstadur, may
perhaps both pass through my hands at once.”

The red woman’s wandering eye assumed an expression of surprised
curiosity.

“Schumacker! Hans of Iceland! How is that, Nychol?”

“I’ll tell you all about it. Yesterday morning, on the road to Skongen,
at Ordals bridge, I met the whole regiment of musketeers from Munkholm
marching back to Throndhjem with a very victorious air. I questioned one
of the soldiers, who condescended to answer, probably because he did not
know why my jerkin and my cart were red. I learned that the musketeers
were returning from Black Pillar Pass, where they had cut to pieces
various bands of brigands,--that is to say, insurgent miners. Now, you
must know, gypsy Becky, that these rebels revolted in Schumacker’s name,
and were commanded by Hans of Iceland. You must know that his uprising
renders Hans of Iceland guilty of the crime of insurrection against
royal authority, and Schumacker guilty of high treason, which will
naturally lead those two honorable gentlemen to the scaffold or the
block. Add to these two superb executions, which cannot fail to bring me
in at least fifteen gold ducats each, and to entitle me to the greatest
honor in both kingdoms, several other though less important ones--”

“But do tell me,” interrupted Becky, “has Hans of Iceland been
captured?”

“Why do you interrupt your lord and master, miserable woman?” said the
hangman. “Yes, to be sure, the famous, the impregnable Hans of Iceland
is a prisoner, together with several other leaders of the brigands, his
lieutenants, who will also bring me in twelve crowns apiece, to say
nothing of the sale of their bodies. He was captured, I tell you; and I
saw him, if you must know all the particulars, march by between a double
file of soldiers.”

The woman and children crowded eagerly about Orugix.

“What! did you really see him, father?” asked the children.

“Be quiet, boys. You shriek like a rogue protesting his innocence. I saw
him; he is a giant. His hands were tied behind his back, and his
forehead was bandaged. I suppose he was wounded in the head. But never
fear, I will soon heal his hurt for him.” Accompanying these brutal
words with a brutal gesture, the hangman added: “There were four of his
comrades behind him, prisoners too and wounded, like him, who were being
taken, like him, to Throndhjem, where they are to be tried with
ex-chancellor Schumacker by a court of justice presided over by the lord
mayor and the present chancellor.”

“Father, what did the other prisoners look like?”

“The first two were a couple of old men, one of whom wore a miner’s
broad felt hat, and the other a mountaineer’s cap; both seemed utterly
disheartened. Of the other two, one was a young miner, who marched along
with head up, whistling; the other,--do you remember, Becky, those
travellers who came to this tower some ten days ago, on the night of
that terrible storm?”

“As Satan remembers the day of his fall,” replied the woman.

“Did you notice a young man in company with that crazy old doctor with
the big periwig,--a young fellow, I say, who wore a great green cloak,
and a cap with a black feather?”

“Yes, indeed; I can see him now, saying: ‘Woman, we have plenty of
gold!’”

“Well, old woman, I hope I may never wring the neck of anything worse
than a grouse, if the fourth prisoner was not that young man. His face,
to be sure, was entirely hidden by his feather, his cap, his hair, and
his cloak; besides, he hung his head. But it was the very same dress,
the same boots, the same manner. I’ll swallow the stone gallows at
Skongen at a single mouthful if it be not the same man! What do you say
to that, Becky? Wouldn’t it be a joke if after I had given him something
to sustain life he should also receive from me something to cut it
short, and should exercise my skill after having tasted my hospitality?”

The hangman’s coarse laughter was loud and long; then he resumed: “Come,
make merry, all of you, and let us drink. Yes, Becky, give me a glass of
that beer which scrapes a man’s throat as if he were drinking files, and
let me drain it to my future advancement. Come, here’s to the health and
prosperity of Nychol Orugix, executioner royal that is to be! I will
confess, you old sinner, that I found it hard work to go to Nœs village
to hang a contemptible clown for stealing cabbage and chicory. Still,
when I thought it over, I felt that thirty-two escalins were not to be
sneezed at, and that my hands would not be degraded by turning off mere
thieves and riff-raff of that kind until after they had actually
beheaded the noble count and ex-chancellor, and the famous demon of
Iceland. I therefore resigned myself, while waiting for my certificate
as hangman to the king, to despatch the poor wretch at Nœs village. And
here,” he added, drawing a leather purse from his wallet, “are the
thirty-two escalins for you, old girl.”

At this moment three blasts from a horn were heard outside.

“Woman,” cried Orugix, “those are the bowmen of the lord mayor.”

With these words he hurried downstairs.

An instant later he reappeared, carrying a large parchment, of which he
had broken the seal.

“There,” said he to his wife, “there’s what the lord mayor has sent me.
Do you decipher it; for you can read Satan’s scrawl. Perhaps it is my
promotion already; for since the court is to have a chancellor to
preside over it and a chancellor as prisoner at the bar, it is only
proper that the man who carries out the sentence should be an
executioner royal.”

The woman took the parchment, and after studying it for some time, read
aloud, while the children stared at her in stupid wonder: “In the name
of the Council of the province of Throndhjem, Nychol Orugix, hangman for
the province, is hereby ordered to repair at once to Throndhjem, and to
carry with him his best axe, block, and black hangings.”

“Is that all?” asked the hangman, in a dissatisfied tone.

“That is all,” replied Becky.

“Hangman for the province!” muttered Orugix.

He cast an angry glance at the official document, but at last exclaimed:
“Well, I must obey and be off. After all, they tell me to bring my best
axe and the black hangings. Take care, Becky, that you rub off the spots
of rust which have dimmed my axe, and see that the hangings are not
stained with blood. We must not be discouraged; perhaps they mean to
promote me in payment for this fine execution. So much the worse for the
prisoners; they will not have the satisfaction of dying by the hand of
an executioner royal.”




XLII.

     _Elvira_. What has become of poor Sancho? He has not appeared in
     town?

     _Nuno_. Sancho has doubtless contrived to find shelter.

                     LOPE DE VEGA: _The Best Alcalde is the King_.




Count d’Ahlefeld, dragging behind him an ample robe of black satin lined
with ermine, his head and shoulders concealed by a large judicial wig,
his breast covered with stars and decorations, among which were the
collars of the Royal Orders of the Elephant and the Dannebrog, clad, in
a word, in the complete costume of the lord chancellor of Denmark and
Norway, paced with an anxious air up and down the apartment of Countess
d’Ahlefeld, who was alone with him at the moment.

“Come, it is nine o’clock; the court is about to open; it must not be
kept waiting, for sentence must be pronounced to-night, so that it may
be carried out by to-morrow morning at latest. The mayor assures me that
the hangman will be here before dawn. Elphega, did you order the boat to
take me to Munkholm?”

“My lord, it has been waiting for you at least half an hour,” replied
the countess, rising from her seat.

“And is my litter at the door?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good! So you say, Elphega,” added the count, clapping his hand to his
head, “that there is a love-affair between Ordener Guldenlew and
Schumacker’s daughter?”

“A very serious one, I assure you,” replied the countess, with a smile
of anger and contempt.

“Who would ever have imagined it? And yet I tell you that I suspected
it.”

“And so did I,” said the countess. “This is a trick played upon us by
that confounded Levin.”

“Old scamp of a Mecklenburger!” muttered the chancellor; “never fear,
I’ll recommend you to Arensdorf. If I could only succeed in disgracing
him! Ah! see here, Elphega, I have an inspiration.”

“What is it?”

“You know that the persons whom we are to try at Munkholm Castle are six
in number,--Schumacker, whom I hope I shall have no further cause to
fear, to-morrow, at this hour; the colossal mountaineer, our false Hans
of Iceland, who has sworn to sustain his character to the end, in the
hope that Musdœmon, from whom he has already received large sums of
money, will help him to escape,--that Musdœmon really has the most
devilish ideas! The other four prisoners are the three rebel chiefs, and
a certain unknown character, who stumbled, no one knows how, into the
midst of the assembly at Apsyl-Corh, and whom Musdœmon’s precautions
have thrown into our hands. Musdœmon thinks that the fellow is a spy of
Levin de Knud. And indeed, when brought here a prisoner, his first words
were to ask for the general; and when he learned of the Mecklenburger’s
absence, he seemed dumfounded. Moreover, he has refused to answer any of
Musdœmon’s questions.”

“My dear lord,” interrupted the countess, “why have you not questioned
him yourself?”

“Really, Elphega, how could I, in the midst of all the business which
has overwhelmed me since my arrival? I trusted the affair to Musdœmon,
whom it interests as much as it does me. Besides, my dear, the fellow is
not of the slightest consequence in himself; he is merely some poor
vagabond. We can only turn him to account by representing him to be an
agent of Levin de Knud, and as he was captured in the rebel ranks, it
would go to prove a guilty connivance between Schumacker and the
Mecklenburger, which will suffice to bring about, if not the
arraignment, at least the disgrace, of that confounded Levin.”

The countess meditated for a moment. “You are right; my lord. But how
about this fatal passion of Baron Thorwick for Ethel Schumacker?”

The chancellor again rubbed his head. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he
said: “See here, Elphega; neither you nor I are young novices, and we
ought to understand men. When Schumacker has been condemned for high
treason for the second time; when he has undergone an infamous death on
the gallows; when his daughter, reduced to the lowest ranks of society,
is forever publicly disgraced by her father’s shame,--do you suppose,
Elphega, that Ordener Guldenlew will then recall for a single instant
this childish flirtation which you call passion, judging it by the
extravagant talk of a crazy girl, or that he will hesitate a single day
between the dishonored daughter of a wretched criminal and the
illustrious daughter of a great chancellor? We must judge others by
ourselves; where do you find that the human heart is so constituted?”

“I trust that you may be right. But I think you will not disapprove of
my request to the mayor that Schumacker’s daughter might be present at
her father’s trial, and might be placed in the same gallery with me. I
am curious to study the creature.”

“All that can throw light upon the affair is valuable,” said the
chancellor, calmly. “But tell me, does anybody know where Ordener is at
present?”

“No one knows; he is the worthy pupil of that old Levin, a knight-errant
like him. I believe that he is visiting Wardhus just now.”

“Well, well, our Ulrica will settle him. But come, I forget that the
court is waiting for me.”

The countess detained the chancellor. “One word more, my lord. I asked
you yesterday, but your mind was full of other things, and I could not
get an answer,--where is my Frederic?”

“Frederic!” said the count, with a melancholy expression, and hiding his
face with his hand.

“Yes, answer me; my Frederic? His regiment has returned to Throndhjem
without him. Swear to me that Frederic was not in that horrible affair
at Black Pillar Pass. Why do you change color at his name? I am in
mortal terror.”

The chancellor’s features resumed their wonted composure. “Make
yourself easy, Elphega. I swear that he was not at Black Pillar Pass.
Besides, the list of officers killed or wounded in that skirmish has
been published.”

“Yes,” said the countess, growing calmer, “you reassure me. Only two
officers were killed,--Captain Lory and that young Baron Randmer, who
played so many mad pranks with my poor Frederic at the Copenhagen balls.
Oh, I have read and re-read the list, I assure you. But tell me, my
lord, did my boy remain at Wahlstrom?”

“He did,” replied the count.

“Well, my friend,” said the mother, with a smile which she tried to
render affectionate, “I have but one favor to ask of you,--that is, to
recall Frederic as soon as may be from that frightful region.”

The chancellor broke from her suppliant arms, saying, “Madam, the court
waits. Farewell. What you ask does not depend on my will.” And he
quitted the room abruptly.

The countess was left in a sad and pensive mood. “It does not depend
upon his will!” said she; “and he has but to utter a word to restore my
son to my arms! I always thought that man was genuinely bad.”




XLIII.

     Is it thus you treat a man in my position? Is it thus you forget
     the respect due to justice?--CALDERON: _Louis Perez of Galicia_.


The trembling Ethel, separated from her father by the guards upon
leaving the Lion of Schleswig tower, was conducted through dim passages,
hitherto unknown to her, to a small, dark cell, which was closed as soon
as she had entered it. In the wall opposite the door was a large grated
opening, through which came the light of links and torches. Before this
opening was a bench, upon which sat a woman, veiled and dressed in
black, who signed to her to be seated beside her. Ethel obeyed in silent
dismay. She looked through the grated window and saw a solemn and
imposing scene.

At the farther end of a room hung with black and dimly lighted by copper
lamps suspended from the vaulted roof, was a black platform in the shape
of a horseshoe, occupied by seven judges in black gowns, one of whom,
placed in the centre upon a higher seat, wore on his breast glittering
diamond chains and gold medals. The judge on his right differed from the
others in the wearing of a white girdle and an ermine mantle, showing
him to be the lord mayor of the province. To the right of the bench was
a platform covered with a daïs, upon which sat an old man, in bishop’s
dress; to the left, a table covered with papers, behind which stood a
short man with a huge wig, and enveloped in a long black gown.

Opposite the judges was a wooden bench, surrounded by halberdiers
holding torches, whose light, reflected back from a forest of pikes,
muskets, and partisans, shed a faint glimmer upon the tumultuous heads
of a mob of spectators, crowded against the iron railing dividing them
from the court-room.

Ethel looked at this spectacle as she might have beheld some waking
dream; yet she was far from feeling indifferent to what was about to
happen. A secret voice warned her to listen well, because a crisis in
her life was at hand. Her heart was a prey to contending emotions; she
longed to know instantly what interest she had in the scene before her,
or never to know it at all. For some days, the idea that her Ordener was
forever lost to her had inspired her with a desperate desire to be done
with existence once for all, and to read the book of her fate at a
single glance. Therefore, realizing that this was a decisive hour, she
watched the sombre picture before her, not so much with aversion as with
a sort of impatient, melancholy joy.

She saw the president rise and proclaim in the king’s name that the
court was opened.

She heard the short, dark man to the left of the bench read, in a low,
rapid voice, a long discourse in which her father’s name, mixed with the
words “conspiracy,” “revolt in the mines,” and “high treason,”
frequently recurred. Then she remembered what the dread stranger had
told her, in the donjon garden, of the charges against her father; and
she shuddered as she heard the man in the black robe conclude his speech
with the word “death,” pronounced with great emphasis.

She turned in terror to the veiled lady, from whom she shrank with
unaccountable fear. “Where are we? What does all this mean?” she timidly
asked.

A gesture from her mysterious companion commanded her to be silent and
attentive. She again turned her eyes to the court-room. The venerable
bishop rose, and Ethel caught these words: “In the name of omnipotent
and most merciful God, I, Pamphilus-Luther, bishop of the royal province
and town of Throndhjem, do greet the worthy court assembled here in the
name of the king, our lord, under God.

“And I say, that having observed that the prisoners brought to this bar
are men and Christians, and that they have no counsel, I declare to the
worthy judges that it is my purpose to aid them with my poor strength in
the cruel position in which it has pleased Heaven to place them.

“Praying that God will deign to strengthen my great weakness, and
enlighten my great blindness, I, bishop of this royal diocese, greet
this wise and worthy court.”

So saying, the bishop stepped from his episcopal throne, and took his
seat upon the prisoners’ bench, amid a murmur of applause from the
people.

The president then rose, and said in dry tones, “Halberdiers, command
silence! My lord bishop, the court thanks your reverence, in the name of
the prisoners. Inhabitants of the province of Throndhjem, pay good heed
to the king’s justice; there can be no appeal from the sentence of the
court. Bowmen, bring in the prisoners.”

There was an expectant and terrified hush; the heads of the crowd swayed
to and fro in the darkness like the waves of a stormy sea, upon which
the thunder is about to burst.

Soon Ethel heard a dull sound and a strange stir below her, in the
gloomy aisles of the court; the audience moved aside with a thrill of
impatient curiosity; there was a noise of many feet; halberds and
muskets gleamed, and six men, chained and surrounded by guards, entered
the room bareheaded. Ethel had eyes for the first of the six alone, a
white-headed old man in a black gown. It was her father.

She leaned, almost fainting, against the stone balustrade in front of
her; everything swam before her in a confused cloud, and it seemed as if
her heart were in her throat. She said in a feeble voice, “O God! help
me!”

The veiled woman bent over her and gave her salts to smell, which roused
her from her lethargy.

“Noble lady,” said she, reviving, “for mercy’s sake, speak but one word
to convince me that I am not the sport of spirits from hell.”

The stranger, deaf to her entreaty, again turned her head toward the
court; and poor Ethel, who had somewhat recovered her strength, resigned
herself to do the same in silence.

The president rose, and said in slow, solemn tones, “Prisoners, you are
brought before us that we may decide whether or not you are guilty of
high treason, conspiracy, and armed rebellion against the authority of
the king, our sovereign lord. Examine your consciences well, for the
charge of leze-majesty rests upon your heads.”

At this moment a gleam of light fell upon the face of one of the six
prisoners, a young man who held his head down, as if to veil his
features with his long hair. Ethel started, and a cold sweat oozed from
every pore. She thought she recognized--But no; it was a cruel illusion.
The room was but dimly lighted, and men moved about it like shadows; the
great polished ebony Christ hanging over the president’s chair was
scarcely visible.

And yet that young man was wrapped in a mantle which at this distance
seemed to be green; his disordered hair was chestnut, and the unexpected
gleam which revealed his features--But no; it was not true. It could not
be! It was some horrid delusion!

The prisoners were seated on the bench beside the bishop. Schumacker
took his place at one end; he was separated from the chestnut-haired
young man by his four companions in misfortune, who wore coarse clothes,
and among whom was one of gigantic stature. The bishop sat at the other
end of the bench.

Ethel saw the president turn to her father, saying in a stern voice:
“Old man, tell us your name, and who you are.”

The old man raised his venerable head.

“Once,” he replied, looking steadily at the president, “I was Count
Griffenfeld and Tönsberg, Prince of Wollin, Prince of the Holy German
Empire, Knight of the Royal Orders of the Elephant and the Dannebrog,
Knight of the Golden Fleece in Germany and of the Garter in England,
Prime Minister, Lord Rector of all our Universities, Lord High
Chancellor of Denmark, and--”

The president interrupted him: “Prisoner, the court does not ask who you
were, nor what your name once was, but who you are and what it now is.”

“Well,” answered the old man, quickly, “my name is John Schumacker now;
I am sixty-nine years old, and I am nothing but your former benefactor,
Chancellor d’Ahlefeld.”

The president seemed confused.

“I recognized you, Count,” added the ex-chancellor, “and as I thought
you did not know me, I took the liberty to remind your Grace that we are
old acquaintances.”

“Schumacker,” said the president, in a voice trembling with concentrated
fury, “do not trifle with the court.”

The aged prisoner again interrupted him: “We have changed places, noble
Chancellor; I used to call you ‘d’Ahlefeld,’ and you addressed me as
‘Count.’”

“Prisoner,” replied the president, “you only injure your cause by
recalling the infamous decree which already brands your name.”

“If that sentence entailed infamy on any one, Count d’Ahlefeld, it was
not on me.”

The old man half rose as he spoke these words with great emphasis.

The president waved his hand.

“Sit down. Do not insult, in the presence of the court, the judges who
condemned you, and the king who surrendered you to those judges.
Recollect that his Majesty deigned to grant you your life, and confine
yourself to defending it.”

Schumacker’s only answer was a shrug of the shoulders.

“Have you,” asked the president, “anything to say in regard to the
charges preferred against you?”

Seeing that Schumacker was silent, the president repeated his question.

“Are you speaking to me?” said the ex-chancellor. “I supposed, noble
Count d’Ahlefeld, that you were speaking to yourself. Of what crime do
you accuse me? Did I ever give a Judas kiss to a friend? Have I
imprisoned, condemned, and dishonored a benefactor,--robbed him to whom
I owed everything? In truth, my lord chancellor, I know not why I am
brought here. Doubtless it is to judge of your skill in lopping off
innocent heads. Indeed, I shall not be sorry to see whether you find it
as easy to ruin me as to ruin the kingdom, and whether a single comma
will be a sufficient pretext for my death, as one letter of the
alphabet was enough for you to bring on a war with Sweden.”[2]

He had scarcely uttered this bitter jest, when the man seated at the
table to the left of the bench arose.

“My lord president,” said he, bowing low, “my lord judges, I move that
John Schumacker be forbidden to speak, if he continue to insult his
Grace, the president of this worshipful court.”

The calm voice of the bishop answered: “Mr. Private Secretary, no
prisoner can be deprived of the right to speak.”

“True, Reverend Bishop,” hastily exclaimed the president. “We propose to
allow the defence the utmost liberty. I would merely advise the prisoner
to moderate his expressions if he understands his own interest.”

Schumacker shook his head, and said coldly: “It seems that Count
d’Ahlefeld is more sure of his game than he was in 1677.”

“Silence!” said the president; and instantly addressing the prisoner
next to the old man, he asked his name.

A mountaineer of colossal stature, whose forehead was swathed in
bandages, rose, saying, “I am Hans, from Klipstadur, in Iceland.”

A shudder of horror ran through the crowd, and Schumacher, lifting his
head, which had sunk upon his breast, cast a sudden glance at his
dreadful neighbor, from whom all his other fellow-prisoners shrank.

“Hans of Iceland,” asked the president, when the confusion ceased, “what
have you to say for yourself?”

Ethel was as much startled as any of the spectators by the appearance of
the famous brigand, who had so long played a prominent part in all her
visions of alarm. She fixed her eyes with timid dread upon the monstrous
giant, with whom her Ordener had possibly fought, whose victim he
perhaps was. This idea again took possession of her soul in all its
painful shapes. Thus, wholly absorbed by countless heart-rending
emotions, she hardly heeded the coarse, blundering answer of this Hans
of Iceland, whom she regarded almost as her Ordener’s murderer. She only
understood that the brigand declared himself to be the leader of the
rebel forces.

“Was it of your own free will,” asked the president, “or by the
suggestion of others, that you took command of the insurgents?”

The brigand answered: “It was not of my own free will.”

“Who persuaded you to commit such a crime?”

“A man named Hacket.”

“Who was this Hacket?”

“An agent of Schumacker, whom he also called Count Griffenfeld.”

The president turned to Schumacker: “Schumacker, do you know this
Hacket?”

“You have forestalled me, Count d’Ahlefeld,” rejoined the old man; “I
was about to ask you the same question.”

“John Schumacker,” said the president, “your hatred is ill advised. The
court will put the proper value upon your system of defence.”

The bishop then said, turning to the short man, who seemed to fill the
office of recorder and prosecutor: “Mr. Private Secretary, is this
Hacket one of your clients?”

“No, your reverence,” replied the secretary.

“Does any one know what has become of him?”

“He was not captured; he has disappeared.”

It seemed as if the private secretary tried to steady his voice as he
said this.

“I rather think that he has vanished altogether,” said Schumacker.

The bishop continued: “Mr. Secretary, is any one in pursuit of this
Hacket? Has any one a description of him?”

Before the private secretary could answer, one of the prisoners rose. He
was a young miner, with a stern, proud face.

“He is easily described,” said he, in a firm voice. “This contemptible
Hacket, Schumacker’s agent, is a man of low stature, with an open
countenance, like the mouth of hell. Stay, Mr. Bishop; his voice is very
like that of the gentleman writing at the table over there, whom your
reverence calls, I believe, ‘private secretary.’ And truly, if the room
were not so dark, and the private secretary had less hair to hide his
face, I could almost swear that he looked very much like the traitor
Hacket.”

“Our brother speaks truly,” cried the prisoners on either side of the
young miner.

“Indeed!” muttered Schumacker, with a look of triumph.

The secretary involuntarily started, whether from fear, or from the
indignation which he felt at being compared to Hacket. The president,
who himself seemed disturbed, hurriedly exclaimed: “Prisoners, remember
that you are only to speak in answer to a question from the court; and
do not insult the officers of the law by unworthy comparisons.”

“But, Mr. President,” said the bishop, “this is a mere matter of
description. If the guilty Hacket has points of resemblance to your
secretary, it may be useful to--”

The president cut him short.

“Hans of Iceland, you, who have had such frequent intercourse with
Hacket, tell us, to satisfy the worthy bishop, whether the fellow really
resembles our honorable private secretary.”

“Not at all, sir,” unhesitatingly answered the giant.

“You see, my lord bishop,” added the president.

The bishop acknowledged his satisfaction by a bow, and the president,
addressing another prisoner, pronounced the usual formula: “What is your
name?”

“Wilfred Kennybol, from the Kiölen Mountains.”

“Were you among the insurgents?”

“Yes, sir; the truth at all costs. I was captured in the cursed defile
of Black Pillar. I was the chief of the mountaineers.”

“Who urged you to the crime of rebellion?”

“Our brothers the miners complained of the royal protectorate; and that
was very natural, was it not, your worship? If you had nothing but a mud
hut and a couple of paltry fox-skins, you would not like to have them
taken from you. The government would not listen to their petitions.
Then, sir, they made up their minds to rebel, and begged us to help
them. Such a slight favor could not be refused by brothers who say the
same prayers and worship the same saints. That’s the whole story.”

“Did nobody,” said the president, “excite, encourage, and direct your
insurrection?”

“There was a Mr. Hacket, who was forever talking to us about rescuing a
count who was imprisoned at Munkholm, whose messenger he said he was. We
promised to do as he asked, because it was nothing to us to set one more
captive free.”

“Was not this count’s name Schumacker or Griffenfeld, fellow?”

“Exactly so, your worship.”

“Did you never see him?”

“No, sir; but if he be that old man who told you that he had so many
names just now, I must confess--”

“What?” interrupted the president.

“That he has a very beautiful white beard, sir; almost as handsome a one
as my sister Maase’s husband’s father, of the village of Surb; and he
lived to be one hundred and twenty years old.”

The darkness of the room prevented any one from seeing whether the
president looked disappointed at the mountaineer’s simple answer. He
ordered the archers to produce certain scarlet flags.

“Wilfred Kennybol,” he asked, “do you recognize these flags?”

“Yes, your Grace; they were given to us by Hacket in Count Schumacker’s
name. The count also distributed arms to the miners; for we did not need
them, we mountaineers, who live by our gun and game-bag. And I myself,
sir, such as you see me, trussed as I am like a miserable fowl to be
roasted, have more than once, in one of our deep valleys, brought down
an old eagle flying so high that it looked like a lark or a thrush.”

“You hear, judges,” remarked the private secretary; “the prisoner
Schumacker distributed arms and banners to the rebels, through Hacket.”

“Kennybol,” asked the president, “have you anything more to say?”

“Nothing, your Grace, except that I do not deserve death. I only lent a
hand in brotherly love to the miners, and I’ll venture to say before all
your worships that my bullet, old hunter as I am, never touched one of
the king’s deer.”

The president, without answering this plea, cross-examined Kennybol’s
two companions; they were the leaders of the miners. The older of the
two, who stated that his name was Jonas, repeated Kennybol’s testimony
in slightly different words. The other,--the same young man who had
noticed such a strong resemblance between the private secretary and the
treacherous Hacket,--called himself Norbith, and proudly avowed his
share in the rebellion, but refused to reveal anything regarding Hacket
and Schumacker, saying that he had sworn secrecy, and had forgotten
everything but that oath. In vain the president tried threats and
entreaties; the obstinate youth was not to be moved. Moreover, he
insisted that he had not rebelled on Schumacker’s account, but simply
because his old mother was cold and hungry. He did not deny that he
might deserve to die; but he declared that it would be unjust to kill
him, because in killing him they would also kill his poor mother, who
had done nothing to merit punishment.

When Norbith ceased speaking, the private secretary briefly summed up
the heavy charges against the prisoners, and more especially against
Schumacker. He read some of the seditious mottoes on the flags, and
showed how the general agreement of the answers of the ex-chancellor’s
accomplices, and even the silence of Norbith bound by a fanatical oath,
tended to inculpate him. “There now remains,” he said in close, “but a
single prisoner to be examined, and we have strong reasons for thinking
him the secret agent of the authority who has ill protected the peace of
the province of Throndhjem. This authority has favored, if not by his
guilty connivance, at least by his fatal negligence, the outbreak of the
revolt which must destroy all these unhappy men, and restore Schumacker
to the scaffold from which the king’s clemency so generously preserved
him.”

Ethel, whose fears for Ordener were now converted into cruel
apprehensions for her father, shuddered at these ominous words, and wept
floods of tears when her father rose and said quietly: “Chancellor
d’Ahlefeld, I admire your skill. Have you summoned the hangman?”

The unfortunate girl thought her cup of bitterness was full: she was
mistaken.

The sixth prisoner now stood up. With a superb gesture he swept back the
hair which covered his face, and replied to the president’s questions in
a clear, firm voice: “My name is Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick,
Knight of the Dannebrog.”

An exclamation of surprise escaped the secretary: “The viceroy’s son!”

“The viceroy’s son!” repeated every voice, as if the words were taken up
by countless echoes.

The president shrank back in his seat; the judges, hitherto motionless
upon the bench, bent toward one another in confusion, like trees beaten
by opposing winds. The commotion was even greater in the audience. The
spectators climbed upon stone cornices and iron rails; the entire
assembly spoke through a single mouth; and the guards, forgetting to
insist upon silence, added their ejaculations to the general uproar.

Only those accustomed to sudden emotions can imagine Ethel’s feelings.
Who could describe that unwonted mixture of agonizing joy and delicious
grief; that anxious expectation, which was alike fear and hope, and yet
not quite either? He stood before her, but he could not see her. There
was her beloved Ordener,--her Ordener,--whom she had believed dead, whom
she knew was lost to her; her friend who had deceived her, and whom she
adored with renewed adoration. He was there; yes, he was there. She was
not the victim of a vain dream. Oh, it was really he,--that Ordener,
alas! whom she had seen in dreams more often than in reality. But did
he appear within these gloomy precincts as an angel of deliverance, or a
spirit of evil? Was she to hope in him, or to tremble for him? A
thousand conjectures crowded upon her at once, and oppressed her mind
like a flame choked by too much fuel; all the ideas and sensations which
we have suggested flashed through her brain as the son of the Norwegian
viceroy pronounced his name. She was the first to recognize him, and
before any one else had recognized him, she had fainted.

She soon recovered her senses for the second time, thanks to the
attentions of her mysterious neighbor. With pale cheeks, she again
opened her eyes, in which the tears had been suddenly dried. She cast an
eager glance at the young man still standing unmoved amid the general
confusion; and after all agitation had ceased in the court and among the
people, Ordener Guldenlew’s name still rang in her ears. With painful
alarm she observed that he wore his arm in a sling, and that his wrists
were chained; she noticed that his mantle was torn in several places,
and that his faithful sword no longer hung at his side. Nothing escaped
her solicitude, for the eye of a lover is like that of a mother. Her
whole soul flew to the rescue of him whom she could not shield with her
body; and, be it said to the glory and the shame of love, in that room,
which contained her father and her father’s persecutors, Ethel saw but
one man.

Silence was gradually restored. The president resumed his examination of
the viceroy’s son. “My lord Baron,” said he, in a tremulous voice.

“I am not ‘my lord Baron’ here,” firmly answered Ordener. “I am Ordener
Guldenlew, just as he who was once Count Griffenfeld is John Schumacker
here.”

The president hesitated for a moment, then went on: “Well, Ordener
Guldenlew, it is doubtless by some unlucky accident that you are brought
before us. The rebels must have captured you while you were travelling,
and forced you to join them, and it is probably in this way that you
were found in their ranks.”

The secretary rose: “Noble judges, the mere name of the viceroy’s son is
a sufficient plea for him. Baron Ordener Guldenlew cannot by any
possibility be a rebel. Our illustrious president has given a clear
explanation of his unfortunate arrest among the rebels. The noble
prisoner’s only error is in not sooner revealing his name. We request
that he may be set free at once, abandoning all charges against him, and
only regretting that he should have been seated upon a bench degraded by
the criminal Schumacker and his accomplices.”

“What would you do?” cried Ordener.

“The private secretary,” said the president, “withdraws the charges
against you.”

“He is wrong,” replied Ordener, in a loud, clear voice; “I alone of all
here should be accused, judged, and condemned.” He paused a moment, and
added in a less resolute tone, “For I alone am guilty.”

“You alone guilty!” exclaimed the president.

“You alone guilty!” repeated the secretary.

A fresh burst of astonishment was heard in the audience. The wretched
Ethel shuddered; she did not reflect that this declaration from her
lover would save her father. She thought only of her Ordener’s death.

“Silence in the court!” said the president, possibly taking advantage of
this brief tumult to collect his thoughts and recover his
self-possession. “Ordener Guldenlew,” he resumed, “explain yourself.”

The young man mused an instant, then sighed heavily, and uttered these
words in a tone of calm submission: “Yes, I know that an infamous death
awaits me; I know that my life might have been bright and fair. But God
reads my heart; God alone! I am about to accomplish the most urgent duty
of my life. I am about to sacrifice to it my blood, perhaps my honor;
but I feel that I shall die without regret or remorse. Do not be
surprised at my words, judges; there are mysteries in the soul and in
the destiny of man which men cannot penetrate, and which are judged in
heaven alone. Hear me, therefore, and act toward me as your conscience
may dictate when you have pardoned these unfortunate men, and more
especially the much injured Schumacker, who has already, in his long
captivity, expiated many more crimes than any one man could ever commit.
Yes, I am guilty, noble judges, and I alone. Schumacker is innocent;
these other unhappy men were merely led astray. I am the author of the
insurrection among the miners.”

“You!” exclaimed the president and his private secretary, with a
singular look upon their faces.

“I! and do not interrupt me again, gentlemen. I am in haste to finish;
for by accusing myself I exonerate these poor prisoners. I excited the
miners in Schumacker’s name; I distributed those banners to the rebels;
I sent them money and arms in the name of the prisoner of Munkholm.
Hacket was my agent.”

At the name of Hacket, the private secretary made a gesture of stupefied
amazement.

Ordener continued: “I will not trespass on your time, gentlemen. I was
captured among the miners, whom I persuaded to revolt. I alone did
everything. Now judge me. If I have proved my guilt, I have also proved
the innocence of Schumacker and the poor wretches whom you deem his
accomplices.”

The young man spoke these words, his eyes raised to heaven. Ethel,
almost lifeless, scarcely breathed; but it seemed to her that Ordener,
although he exculpated her father, pronounced his name most bitterly.
The young man’s language terrified and amazed her, although she could
not comprehend it. Of all she heard, she grasped nothing but misery.

A sentiment of similar nature seemed to engross the president. He was
scarcely able to believe his ears. Nevertheless, he asked the viceroy’s
son: “If you are indeed the sole author of this revolt, what was your
object in instigating it?”

“I cannot tell you.”

Ethel shivered when she heard the president reply in a somewhat angry
tone: “Had you not an intrigue with Schumacker’s daughter?”

But Ordener, though in chains, advanced toward the bench, and exclaimed,
in accents of indignation: “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, content yourself with
my life, which I place in your hands; respect a noble and innocent
girl. Do not a second time attempt to dishonor her.”

Ethel, who felt the blood rise to her face, did not comprehend the
meaning of the words, “a second time,” upon which her defender laid such
emphasis; but by the rage expressed in the president’s features, it
seemed that he understood them.

“Ordener Guldenlew, do not forget the respect due to the king’s justice
and the officers of the law. I reprimand you in the name of the court. I
now summon you anew to declare your purpose in committing the crime of
which you accuse yourself.”

“I repeat that I cannot tell you.”

“Was it not to deliver Schumacker?” inquired the secretary.

Ordener was silent.

“Do not persist in silence, prisoner,” said the president; “it is proved
that you have been in communication with Schumacker, and your confession
of guilt rather implicates than exonerates the prisoner of Munkholm. You
have paid frequent visits to Munkholm, and your motive was surely more
than mere curiosity. Let this diamond buckle bear witness.”

The president took from the table a diamond buckle.

“Do you recognize it as your property?”

“Yes. By what chance?”

“Well! One of the rebels gave it, before he died, to our private
secretary, averring that he received it from you in payment for rowing
you across from Throndhjem to Munkholm fortress. Now I ask you, judges,
if such a price paid to a common sailor does not prove the importance
laid by the prisoner, Ordener Guldenlew, upon his reaching that prison,
which is the one where Schumacker was confined?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the prisoner Kennybol, “what your grace says is true; I
recognize the buckle. It is the same story which our poor brother Guidon
Stayper told me.”

“Silence,” said the president; “let Ordener Guldenlew answer.”

“I will not deny,” replied Ordener, “that I desired to see Schumacker.
But this buckle has no significance. It is forbidden to enter the fort
wearing diamonds. The sailor who rowed me across complained of his
poverty during our passage. I flung him this buckle, which I was not
allowed to wear.”

“Pardon me, your Grace,” interrupted the private secretary, “the rule
does not include the viceroy’s son. You could therefore--”

“I did not wish to give my name.”

“Why not?” asked the president.

“I cannot tell you.”

“Your relations with Schumacker and his daughter prove that the object
of your conspiracy was to set them free.”

Schumacker, who had hitherto shown no sign of attention save an
occasional scornful shrug of the shoulders, rose: “To set me free! The
object of this infernal plot was to compromise and ruin me, as it still
is. Do you think that Ordener Guldenlew would confess his share in this
crime unless he had been captured among the rebels? Oh, I see that he
inherits his father’s hatred of me! And as for the relations which you
suppose exist between him and myself and my daughter, let him know, that
accursed Guldenlew, that my daughter also inherits my loathing for
him,--for the whole race of Guldenlews and d’Ahlefelds!”

Ordener sighed deeply, while Ethel in her heart disclaimed her father’s
assertion; and he fell back upon his bench, quivering with wrath.

“The court will decide for itself,” said the president.

Ordener, who, at Schumacker’s words, had silently cast down his eyes,
seemed to awake: “Oh, hear me, noble judges! You are about to examine
your consciences; do not forget that Ordener Guldenlew is alone guilty;
Schumacker is innocent. These other unfortunate men were deceived by my
agent, Hacket. I did everything else.”

Kennybol interrupted him: “His worship says truly, judges, for it was he
who undertook to bring Hans of Iceland to us; I only hope that name may
not bring me ill luck. I know that it was this young man who ventured to
seek him out in Walderhog cave, to persuade him to be our leader. He
confided the secret of his undertaking to me in Surb village, at the
house of my brother Braal. And for the rest, too, the young gentleman
says truly; we were deceived by that confounded Hacket, whence it
follows that we do not deserve death.”

“Mr. Secretary,” said the president, “the hearing is ended. What are
your conclusions?”

The secretary rose, bowed several times to the court, passed his finger
under the folds of his lace band, without taking his eyes from the
president’s face. At last he pronounced the following words in a dull,
measured voice: “Mr. President, most worthy judges! It is a true bill.
Ordener Guldenlew, who has forever tarnished the glory of an illustrious
name, has only succeeded in establishing his own guilt without proving
the innocence of ex-chancellor Schumacker and his accomplices, Hans of
Iceland, Wilfred Kennybol, Jonas, and Norbith. I require the court to
declare the six prisoners guilty of the crime of high treason in the
first degree.”

A vague murmur rose from the crowd. The president was about to dismiss
the court, when the bishop asked for a brief hearing.

“Learned judges, it is proper that the prisoners’ defence should be
heard last. I could wish that they had a better advocate, for I am old
and feeble, and have no other strength than that which proceeds from
God. I am confounded at the secretary’s severe sentence. There is no
proof of my client Schumacker’s crime. There is no evidence that he has
had any direct share in the insurrection; and since my other client,
Ordener Guldenlew, confesses that he made unlawful use of Schumacker’s
name, and moreover that he is the sole author of this damnable sedition,
all evidence against Schumacker disappears; you should therefore acquit
him. I recommend to your Christian indulgence the other prisoners, who
were only led astray like the Good Shepherd’s sheep; and even young
Ordener Guldenlew, who has at least the merit, very great in the sight
of God, of confessing his crime. Reflect, judges, that he is still at
the age when a man may err, and even fall; but God does not refuse to
support or to raise him up. Ordener Guldenlew bears scarce a fourth the
burden of years which weigh down my head. Place in the balance of your
judgment his youth and inexperience, and do not so soon deprive him of
the life which the Lord has but lately given him.”

The old man ceased, and took his place beside Ordener, who smiled; while
at the invitation of the president, the judges rose from the bench, and
silently crossed the threshold of the dread scene of their
deliberations.

While a handful of men were deciding the fate of six fellow-beings
within that terrible sanctuary, the prisoners remained motionless upon
their seat between two files of halberdiers. Schumacker, his head on his
breast, seemed absorbed in meditation. The giant stared to the right and
left with stupid assurance; Jonas and Kennybol, with clasped hands,
prayed in low tones, while their comrade, Norbith, stamped his foot or
shook his chains with a convulsive start. Between him and the venerable
bishop, who was reading the penitential psalms, sat Ordener, with folded
arms and eyes lifted to heaven.

Behind them was the noise of the crowd, which swelled high when the
judges left the room. The famous prisoner of Munkholm, the much-dreaded
demon of Iceland, and above all the viceroy’s son, were the objects of
every thought, every speech, and every glance. The uproar, mingled with
groans, laughter, and confused cries, rose and fell like a flame
flickering in the wind.

Thus passed several hours of anxious expectation, so long that every
one was astonished that they could be contained in a single night. From
time to time a glance was cast toward the door of the anteroom; but
there was nothing to be seen, save the two soldiers pacing to and fro
with their glittering partisans before the fatal entrance, like two
silent ghosts.

At last the lamps and torches began to burn dim, and the first pale rays
of dawn were piercing the narrow windows of the room when the awful door
opened. Profound silence instantly, and as if by magic, took the place
of all the confusion; and the only sounds heard were the hurried
breathing and the vague slight stir of the multitude in suspense.

The judges, proceeding slowly from the anteroom, resumed their places on
the bench, the president at their head.

The private secretary, who had seemed absorbed in thought during their
absence, bowed and said: “Mr. President, what sentence does the court,
from whose decision there is no appeal, pronounce in the king’s name? We
are ready to hear it with religious respect.”

The judge, seated at the president’s right hand, rose, holding a roll of
parchment: “His Grace, our illustrious president, exhausted by the
length of this session, has deigned to commission me, lord mayor of the
province of Throndhjem, and the natural president of this worshipful
court, to read in his stead the sentence pronounced in the name of the
king. I am about to fulfil this honorable but painful duty, requesting
the audience to hear the king’s impeccable justice in silence.”

The lord mayor’s voice then assumed a grave and solemn intonation, and
every heart beat faster.

“In the name of our revered master and lawful sovereign, King Christian,
we, the judges of the Supreme Court of the province of Throndhjem,
summoned to decide in the cases of John Schumacker, prisoner of the
State; Wilfred Kennybol, native of the Kiölen Mountains; Jonas, royal
miner; Norbith, royal miner; Hans of Klipstadur, in Iceland; and Ordener
Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick, Knight of the Dannebrog, all accused of high
treason and leze-majesty in the first degree (Hans of Iceland being
moreover charged with the crimes of murder, arson, and robbery), do
find:--

“I. That John Schumacker is not guilty;

“II. That Wilfred Kennybol, Jonas, and Norbith are guilty, but are
recommended to mercy, because they were led astray;

“III. That Hans of Iceland is guilty of all the crimes laid to his
charge;

“IV. That Ordener Guldenlew is guilty of high treason and leze-majesty
in the first degree.”

The judge paused an instant as if to take breath. Ordener fixed upon him
a look of celestial joy.

“John Schumacker,” resumed the judge, “the court acquits you and remands
you to prison;

“Kennybol, Jonas, and Norbith, the court commutes the penalty which you
have incurred, to imprisonment for life, and a fine of one thousand
crowns each;

“Hans of Klipstadur, murderer and incendiary, you will be taken this
night to Munkholm parade-ground, and hanged by the neck until you are
dead, dead, dead!

“Ordener Guldenlew, traitor, after having been stripped of your titles
in presence of this court, you will be conducted this very night to the
same place, with a lighted torch in your hand, and there your head shall
be hewn off, your body burned, your ashes strewn to the winds, and your
head exposed upon a stake. Let all withdraw. Such is the sentence
rendered by the king’s justice.”

The lord mayor had scarcely ended these fatal words, when a shriek rang
through the room. This shriek horrified the spectators even more than
did the fearful terms of the death sentence; this shriek for a brief
moment turned the calm and radiant face of the condemned Ordener pale.




XLIV.

     Misfortune made them equals.--CHARLES NODIER.


All was over now; Ordener’s work was done. He had saved the father of
the woman he loved; he had saved her too by preserving her father to
protect her. The young man’s noble plot to save Schumacker’s life had
succeeded; nothing else mattered now; it only remained for him to die.

Let those who deem him guilty or foolish judge the generous Ordener now,
as he judges himself in his own soul with holy rapture. For it had been
his one thought, when he entered the rebel ranks, that if he could not
prevent Schumacker from carrying out his guilty purpose, he might at
least help him to escape punishment by drawing it upon his own head.

“Alas!” he thought, “Schumacker is undoubtedly guilty; but embittered as
he is by misfortune and imprisonment, his crime is excusable. He sighs
to be set free; he struggles to acquire his liberty, even by rebellion.
Besides, what would become of my Ethel if her father were taken from
her; if she should lose him by the gallows, if fresh disgrace should
blast his name, what would become of her, helpless and unprotected,
alone in her cell or roaming through a world of foes?” This thought
determined him to make the sacrifice, and he joyfully prepared for it.
It is a lover’s greatest happiness to lay down his life, I do not say
for the life, but for a smile or a tear, of the loved object.

He was accordingly captured with the rebels, was dragged before the
judges assembled to condemn Schumacker, his generous falsehood was
uttered, he was sentenced, he must die a cruel death, suffer shameful
torments, leave behind him a stained name; but what cared the noble
youth? He had saved his Ethel’s father.

He sat chained in a damp dungeon, where light and air never entered save
through dark holes; beside him was a supply of food for the remnant of
his existence,--a loaf of black bread and a jug of water; an iron collar
weighed down his neck; iron fetters were about his hands and feet. Every
hour that passed robbed him of a greater portion of his life than a year
would bear away from other mortals. He was lost in a delicious dream.

“Perhaps my memory will not die with me, at least in one human heart.
Perhaps she will deign to shed a tear in return for the blood I so
freely shed for her; perhaps she will sometimes heave a sigh for him
who sacrificed his life for her; perhaps in her virgin thoughts the dim
image of her friend may sometimes appear. And who knows what lies behind
the veil of death? Who knows if our souls, freed from their material
prison, may not sometimes return to watch over the souls of those they
love, and hold mysterious communion with those sweet companions still
prisoned in the flesh, and in secret bring them angelic comfort and
heavenly bliss?”

And yet bitter reflections would sometimes mingle with these consoling
meditations. The hatred which Schumacker had expressed for him at the
very moment of his self-sacrifice oppressed him. The agonized shriek
which he had heard at the same instant with his death sentence had moved
him deeply; for he alone, of all the assembly, recognized that voice and
understood that misery. And should he never again see his Ethel? Must
his last moments be passed within the self-same walls that contained
her, and he be still unable to touch her soft hand once more, once more
to hear the gentle voice of her for whom he was about to die?

He had yielded thus to those vague, sad musings which are to the mind
what sleep is to the body, when the hoarse creak of rusty bolts struck
harshly on his ear, already attuned to the music of the sphere to which
he was so soon to take his flight. The heavy iron door grated upon its
hinges. The young prisoner rose calmly, almost gladly, for he thought
that the executioner had come for him, and he had already cast aside his
life like the cloak beneath his feet.

He was mistaken. A slender white figure stood upon the threshold, like a
radiant vision. Ordener doubted his own eyes, and wondered if he were
not already in heaven. It was she; it was his Ethel!

The girl fell into his fettered embrace; she covered his hands with
tears, and dried them with her long black hair. Kissing his chains, she
bruised her pure lips upon those infamous irons; she did not speak, but
her whole heart seemed ready to burst forth in the first word which
might break through her sobs.

He felt the most celestial joy which he had known since his birth. He
gently pressed his Ethel to his breast, and the combined powers of earth
and hell could not at that moment have loosed the arms which encircled
her. The knowledge of his approaching death lent a certain solemnity to
his rapture; and he held his Ethel as close as if he had already taken
possession of her for all eternity.

He did not ask this angel how she had gained access to him. She was
there: could he waste a thought on anything else? Nor was he surprised.
He never asked how this proscribed, feeble, lonely girl, in spite of
triple doors of iron and triple ranks of soldiers, had contrived to open
her own prison and that of her lover; it seemed to him quite simple; he
had a perfect appreciation of the power of love.

Why speak with the voice when the soul can speak as readily? Why not
allow the body to listen silently to the mysterious language of the
spirit? Both were silent, because there are certain emotions which can
find expression in silence only.

At last the young girl lifted her head from her lover’s throbbing heart.
“Ordener,” said she, “I am here to save you;” and she uttered these
words of hope with a pang.

Ordener smiled, and shook his head.

“To save me, Ethel! You deceive yourself; escape is impossible.”

“Alas! I am but too well aware of that. This castle is crowded with
soldiers, and every door is guarded by archers and jailers who never
sleep.” She added with an effort: “But I bring you another means of
safety.”

“No, no; your hope is vain. Do not delude yourself with idle fancies,
Ethel; a few hours hence the axe will cruelly dispel them.”

“Oh, do not say so, Ordener! You shall not die. Oh, spare me that
dreadful thought! Or rather, no; let me behold it in all its horror, to
give me strength to save you and sacrifice myself.”

There was a strange expression in the young girl’s voice.

Ordener gazed at her tenderly. “Sacrifice yourself! What do you mean?”

She hid her face in her hands, and sobbed almost inarticulately, “Oh,
God!”

The struggle was brief; she overcame her emotion; her eyes sparkled, her
lips wore a smile. She was as beautiful as an angel ascending from hell
to heaven.

“Listen, my own Ordener: your scaffold shall never be reared. If you
will but promise to marry Ulrica d’Ahlefeld, you may live.”

“Ulrica d’Ahlefeld! That name from your lips, my Ethel!”

“Do not interrupt me,” she continued, with the calm of a martyr
undergoing the last pang; “I am sent here by Countess d’Ahlefeld. She
promises to gain your pardon from the king, if in return you will agree
to bestow your hand upon her daughter. I am here to obtain your oath to
marry Ulrica and live for her. She chose me as her messenger because she
thought that my voice might have some influence over you.”

“Ethel,” said the condemned man, in icy tones, “farewell! When you leave
this cell, bid the hangman hasten his coming.”

She rose, stood before him one moment, pale and trembling, then her
knees gave way beneath her, and she sank to the stone floor with clasped
hands.

“What have I done to him?” she muttered faintly.

Ordener silently fixed his eyes upon the flags.

“My lord,” she said, dragging herself to him on her knees, “you do not
answer me. Will you not speak to me once more? Then there is nothing
left for me but to die.”

A tear stood in the young man’s eye.

“Ethel, you no longer love me.”

“Oh, God!” cried the poor girl, clasping his knees. “No longer love you!
You say that I no longer love you, Ordener! Did you really say those
words?”

“You no longer love me, for you despise me.”

He repented these cruel words as soon as he had uttered them; for
Ethel’s tone was heart-rending, as she threw her adored arms around his
neck, and exclaimed in a voice broken by tears: “Forgive me, my beloved
Ordener; forgive me as I forgive you. I despise you! Great heavens! Are
you not my pride, my idol, my all? Tell me, was there aught in my words
but deep love and ardent adoration? Alas! your stern language wounds me
sorely, when I came here to save you, my idolized Ordener, by
sacrificing my whole life for yours.”

“Well,” replied the young man, softened by her tears, and kissing them
away, “was it not a want of esteem to suppose that I would buy my life
by forsaking you, by basely renouncing my oaths, by sacrificing my
love?” He added, fixing his eye on Ethel: “My love, for which I am about
to shed my blood!”

Ethel uttered a deep groan as she answered: “Hear me, Ordener, before
you judge me so rashly. Perhaps I have more strength than usually falls
to the lot of a weak woman. From our lofty prison window I saw them
build your scaffold on the parade. Ordener, you do not know what fearful
agony it is to see the slow preparations for the death of one whose life
is an indissoluble part of your own! Countess d’Ahlefeld, at whose side
I sat when I heard the judge pronounce your death sentence, came to the
cell to which I had returned with my father. She asked me if I would
save you; she proposed this hateful means. Ordener, my poor happiness
must perish; I must give you up, renounce you forever; yield to another
my Ordener, poor lonely Ethel’s only joy, or deliver you to the
executioner. They bid me choose between my own misery and your death. I
cannot hesitate.”

He kissed this angel’s hand with respectful worship.

“Neither do I hesitate, Ethel. You would not offer me life with Ulrica
d’Ahlefeld’s hand if you knew why I die.”

“What? What secret mystery--”

“Let me keep this one secret from you, my beloved Ethel. I must die
without letting you know whether you owe me gratitude or hatred for my
death.”

“You must die! Must you then die? Oh, God! it is but too true, and the
scaffold stands ready even now; and no human power can save my Ordener,
whom they will slay! Tell me,--cast one look upon your slave, your wife,
and tell me, promise me, beloved Ordener, that you will listen to me
without anger. Are you very sure--answer me as you would answer to
God--that you could not be happy with that woman, that Ulrica
d’Ahlefeld? Are you very sure, Ordener? Perhaps she is, she surely is,
handsome, amiable, virtuous. She is far superior to her for whom you
perish. Do not turn away your head, dear friend, dear Ordener. You are
so noble and so young to mount the scaffold. Think! you might live with
her in some gay city where you would lose all memory of this fatal
dungeon; your days would flow by peacefully, without a thought of me. I
consent,--you may drive me from your heart, erase my image from your
thoughts, Ordener. Only live! Leave me here alone; let me be the one to
die. And believe me, when I know that you are in the arms of another,
you need not fear for me; I shall not suffer long.”

She paused; her voice was drowned in tears. Still her grief-stricken
countenance was radiant with her longing to win the ill-omened victory
which must be her death.

Ordener said: “No more of this, Ethel. Let no name but yours and mine
pass our lips at such a moment.”

“Alas! alas!” she replied, “then you persist in dying?”

“I must; I shall go to the scaffold gladly for your sake; I should go to
the altar with any other woman with horror and aversion. Say no more;
you wound and distress me.”

She wept, and murmured: “He will die, oh, God, a death of infamy!”

The condemned man answered with a smile: “Believe me, Ethel, there is
less dishonor in my death than in such a life as you propose.”

At this instant his eye, glancing away from his weeping Ethel, observed
an old man in clerical dress standing in the shadow under the low,
arched door. “What do you want?” said he, hastily.

“My lord, I came with the Countess d’Ahlefeld’s messenger. You did not
see me, and I waited silently until you should notice me.”

In fact, Ordener had eyes for Ethel only; and she, at the sight of
Ordener, had forgotten her companion.

“I am,” continued the old man, “the minister whose duty it is--”

“I understand,” said the young man; “I am ready.”

The minister advanced toward him.

“God is also ready to receive you, my son.”

“Sir,” said Ordener, “your face is not unknown to me; I must have seen
you elsewhere.”

The minister bowed. “I too recognize you, my son; we met in Vygla tower.
We both proved upon that occasion the fallibility of human words. You
promised me the pardon of twelve unhappy prisoners, and I put no faith
in your promise, being unable to guess that you were the viceroy’s son;
and you, my lord, who reckoned upon your power and your rank when you
made me that promise--”

Ordener finished the thought which Athanasius Munder dared not put into
words.

“Cannot now obtain pardon even for myself. You are right, sir. I had too
little reverence for the future, it has punished me by showing me that
its power is greater than mine.”

The minister bent his head. “God is great!” said he.

Then he raised his kind eyes to Ordener, adding, “God is good!”

Ordener, who seemed preoccupied, exclaimed, after a brief pause:
“Listen, sir; I will keep the promise which I made you in Vygla tower.
When I am dead, go to Bergen, seek out my father, the viceroy of Norway,
and tell him that the last favor which his son asks of him is to pardon
your twelve protégés. He will grant it, I am sure.”

A tear of emotion moistened the wrinkled cheek of Athanasius.

“My son, your soul must be filled with noble thoughts, if in the
self-same hour you can reject your own pardon and generously implore
that of others. For I heard your refusal; and although I blame such
dangerous and inordinate affection, I was deeply touched by it. Now I
ask myself,--_unde scelus_?--how could a man who approaches so near to
the model of true justice soil his conscience with the crime for which
you are condemned?”

“Father, I did not tell my secret to this angel; I cannot reveal it to
you. But believe that I am not condemned for any crime of mine.”

“What? Explain yourself, my son!”

“Do not urge me,” firmly answered the young man. “Let me take my secret
with me to the grave.”

“This man cannot be guilty,” muttered the minister.

Then drawing from his breast a black crucifix, he placed it on a sort of
altar rudely shaped from a granite slab resting against the damp prison
wall. Beside the crucifix he laid a small lighted lamp which he had
brought with him, and an open Bible. “My son, meditate and pray; I will
return a few hours hence. Come,” he added, turning to Ethel, who during
this conversation had preserved a solemn silence, “we must leave the
prisoner. Our time has passed.”

She rose, calm and radiant; a divine spark flashed from her eyes as she
said: “Sir, I cannot go yet; you must first unite Ethel Schumacker to
her husband, Ordener Guldenlew.”

She looked at Ordener.

“If you were still free, happy, and powerful, my Ordener, I should weep,
and I should shrink from linking

[Illustration: _The Marriage of Ethel and Ordener._

Photo-Etching.--From drawing by Démarest.]

my fatal destiny with yours. But now that you need no longer dread the
contagion of my misfortune; that you, like me, are a captive, disgraced
and oppressed; now that you are about to die, I come to you, hoping that
you will at least deign, Ordener, my lord and husband, to allow her who
could never have shared your life, to be your companion in death; for
you love me too much, do you not, to doubt for an instant that I shall
die with you?”

The prisoner fell at her feet, and kissed the hem of her gown.

“You, old man,” she resumed, “must take the place of family and parents.
This cell shall be our temple, this stone our altar. Here is my ring; we
kneel before God and before you. Bless us, and pronounce the sacred
words which shall unite Ethel Schumacker and Ordener Guldenlew, her
lord.”

And they knelt together before the priest, who regarded them with
mingled astonishment and pity.

“How, my children! What would you do?”

“Father,” said the girl, “time presses. God and death wait for us.”

In this life we sometimes meet with irresistible powers, supreme wills
to which we yield instantly as if they were more than human. The priest
raised his eyes, sighing: “May the Lord forgive me if I do wrong! You
love each other; you have but little time to love on earth. I do not
think I shall fail in my allegiance to God if I legalize your love.”

The sweet and solemn ceremony was performed. With the final blessing of
the priest, they rose a wedded pair.

The prisoner’s face beamed with painful joy; he seemed for the first
time conscious of the bitterness of death, now that he realized the
sweetness of life. The features of his companion were sublime in their
expression of grandeur and simplicity; she still felt the modesty of a
maiden, and already exulted as a young wife.

“Hear me, Ordener,” said she; “is it not fortunate that we must die,
since we could never have been united in life? Do you know, love, what I
will do? I will stand at the window of my cell, where I can see you
mount the scaffold, so that our spirits may wing their flight to heaven
together. If I should die before the axe falls, I will wait for you; for
we are husband and wife, my adored Ordener, and this night our coffin
shall be our bridal bed.”

He pressed her to his throbbing heart, and could only utter these words,
which for him summed up all human happiness: “Ethel, you are mine!”

“My children,” said the chaplain, in a broken voice, “say farewell; it
is time.”

“Alas!” cried Ethel.

All her angelic strength returned, and she knelt before the prisoner:
“Farewell, my beloved Ordener! My lord, give me your blessing.”

The prisoner yielded to this touching request, then turned to take leave
of the venerable Athanasius Munder. The old man was kneeling at his
feet.

“What do you wish, father?” he asked in surprise.

The old man gazed at him with sweet humility: “Your blessing, my son.”

“May Heaven bless you, and grant you all the happiness which your
prayers call down upon your brother men!” replied Ordener, in touched
and solemn tones.

Soon the sepulchral arches heard their last kisses and their last
farewells; soon the rude bolts creaked noisily into place, and the iron
door separated the youthful pair who were to die, only to meet again in
eternity.




XLV.

     I will give two thousand crowns to any man who shall deliver over
     to me Louis Perez, dead or alive.--CALDERON: _Louis Perez of
     Galicia_.


“Baron Vœthaün, colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, which of the men who
fought under your command at Black Pillar Pass took Hans of Iceland
prisoner? Name him to the court, that he may receive the thousand crowns
reward offered for the capture.”

The president of the court thus addressed the colonel of musketeers. The
court was in session; for according to old Norwegian custom, a court
from whose sentence there is no appeal cannot adjourn until the sentence
has been carried out. Before the judges stood the giant, who had just
been led in again, with the rope round his neck from which he was soon
to hang.

The colonel, seated at the table with the private secretary, rose and
bowed to the court and to the bishop, who had reascended his throne.

“My lord judges, the soldier who captured Hans of Iceland is present.
His name is Toric-Belfast, second musketeer of my regiment.”

“Let him stand forth,” replied the president, “and receive the promised
reward.”

A young soldier in the Munkholm uniform stepped forward.

“You are Toric-Belfast?” asked the president.

“Yes, your worship.”

“It was you who took Hans of Iceland prisoner?”

“Yes, by the aid of Saint Beelzebub, I did, please your worship.”

A heavy bag of money was placed before the bench.

“Do you recognize this man as the famous Hans of Iceland?” added the
president, pointing to the fettered giant.

“I am better acquainted with my Kitty’s pretty face than with that of
Hans of Iceland; but I declare, by the halo of Saint Belphegor, that if
Hans of Iceland be anywhere, it is in the shape of that big devil.”

“Advance, Toric-Belfast,” said the president. “Here are the thousand
crowns offered by the lord mayor.”

The soldier hurried toward the bench, when a voice rose from the crowd:
“Munkholm musketeer, you never captured Hans of Iceland.”

“By all the blessed devils!” cried the soldier, turning around, “I own
nothing but my pipe and the moment of time in which I speak; but still
I promise to give ten thousand gold crowns to the man who says that, if
he can prove his words.”

And folding his arms, he cast an assured glance over the audience:
“Well! let the man who spoke, show himself.”

“It is I!” said a small man, elbowing his way through the crowd.

The new-comer was wrapped in sealskin, like a Greenlander, his
outlandish garb hanging stiffly about him. His beard was black; and
thick hair of the same color, falling over his red eyebrows, concealed a
hideous face. Neither his hands nor his arms were visible.

“Oh, it is you, is it?” said the soldier, with a loud laugh. “And who,
then, do you say it was, my fine gentleman, that had the honor of
capturing that infernal giant?”

The little man shook his head, and said with a malicious smile: “It was
I.”

At this instant Baron Vœthaün fancied that he recognized the mysterious
being who had warned him at Skongen of the arrival of the rebels;
Chancellor d’Ahlefeld thought he recognized his host at Arbar ruin; and
the private secretary, a certain peasant from Oëlmœ, who wore a similar
dress, and who had pointed out the lair of Hans of Iceland. But the
three being separated, they could not impart to one another this
fleeting impression, which the differences of feature and costume,
afterward observed, must have soon dissipated.

“Indeed! it was you, was it?” ironically observed the soldier. “If it
were not for your Greenland seal’s costume, by the look which you cast
at me, I should be tempted to take you for another ridiculous dwarf, who
tried to pick a quarrel with me at the Spladgest, a fortnight or so ago.
It was the very day that they brought in the body of Gill Stadt, the
miner.”

“Gill Stadt!” broke in the little man, with a shudder.

“Yes, Gill Stadt!” repeated the soldier, with an air of
indifference,--“the rejected lover of a girl who was sweetheart to a
comrade of mine, and for whose sake he died, like the fool that he was.”

The little man said in hollow tones: “Was there not also the body of an
officer of your regiment at the Spladgest?”

“Exactly; I shall remember that day as long as I live. I forgot that it
was the hour for the tattoo, and I was arrested when I got back to the
fort. That officer was Captain Dispolsen.”

At this name the private secretary rose.

“These two fellows abuse the patience of the court. We beg the president
to cut short this idle chatter.”

“By my Kitty’s good name! I ask nothing better,” said Toric-Belfast,
“provided your worships will give me the thousand crowns offered for the
head of Hans, for it was I who took him prisoner.”

“You lie!” cried the little man.

The soldier clapped his hand to his sword: “It is very lucky for you,
you rascal, that we are in the presence of the court, where a soldier,
even a Munkholm musketeer, must never resort to force.”

“The reward,” coldly observed the little man, “belongs to me; for if it
were not for me, you would never have won Hans of Iceland’s head.”

The indignant soldier swore that it was he who captured Hans of Iceland,
when, wounded on the field of battle, he was just beginning to revive.

“Well,” said his opponent, “you may have captured him, but it was I who
struck him down. If it had not been for me, you could never have taken
him prisoner; therefore the thousand crowns are mine.”

“It is false,” replied the soldier. “It was not you who struck him down;
it was an evil spirit, clad in the skins of wild beasts.”

“It was I!”

“No, no!”

The president ordered both parties to be silent; then, again asking
Colonel Vœthaün whether it was really Toric-Belfast who brought Hans of
Iceland into camp a prisoner, at his assent he declared that the prize
belonged to the soldier.

The small man gnashed his teeth, and the musketeer greedily stretched
out his hands for the sack.

“One moment!” cried the little man. “Mr. President, that money according
to the lord mayor’s proclamation, was to be given to him who took Hans
of Iceland.”

“Well?” said the judge.

The little man turned to the giant: “That man is not Hans of Iceland.”

A murmur of surprise ran through the room. The president and private
secretary moved uneasily in their chairs.

“No!” emphatically reiterated the small man, “the money does not belong
to the cursed musketeer of Munkholm, for that man is not Hans of
Iceland.”

“Halberdiers,” said the president, “remove this madman, he has lost his
senses.”

The bishop interposed: “Will you allow me, most worthy President, to
remark that you may, by refusing to hear this man, destroy the
prisoner’s last chance? I demand that he be confronted with the
stranger.”

“Reverend Bishop, the court will grant your request,” replied the
president; and addressing the giant: “You have declared yourself to be
Hans of Iceland; do you persist in that statement?”

The prisoner answered: “I do; I am Hans of Iceland.”

“You hear, Bishop?”

The little man shouted in the same breath with the president: “You lie,
mountaineer of Kiölen! you lie! Do not persist in bearing a name which
must crush you; remember that it has been fatal to you already.”

“I am Hans from Klipstadur, in Iceland,” repeated the giant, his eye
riveted on the private secretary.

The small man approached the Munkholm soldier, who, like the rest of the
audience, had watched this scene with eager curiosity.

“Mountaineer of Kiölen,” he cried, “they say that Hans of Iceland drinks
human blood. If you be he, drink. Here it is.”

And scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when, tossing his sealskin
mantle over his shoulder, he plunged a dagger into the soldier’s heart,
and flung his dead body at the giant’s feet.

A cry of fright and horror followed; the soldiers guarding the giant
started back. The small man, swift as lightning, rushed upon the
defenceless mountaineer, and with another blow of his dagger, laid him
upon the first corpse. Then flinging off his cloak, his false hair, and
black beard, he revealed his wiry limbs, hideously attired in the skins
of wild beasts, and a face which inspired the beholders with even
greater horror than did the bloody dagger which he brandished aloft,
reeking with a double murder.

“Ha! judges, where is Hans of Iceland now?”

“Guards, seize that monster!” cried the startled judge.

Hans hurled his dagger into the centre of the room.

“It is useless to me if there are no more Munkholm soldiers here.”

With these words, he yielded unresistingly to the halberdiers and bowmen
who surrounded him, prepared to lay siege to him, as to a city. They
chained the monster to the prisoner’s bench; and a litter bore away his
victims, one of whom, the mountaineer, still breathed.

It is impossible to describe the various emotions of terror,
astonishment, and indignation which, during this fearful scene, agitated
the people, the guards, and the judges. When the brigand had taken his
place, calm and unmoved, upon the fatal bench, a feeling of curiosity
overcame every other impression, and breathless attention restored
quiet.

The venerable bishop rose: “My lord judges--”

The bandit interrupted him: “Bishop of Throndhjem, I am Hans of Iceland;
do not take the trouble to plead for me.”

The private secretary rose: “Noble President--”

The monster cut him short: “Private Secretary, I am Hans of Iceland; do
not take the pains to accuse me.”

Then, his feet in a pool of blood, he ran his bold, fierce eye over the
court, the bowmen, and the crowd; and it seemed as if each of them
trembled with fear at the glance of that one man, unarmed, chained, and
alone.

“Listen, judges; expect no long speeches from me. I am the demon of
Klipstadur. My mother was old Iceland, the land of volcanoes. Once that
land was but one huge mountain; it was crushed by the hand of a giant,
who fell from heaven, and rested on its highest peak. I need not speak
of myself. I am a descendant of Ingulf the Destroyer, and I bear his
spirit within me. I have committed more murders and kindled more fires
than all of you put together ever uttered unjust sentences in your
lives. I have secrets in common with Chancellor d’Ahlefeld. I could
drink every drop of blood that flows in your veins with delight. It is
my nature to hate mankind, my mission to harm them. Colonel of the
Munkholm musketeers, it was I who warned you of the march of the miners
through Black Pillar Pass, sure that you would kill numbers of men in
those gorges; it was I who destroyed a whole battalion of your regiment
by hurling granite bowlders upon their heads. I did it to avenge my son.
Now, judges, my son is dead; I came here in search of death. The soul of
Ingulf oppresses me, because I must bear it alone, and can never
transmit it to an heir. I am tired of life, since it can no longer be an
example and a lesson to a successor. I have drunk enough blood; my
thirst is quenched. Now, here I am; you may drink mine.”

He was silent, and every voice repeated his awful words.

The bishop said: “My son, what was your object in committing so many
crimes?”

The brigand laughed: “I’ faith, I swear, reverend Bishop, it was not
like your brother, the bishop of Borglum, with a view to enrich
myself.[3] There was something in me which drove me to it.”

“God does not always dwell in his ministers,” meekly replied the saintly
old man. “You would insult me, but I only wish I could defend you.”

“Your reverence wastes his breath. Go ask your other brother, the bishop
of Scalholt, in Iceland, to defend me. By Ingulf! it is a strange thing
that two bishops should protect me,--one in my cradle, the other at my
tomb. Bishop, you are an old fool.”

“My son, do you believe in God?”

“Why not? There must be a God for us to blaspheme.”

“Cease, unhappy man! You are about to die, and you will not kiss the
feet of Christ--”

Hans of Iceland shrugged his shoulders.

“If I did so, it would be after the fashion of the constable of Roll,
who pulled the king over as he kissed his foot.”

The bishop seated himself, deeply moved.

“Come, judges,” continued Hans of Iceland, “why this delay? If I were in
your place and you in mine, I would not keep you waiting so long for
your death sentence.”

The court withdrew. After a brief deliberation they returned, and the
president read aloud the sentence, which declared that Hans of Iceland
was to be “hung by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.”

“That’s good,” said the brigand. “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, I know enough
about you to obtain a like sentence for you. But live, since you do
naught but injure men. Oh, I am sure now that I shall not go to
Nistheim!”[4]

The private secretary ordered the guards who led him away to place him
in the Lion of Schleswig tower, until a dungeon could be prepared for
him in the quarters of the Munkholm regiment, where he might await his
execution.

“In the quarters of the Munkholm musketeers!” repeated the monster, with
a growl of pleasure.




XLVI.

     However, the corpse of Ponce de Leon, which had remained beside the
     fountain, having been disfigured by the sun, the Moors of Alpuxares
     took possession of it and bore it to Grenada.--É. H.: _The Captive
     of Ochali_.


Before dawn of the day so many of whose events we have already traced,
at the very hour when Ordener’s sentence was pronounced at Munkholm, the
new keeper of the Throndhjem Spladgest, Benignus Spiagudry’s former
assistant and present successor, Oglypiglap, was abruptly aroused from
his mattress by a violent series of raps, which fairly shook the
building. He rose reluctantly, took his copper lamp, whose dim light
dazzled his drowsy eyes, and went, swearing at the dampness of the
dead-house, to open to those who waked him so early from his sleep.

They were fishers from Sparbo, who carried upon a litter, strewed with
reeds, rushes, and seaweed, a corpse which they had found in the waters
of the lake.

They laid down their burden within the gloomy walls, and Oglypiglap gave
them a receipt for it, so that they might claim their fee.

Left alone in the Spladgest, he began to undress the corpse, which was
remarkable for its length and leanness. The first thing which caught his
eye as he raised the cloth which covered it was a vast periwig.

“Why, really,” said he, “this outlandish wig has passed through my hands
before; it belonged to that young French dandy.... And,” he added,
continuing his investigations, “here are the high boots of poor
postilion Cramner, who was killed by his horses, and--What the devil
does this mean?--the full black suit of Professor Syngramtax, that
learned old fogy, who drowned himself not long ago! Who can this
new-comer be that comes here clad in the cast-off apparel of all my
ancient acquaintance?”

He examined the face of the dead by the light of his lamp, but in vain;
the features, already decomposed, had lost their original shape and
color. He felt in the pockets, and drew out some scraps of parchment
soaked with water and stained with mud; he wiped them carefully on his
leather apron, and succeeded in deciphering on one of them these
disconnected and half-effaced phrases: “Rudbeck, Saxon the grammarian.
Arngrimmsson, bishop of Holum.--There are but two counties in Norway,
Larvig and Jarlsberg, and but one barony.--Silver mines exist only at
Kongsberg; loadstone and asbestos, at Sund-Moer; amethyst, at
Guldbrandsdal; chalcedony, agate, and jasper, at the Färöe
Islands.--At Noukahiva, in time of famine, men eat their wives and
children.--Thormodr Torfusson; Isleif, bishop of Scalholt, first
historian of Iceland.--Mercury played at chess with the Moon, and won
the seventy-second part of a day.--Maëlstrom, whirlpool.--_Hirundo,
hirudo_.--Cicero, chick pea; glory.--The learned Frode.--Odin consulted
the head of Mimer, the wise.--(Mahomet and his dove, Sertorius and his
hind.)--The more the soil--the less gypsum it contains--”

“I can scarcely believe my eyes!” he cried, dropping the parchment; “it
is the writing of my old master, Benignus Spiagudry!”

Then, examining the corpse afresh, he recognized the long lean hands,
the scanty hair, and the whole build of the unfortunate man.

“They were not so much out of the way, after all,” thought he, shaking
his head, “who charged him with sacrilege and necromancy. The Devil
carried him off to drown him in Lake Sparbo. What poor fools we mortals
be! Who would ever have thought that Dr. Spiagudry, after taking so many
people to board in his hostelry of the dead, would come here at last
from afar to be cared for himself!”

The little Lapp philosopher lifted the body, to remove it to one of his
six granite beds, when he found that something heavy was fastened about
the unhappy Spiagudry’s neck by a leather cord.

“Probably the stone with which the Devil pitched him into the lake,” he
muttered.

He was mistaken; it was a small iron box, upon which, on examining it
closely, after wiping it carefully, he discovered a large shield-shaped
padlock.

“Of course there is some deviltry in this box,” said he; “the man was a
sacrilegious sorcerer. I will hand it over to the bishop; it may contain
an evil spirit.”

Then, taking it from the corpse, which he placed in the inner room, he
hurried away to the bishop’s palace, muttering a prayer as he went, as a
charm against the dreadful box under his arm.




XLVII.

     Is it a man or an infernal spirit that speaks thus? What
     mischievous spirit torments thee thus? Show me the relentless foe
     who inhabits thy heart.--MATURIN.


Hans of Iceland and Schumacker were in the same cell in the Schleswig
tower. The acquitted ex-chancellor paced slowly to and fro, his eyes
heavy with bitter tears; the condemned brigand laughed at his chains,
though surrounded by guards.

The two prisoners studied each other long and silently; it seemed as if
both felt themselves and mutually recognized each other as enemies of
mankind.

“Who are you?” at length asked the ex-chancellor.

“I will tell you my name,” replied the bandit, “to make you shun me. I
am Hans of Iceland.”

Schumacker advanced toward him.

“Take my hand,” said he.

“Do you wish me to devour it?”

“Hans of Iceland,” rejoined Schumacker, “I like you because you hate
mankind.”

“And for that reason I hate you.”

“Hark ye, I hate men, as you do, because they have returned me evil for
good.”

“You do not hate them as I do; I hate them because they have returned me
good for evil.”

Schumacker shuddered at the monster’s expression. In vain he conquered
his natural disposition; he could not sympathize with this fiend.

“Yes,” he exclaimed, “I abhor men because they are false, ungrateful,
cruel. I owe to them all the misery of my life.”

“So much the better! I owe them all the pleasure of mine.”

“What pleasure?”

“The pleasure of feeling their quivering flesh throb beneath my teeth,
their hot blood moisten my parched throat; the rapture of crushing
living beings against sharp rocks, and hearing the shriek of my victims
mingle with the sound of their breaking limbs. These are the pleasures
which I owe to men.”

Schumacker shrank in horror from the monster whom he had approached with
something like pride in his resemblance to him. Pierced with shame, he
hid his wrinkled face in his hands; for his eyes were full of tears of
anger, not against mankind, but against himself. His great and noble
heart began to revolt at the hatred he had so long cherished, when he
saw it reflected in Hans of Iceland’s heart as in a fearful mirror.

“Well,” said the monster, with a sneer,--“well, enemy of man, dare you
boast your likeness to me?”

The old man shuddered. “Oh, God! Rather than hate mankind as you do, let
me love them.”

Guards came to remove the monster to a more secure cell. Schumacker was
left alone in his dungeon to dream; but he was no longer the enemy of
mankind.




XLVIII.

    Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked,
    Preserve me from the violent man;
    Who have purposed to thrust aside my step.
    The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords;
    They have spread a net by the wayside;
    They have set gins for me.
              _Psalms_ cxl. 4.


The fatal hour had come; the sun showed but half his disk above the
horizon. The guards were doubled throughout Munkholm castle; before each
door paced fierce, silent sentinels. The noises of the town seemed
louder and more confused than usual as they ascended to the dark towers
of the fortress, itself a prey to strange excitement. The mournful sound
of muffled drums was heard in every courtyard; now and again cannon
growled; the heavy bell in the donjon tolled slowly, with sullen,
measured strokes; and from every direction boats loaded with people
hastened toward the fearful rock.

A scaffold hung with black, around which an impatient mob swarmed in
ever-increasing numbers, rose from the castle parade-ground in the
centre of a hollow square of troops. Upon the scaffold a man clad in red
serge walked up and down, now leaning upon the axe in his hand, and now
fingering a billet and block upon the funeral platform. Close at hand a
stake was prepared, before which several pitch torches burned. Between
the scaffold and the stake was planted a post, from which hung the
inscription: “ORDENER GULDENLEW, TRAITOR.” A black flag floated from the
top of the Schleswig tower.

At this moment Ordener appeared before the judges, still assembled in
the court-room. The bishop alone was absent; his office as counsel for
the defence had ended.

The son of the viceroy was dressed in black, and wore upon his neck the
collar of the Dannebrog. His face was pale but proud. He was alone; for
he had been led forth to torture before Chaplain Athanasius Munder
returned to his cell.

Ordener’s sacrifice was already inwardly accomplished. And yet Ethel’s
husband still clung to life, and might perhaps have chosen another night
than that of the tomb for his wedding night. He had prayed and dreamed
many dreams in his dreary cell. Now he was beyond all prayers and all
dreams. He was strong in the strength imparted by religion and by love.

The crowd, more deeply moved than the prisoner, eagerly gazed at him.
His illustrious rank, his horrible fate, awakened universal envy and
pity. Every spectator watched his punishment, without comprehending his
crime. In every human heart lurks a strange feeling which urges its
owner to behold the tortures of others as well as their pleasures. Men
seek with awful avidity to read destruction upon the distorted features
of one who is about to die, as if some revelation from heaven or from
hell must appear at that awful moment in the poor wretch’s eyes; as if
they would learn what sort of shadow is cast by the death angel’s wing
as he hovers over a human head; as if they would search and know what is
left to a man when hope is gone. That being, full of health and
strength, moving, breathing, living, and which in another instant must
cease to move, breathe, and live, surrounded by beings like himself,
whom he never harmed, all of whom pity him, and none of whom can help
him; that wretched being, dying, though not dead, bending alike beneath
an earthly power and an invisible might; this life, which society could
not give, but which it takes with all the pomp and ceremony of legal
murder,--profoundly stir the popular imagination. Condemned, as all of
us are, to death, with an indefinite reprieve, the unfortunate man who
knows the exact hour when his reprieve expires is an object of strange
and painful curiosity.

The reader may remember that before he mounted the scaffold, Ordener was
to be taken before the court, there to be stripped of his titles and
honors. Hardly had the stir excited in the assembly by his arrival given
place to quiet, when the president ordered the book of heraldry of both
kingdoms, and the statutes of the order of the Dannebrog, to be brought.

Then directing the prisoner to kneel upon one knee, he commanded the
spectators to pay respectful heed, opened the book of the knights of the
Dannebrog, and began to read in a loud, stern voice: “We, Christian, by
the grace and mercy of Almighty God, king of Denmark and Norway, of
Goths and Vandals, Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, Stormaria, and
Dytmarsen, Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhurst, do declare:--

“That having re-established, at the suggestion of the lord chancellor,
Count Griffenfeld [the president passed over this name so rapidly that
it was scarcely audible], the royal order of the Dannebrog, founded by
our illustrious ancestor, Saint Waldemar,

“Whereas we hold that inasmuch as the said venerable order was created
in memory of the flag Dannebrog sent down from heaven to our blessed
kingdom,

“It would belie the divine origin of the order should any knight forfeit
his honor, or break the holy laws of Church and State with impunity,

“We therefore decree, kneeling before God, that whosoever of the knights
of the order shall deliver his soul to the demon by any felony or
treason, after a public reprimand from the court, shall be forever
degraded from his rank as a knight of this our royal order of the
Dannebrog.”

The president closed the book. “Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick,
Knight of the Dannebrog, you have been found guilty of high treason, for
which crime your head shall be cut off, your body burned, and your ashes
flung to the winds. Ordener Guldenlew, traitor, you have shown yourself
unworthy to hold rank with the knights of the Dannebrog. I request you
to humble yourself, for I am about to degrade you publicly in the name
of the king.”

The president stretched his hand over the book of the

[Illustration: _“Forbear,” said the Bishop._

Photo-Etching.--From drawing by Démarest.]

order and prepared to pronounce the fatal formula against Ordener, who
remained calm and motionless, when a side door opened to the right of
the bench.

An officer of the Church entered and announced his reverence, the bishop
of Throndhjem. He entered hurriedly, accompanied by another
ecclesiastic, on whose arm he leaned.

“Stop, Mr. President!” he exclaimed with a strength of which a man of
his age seemed hardly capable. “Stop! Heaven be praised! I am in time.”

The audience listened with renewed interest, foreseeing some fresh
development. The president turned angrily to the bishop: “Allow me to
inform your reverence that your presence here is wholly unnecessary. The
court is about to degrade from his rank the prisoner, who will suffer
the penalty of his crime directly.”

“Forbear,” said the bishop, “to lay hands on one who is pure in the
sight of God. The prisoner is innocent.”

The cry of astonishment which burst from the spectators was only matched
by the cry of terror uttered by the president and private secretary.

“Yes, tremble, judges!” resumed the bishop, before the president could
recover his usual presence of mind; “tremble! for you are about to shed
innocent blood.”

As the president’s agitation died away, Ordener arose in consternation.
The noble youth feared lest his generous ruse had been discovered, and
proofs of Schumacker’s guilt had been found.

“Bishop,” said the president, “in this affair crime seems to evade us,
being transferred from one to another. Do not trust to any mere
appearance. If Ordener Guldenlew be innocent, who, then, is guilty?”

“Your grace shall know,” replied the bishop. Then showing the court an
iron casket which a servant had brought in behind him: “Noble lords, you
have judged in darkness; within this casket is the miraculous light
which shall dissipate that darkness.”

The president, private secretary, and Ordener, all seemed amazed at the
sight of the mysterious casket.

The bishop added: “Noble judges, hear me. To-day, as I returned to my
palace, to rest from the fatigues of the night and to pray for the
prisoners, I received this sealed iron box. The keeper of the Spladgest,
I was told, brought it to the palace this morning to be given to me,
declaring that it undoubtedly contained some Satanic charm, as he had
found it on the body of the sacrilegious Benignus Spiagudry, which had
just been fished out of Lake Sparbo.”

Ordener listened more eagerly than ever. All the spectators were as
still as death. The president and private secretary hung their heads
guiltily. They seemed to have lost all their cunning and audacity. There
is a moment in the life of every sinner when his power vanishes.

“After blessing this casket,” continued the bishop, “we broke the seal,
which, as you can still see, bears the ancient and now extinct arms of
Griffenfeld. We did indeed find a devilish secret within. You shall
judge for yourselves, venerable sirs. Lend me your most earnest
attention, for human blood is at stake, and the Lord will hold you
accountable for every drop that you may shed.”

Then opening the terrible casket, he drew forth a slip of parchment,
upon which was written the following testimony:--

     I, Blaxtham Cumbysulsum, doctor, being about to die, do declare
     that of my own free will and pleasure I have placed in the hands of
     Captain Dispolsen, the agent, at Copenhagen, of the former Count
     Griffenfeld, the enclosed document, drawn up wholly by the hand of
     Turiaf Musdœmon, servant of the chancellor, Count d’Ahlefeld, to
     the end that the said captain may make such use of it as shall seem
     to him best; and I pray God to pardon my crimes.

     Given under my hand and seal at Copenhagen, this eleventh day of
     January, 1699.

                                               CUMBYSULSUM.



The private secretary shook like a leaf. He tried to speak, but could
not. The bishop handed the parchment to the pale and agitated president.

“What do I see?” exclaimed the latter, as he unfolded the parchment. “A
note to the noble Count d’Ahlefeld, upon the means of legally ridding
himself of Schumacker! I--I swear, reverend Bishop--”

The paper dropped from his trembling fingers.

“Read it, read it, sir,” said the bishop. “I doubt not that your
unworthy servant has abused your name as he has that of the unfortunate
Schumacker. Only see the result of your uncharitable aversion to your
fallen predecessor. One of your followers has plotted his ruin in your
name, doubtless hoping to make a merit of it to your Grace.”

These words revived the president, as showing him that the suspicions of
the bishop, who was acquainted with the entire contents of the casket,
had not fallen upon him. Ordener also breathed more freely. He began to
see that the innocence of Ethel’s father might be made manifest at the
same time with his own. He felt a deep surprise at the singular fate
which had led him to pursue a fearful brigand to recover this casket,
which his old guide, Benignus Spiagudry, bore about him all the time;
that it was actually following him while he was seeking for it. He also
reflected on the solemn lesson of the events which, after ruining him by
means of this same fatal casket, now proved the instrument of his
salvation.

The president, recovering himself, read with much show of indignation,
in which the entire audience shared, a lengthy memorandum, in which
Musdœmon set forth all the details of the abominable scheme which we
have seen him execute in the course of this story. Several times the
private secretary attempted to rise and defend himself, but each time he
was frowned down. At last the odious reading came to an end amid a
murmur of universal horror.

“Halberdiers, seize that man!” said the president, pointing to the
private secretary.

The wretch, speechless and almost lifeless, stepped from his place, and
was cast into the criminal dock, followed by the hoots of the populace.

“Judges,” said the bishop, “shudder and rejoice. The truth, which has
just been brought home to your consciences, will now be even more
strongly confirmed by the testimony of our honored brother, Athanasius
Munder, chaplain to the prisons of this royal town.”

It was indeed Athanasius Munder who accompanied the bishop. He bowed to
his superior in the Church and to the court, then at a sign from the
president, proceeded as follows: “What I am about to state is the truth.
May Heaven punish me if I utter a word with any other object than to do
my duty! From what I saw this morning in the cell of the viceroy’s son,
I was led to think that the young man was not guilty, although your
lordships had condemned him upon his own confession. Now, I was called,
a few hours since, to give the last spiritual consolations to the
unfortunate mountaineer so cruelly murdered before your very eyes, and
whom you condemned, worthy sirs, as being Hans of Iceland. The dying man
said to me: ‘I am not Hans of Iceland; I am justly punished for having
assumed his name. I was paid to play the part by the chancellor’s
private secretary; he is called Musdœmon; and it was he who managed the
whole revolt under the name of Hacket! I believe him to be the only
guilty man in this whole matter.’ Then he asked me to give him my
blessing, and advised me to make haste and repeat his last words to the
court. God is my witness. May I save the shedding of innocent blood, and
not cause that of the guilty to flow!”

He ceased, again bowing to his bishop and the judges.

“Your Grace sees,” said the bishop to the president, “that one of my
clients was not mistaken when he found so much resemblance between
Hacket and your private secretary.”

“Turiaf Musdœmon,” said the president to the prisoner, “what have you to
say in your defence?”

Musdœmon looked at his master with an expression which alarmed him. He
had recovered his usual impudence, and after a brief pause, answered:
“Nothing, sir.”

The president resumed in a weak and faltering voice: “Then you
acknowledge yourself guilty of the crime with which you are charged? You
confess yourself to be the author of a conspiracy alike against the
State and against one John Schumacker?”

“I do, my lord,” replied Musdœmon.

The bishop rose. “Mr. President, that there may be no shadow of doubt in
this affair, will your grace ask the prisoner if he had any
accomplices?”

“Accomplices?” repeated Musdœmon.

He hesitated a moment. The president wore a look of awful anxiety.

“No, my lord Bishop,” he said at last.

The president’s look of relief fell full upon him.

“No, I had no accomplices,” repeated Musdœmon, still more emphatically.
“I concocted this plot through affection for my master, who knew nothing
of it, to destroy his enemy, Schumacker.”

The eyes of prisoner and president met once more.

“Your Grace,” said the bishop, “must see that as Musdœmon had no
accomplices, Baron Ordener Guldenlew must be innocent.”

“Then why, worthy Bishop, did he confess his guilt?”

“Mr. President, why did that mountaineer persist that he was Hans of
Iceland at the risk of his life? God alone knows our secret motives.”

Ordener took up the word: “Judges, I can tell you my motive, now that
the real criminal has been discovered. I accused myself falsely to save
the former chancellor, Schumacker, whose death would have left his
daughter without a protector.”

The president bit his lip.

“We request the court,” said the bishop, “to proclaim the innocence of
our client, Ordener Guldenlew.”

The president responded with a nod; and at the request of the lord
mayor, they finished their examination of the terrible casket, which
contained nothing more except Schumacker’s titles of nobility, and a few
letters from the Munkholm prisoner to Captain Dispolsen,--bitter, but
not criminal letters, which alarmed no one but Chancellor d’Ahlefeld.

The court then withdrew; and after a brief deliberation, while the
curious crowd, gathered on the parade, waited with stubborn impatience
to see the viceroy’s son led forth to die, and the executioner
nonchalantly paced the scaffold, the president pronounced in a scarcely
audible voice the death sentence of Turiaf Musdœmon, the acquittal of
Ordener Guldenlew, and the restoration of all his honors, titles, and
privileges.




XLIX.

    What will you sell me your carcass for, my boy
    I would not give you, in faith, a broken toy.
              _Saint Michael and Satan (Old Miracle Play)._


The remnant of the regiment of Munkholm musketeers had returned to their
old quarters in the barracks, which stood in the centre of a vast,
square courtyard within the fortress. At night-fall the doors of this
building were barricaded, all the soldiers withdrawing into it, with the
exception of the sentinels upon the various towers, and the handful of
men on guard before the military prison adjoining the barracks. This,
being the safest and best watched place of confinement in Munkholm,
contained the two prisoners sentenced to be hanged on the following
morning, Hans of Iceland and Musdœmon.

Hans of Iceland was alone in his cell. He was stretched upon the floor,
chained, his head upon a stone; a feeble light filtered through a
square grated opening, cut in the heavy oak door which divided his cell
from the next room, where he heard his jailers laugh and swear, and
heard the sound of the bottles which they drained, and the dice which
they threw upon a drumhead. The monster silently writhed in the
darkness, his limbs twitched convulsively, and he gnashed his teeth.

All at once he lifted his voice and called aloud. A turnkey appeared at
the grating: “What do you want?” said he.

Hans of Iceland rose. “Mate, I am cold; my stone bed is hard and damp.
Give me a bundle of straw to sleep on, and a little fire to warm
myself.”

“It is only fair,” replied the turnkey, “to give a little comfort to a
poor devil who is going to be hung, even if he be the Iceland Devil. I
will bring you what you want. Have you any money?”

“No,” replied the brigand.

“What! you, the most famous robber in Norway, and you have not a few
scurvy gold ducats in your pouch?”

“No,” repeated the brigand.

“A few little crowns?”

“I tell you, no!”

“Not even a few paltry escalins?”

“No, no, nothing; not enough to buy a rat’s skin or a man’s soul.”

The turnkey shook his head: “That’s a different matter; you have no
right to complain. Your cell is not so cold as the one you will have to
sleep in to-morrow, and yet I’ll be bound you won’t notice the hardness
of that bed.”

So saying, the jailer withdrew, followed by the curses of the monster,
who continued to rattle his chains, which gave forth a hollow clang as
if they were breaking slowly under repeated and violent jerks and pulls.

The door opened. A tall man, dressed in red serge, carrying a dark
lantern, entered the cell, accompanied by the jailer who had refused the
prisoner’s request. The latter at once became perfectly quiet.

“Hans of Iceland,” said the man in red, “I am Nychol Orugix, executioner
of the province of Throndhjem; to-morrow, at sunrise, I am to have the
honor of hanging your Excellency upon a fine new gallows in Throndhjem
market-place.”

“Are you very sure that you will hang me?” replied the brigand.

The executioner laughed. “I wish you were as sure to rise straight into
heaven by Jacob’s ladder as you are to mount the scaffold by Nychol
Orugix’s ladder.”

“Indeed?” said the monster, with a malicious grin.

“I tell you again, Sir Brigand, that I am hangman for the province.”

“If I were not myself I should like to be you,” replied the brigand.

“I can’t say the same for you,” rejoined the hangman; then rubbing his
hands with a conceited and complacent smirk, he added: “My friend, you
are right; ours is a fine trade. Ah! my hand knows the weight of a man’s
head.”

“Have you often tasted blood?” asked the brigand.

“No; but I have often used the rack.”

“Have you ever devoured the entrails of a living child?”

“No; but I have crushed men’s bones in a vise; I have broken their limbs
upon the wheel; I have dulled steel saws upon their skulls; I have torn
their quivering flesh with red-hot pincers; I have burned the blood in
their open veins by pouring in a stream of molten lead and boiling oil.”

“Yes,” said the brigand, with a thoughtful look, “you have your
pleasures too.”

“In fact,” added the hangman, “Hans of Iceland though you be, I imagine
that my hands have released more human souls than yours, to say nothing
of your own, which you must render up to-morrow.”

“Always provided that I have one. Do you suppose, then, executioner of
Throndhjem, that you can release the spirit of Ingulf from Hans of
Iceland’s mortal frame without its carrying off your own?”

The executioner laughed heartily. “Indeed, we shall see to-morrow.”

“We shall see,” said the brigand.

“Well,” said the executioner, “I did not come here to talk of your
spirit, but only of your body. Hearken! your body by law belongs to me
after your death; but the law gives you the right to sell it to me. Tell
me what you will take for it?”

“What I will take for my corpse?” said the brigand.

“Yes, and be reasonable.”

Hans of Iceland turned to his jailer: “Tell me, mate, how much do you
ask for a bundle of straw and a handful of fire?”

The jailer reflected. “Two gold ducats.”

“Well,” said the brigand to the hangman, “you must give me two gold
ducats for my corpse.”

“Two gold ducats!” cried the hangman. “It is horribly dear. Two gold
ducats for a wretched corpse! No, indeed! I’ll give no such price.”

“Then,” quietly responded the monster, “you shall not have it.”

“Then you will be thrown into the common sewer, instead of adorning the
Royal Museum at Copenhagen or the collection of curiosities at Bergen.”

“What do I care?”

“Long after your death, people will flock to look at your skeleton,
saying, ‘Those are the remains of the famous Hans of Iceland!’ Your
bones will be nicely polished, and strung on copper wire; you will be
placed in a big glass case, and dusted carefully every day. Instead of
these honors, consider what awaits you if you refuse to sell me your
body; you will be left to rot in some charnel-house, where you will be
the prey of worms and other vermin.”

“Well, I shall be like the living, who are perpetually preyed upon by
their inferiors and devoured by their superiors.”

“Two gold ducats!” muttered the hangman; “what an exorbitant price! If
you will not come down in your terms, my dear fellow, we can never make
a trade.”

“It is my first and probably my last trade; I am bent on having it a
good one.”

“Consider that I may make you repent of your obstinacy. To-morrow you
will be in my power.”

“Do you think so?” These words were uttered with a look which escaped
the hangman.

“Yes; and there is a certain way of tightening a slip-knot--but if you
will only be reasonable, I will hang you in my best manner.”

“Little do I care what you do to my neck to-morrow,” replied the
monster, with a mocking air.

“Come, won’t you be satisfied with two crowns? What can you do with the
money?”

“Ask your comrade there,” said the brigand, pointing to the turnkey; “he
charges me two gold ducats for a handful of straw and a fire.”

“Now by Saint Joseph’s saw,” said the hangman, angrily addressing the
turnkey, “it is shocking to make a man pay its weight in gold for a fire
and a little worthless straw.”

“Two ducats!” the turnkey replied sourly; “I’ve a good mind to make him
pay four! It is you, Master Nychol, who act like a regular screw in
refusing to give this poor prisoner two gold ducats for his corpse, when
you can sell it for at least twenty to some learned old fogy or some
doctor.”

“I never paid more than twenty escalins for a corpse in my life,” said
the hangman.

“Yes,” replied the jailer, “for the body of some paltry thief, or some
miserable Jew, that may be; but everybody knows that you can get
whatever you choose to ask for Hans of Iceland’s body.”

Hans of Iceland shook his head.

“What business is it of yours?” said Orugix, curtly; “do I interfere
with your plunder,--with the clothes and jewels that you steal from the
prisoners, and the dirty water which you pour into their thin soup, and
the torture to which you put them, to extort money from them? No, I
never will give two gold ducats.”

“No straw and no fire for less than two gold ducats,” replied the
obstinate jailer.

“No corpse for less than two gold ducats,” repeated the unmoved brigand.

The hangman, after a brief pause, stamped his foot angrily, saying:
“Well, I’ve no time to waste with you. I am wanted elsewhere.” He drew
from his waistcoat a leather bag, which he opened slowly and
reluctantly. “There, cursed demon of Iceland, there are your two ducats.
Satan would never give you as much for your soul as I do for your body,
I am sure.”

The brigand accepted the gold. The turnkey instantly held out his hand
to take it.

“One instant, mate; first give me what I asked for.”

The jailer went out, and soon returned with a bundle of dry straw and a
pan of live coals, which he placed beside the prisoner.

“That’s it,” said the brigand, giving him the two ducats; “I’ll make a
warm night of it. One word more,” he added in an ominous tone. “Does not
this prison adjoin the barracks of the Munkholm musketeers?”

“It does,” said the jailer.

“And which way is the wind?”

“From the east, I think.”

“Good,” said the brigand.

“What are you aiming at, comrade?” asked the jailer.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the brigand.

“Farewell, comrade, until to-morrow morning early.”

“Yes, to-morrow,” repeated the brigand.

And the noise of the heavy door, as it closed, prevented the jailer and
his companion from hearing the fierce, jeering laughter which
accompanied these words.




L.

     Do you hope to end with another crime?--ALEX. SOUMET.


Let us now take a look at the other cell in the military prison
adjoining the barracks, which holds our old acquaintance, Turiaf
Musdœmon.

It may seem surprising that Musdœmon, crafty and cowardly as he was,
should so readily confess his crime to the court which condemned him,
and so generously conceal the share of his ungrateful master, Chancellor
d’Ahlefeld, in it.

However, Musdœmon had not experienced a change of heart. His noble
frankness was perhaps the greatest proof of cunning which he could
possibly have given. When he saw his infernal intrigue so unexpectedly
exposed, beyond all hope of denial, he was for an instant stunned and
terrified. Conquering his alarm, his extreme shrewdness soon showed him
that as it was impossible to destroy his chosen victims, he must bend
all his energies to saving himself. Two plans at once presented
themselves: the first, to throw all the blame upon Count d’Ahlefeld, who
had so basely deserted him; the second, to assume the whole burden of
the crime himself. A vulgar mind would have grasped at the former;
Musdœmon chose the latter. The chancellor was chancellor, after all;
besides, there was nothing in the papers which directly implicated him,
although they contained overwhelming evidence against his secretary.
Then, his master had given him several meaning looks; this was enough to
confirm him in his purpose to suffer himself to be condemned, confident
that Count d’Ahlefeld would connive at his escape, though less from
gratitude for past service than through his need for future aid.

He therefore paced his prison, which was dimly lighted by a wretched
lamp, never doubting that the door would be thrown open during the
night. He studied the architecture of the old stone cell, built by kings
whose very names have almost vanished from the pages of history, and was
much surprised to find a wooden plank, which echoed back his tread as if
it covered some subterranean vault. He also observed a huge iron ring
cemented into the arched roof, from which hung a fragment of rope. Time
passed; and he listened impatiently to the clock on the tower as it
slowly struck the hours, its mournful toll resounding through the
silence of the night.

At last there was a footfall outside his cell; his heart beat high with
hope. The massive bolt creaked; the padlock dropped; and as the door
opened, his face beamed with delight. It was the same character in
scarlet robes whom we have just encountered in Hans of Iceland’s prison.
He had a coil of hempen cord under his arm, and was accompanied by four
halberdiers in black, armed with swords and partisans.

Musdœmon still wore the wig and gown of a magistrate. His dress seemed
to impress the man in red, who bowed low as if accustomed to respect
that garb, and said with some hesitation: “Sir, is our business with
your worship?”

“Yes, yes,” hastily replied Musdœmon, confirmed in his hope of escape by
this polite address, and failing to observe the bloody hue of the
speaker’s garments.

“Your name,” said the man, his eyes fixed on a parchment which he had
just unrolled, “is Turiaf Musdœmon, I believe.”

“Just so. Do you come from the chancellor, my friend?”

“Yes, your worship.”

“Do not fail, when you have done your errand, to assure his Grace of my
undying gratitude.”

The man in red looked at him in amazement. “Your--gratitude!”

“Yes, to be sure, my friend; for it will probably be out of my power to
thank him in person very soon.”

“Probably,” dryly replied the man.

“And you must feel,” added Musdœmon, “that I owe him a deep debt of
gratitude for such a service.”

“By the cross of the repentant thief,” cried the man, with a coarse
laugh, “to hear you, one would think that the chancellor was doing
something quite unusual for you!”

“Well, to be sure, it is no more than strict justice.”

“Strict justice! that is the word; but you acknowledge that it is
justice. It is the first admission of the kind that I ever heard in the
six-and-twenty years that I have followed my profession. Come, sir, we
waste our time in idle talk; are you ready?”

“I am,” said the delighted Musdœmon, stepping to the door.

“Wait; wait a minute,” exclaimed the man in red, stooping to lay his
coil of rope on the floor.

Musdœmon paused.

“What are you going to do with all that rope?”

“Your worship may well ask. I know that there is much more than I shall
need; but when I began on this affair I thought there would be a great
many more prisoners.”

“Come, make haste!” said Musdœmon.

“Your worship is in a wonderful hurry. Have you no last favor to ask?”

“None but the one I have already mentioned, that you will thank his
Grace for me. For God’s sake, make haste!” added Musdœmon; “I long to
get away from here. Have we a long journey before us?”

“A long journey!” replied the man in red, straightening himself, and
measuring off a few lengths of rope. “The journey will not tire your
worship much; for we can make it without leaving this room.”

Musdœmon shuddered.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean yourself?” asked the man.

“Oh, God!” said Musdœmon, turning pale, “who are you?”

“I am the hangman.”

The poor wretch trembled like a dry leaf blown by the wind.

“Did you not come to help me to escape?” he feebly muttered.

The hangman laughed. “Yes, truly! to help you to escape into the
spirit-land, whence I warrant you will not be brought back.”

Musdœmon grovelled on the floor. “Mercy! Have pity on me! Mercy!”

“I’ faith,” coldly observed the hangman, “‘tis the first time I was ever
asked such a thing. Do you take me for the king?”

The unfortunate man dragged himself on his knees, trailing his gown in
the dust, beating his head against the floor, and clasping the hangman’s
feet with muffled groans and broken sobs.

“Come, be quiet!” said the hangman. “I never before saw a black gown
kneel to a red jerkin.” He kicked the suppliant aside, adding: “Pray to
God and the saints, fellow; they will be more apt to hear you than I.”

Musdœmon still knelt, his face buried in his hands, weeping bitterly.

Meantime, the hangman, standing on tiptoe, passed his rope through the
ring in the ceiling: he let it hang until it reached the floor, then
secured it by a double turn, and made a slip-knot in the end.

“I am ready,” said he, when these ominous preparations were over; “are
you ready to lay down your life?”

“No!” said Musdœmon, springing up; “no; it cannot be! There is some
horrible mistake. Chancellor d’Ahlefeld is not so base; I am too
necessary to him. It is impossible that it was for me he sent you. Let
me escape; do not fear that the chancellor will be angry.”

“Did you not say,” replied the executioner, “that you were Turiaf
Musdœmon?”

The prisoner hesitated for an instant, then said suddenly: “No, no! my
name is not Musdœmon; my name is Turiaf Orugix.”

“Orugix!” cried the executioner, “Orugix!”

He snatched off the periwig which concealed the prisoner’s face, and
uttered an exclamation of surprise: “My brother!”

“Your brother!” replied the prisoner, with a mixture of shame and
pleasure; “can you be--”

“Nychol Orugix, hangman for the province of Throndhjem, at your service,
brother Turiaf.”

The prisoner fell upon the executioner’s neck, calling him his brother,
his beloved brother. This fraternal recognition would not have gratified
any one who witnessed it. Turiaf lavished countless caresses upon Nychol
with a forced and timid smile, while Nychol responded with a gloomy and
embarrassed look. It was like a tiger fondling an elephant, while the
monster’s ponderous foot is already planted upon its panting chest.

“What happiness, brother Nychol! I am glad indeed to see you.”

“And I am sorry for you, brother Turiaf.”

The prisoner pretended not to hear these words, and went on in trembling
tones: “You have a wife and children, I suppose? You must take me to see
my gentle sister, and let me kiss my dear nephews.”

“The Devil fly away with you!” muttered the hangman.

“I will be a second father to them. Hark ye, brother, I am powerful; I
have great influence--”

The brother replied with a sinister expression: “I know that you had! At
present, you had better be thinking of that which you have doubtless
contrived to curry with the saints.”

All hope faded from the prisoner’s face.

“Good God! what does this mean, dear Nychol? I am safe, since I have
found you. Think that the same mother bore us; that we played together
as children. Remember, Nychol, you are my brother!”

“You never remembered it until now,” replied the brutal Nychol.

“No, I cannot die by my brother’s hand!”

“It is your own fault, Turiaf. It was you who ruined my career; who
prevented me from becoming royal executioner at Copenhagen; who caused
me to be sent into this miserable region as a petty provincial hangman.
If you had not been a bad brother, you would have no cause to complain
of that which distresses you so much now. I should not be in Throndhjem,
and some one else would have to finish your business. Now, enough,
brother, you must die.”

Death is hideous to the wicked for the same reason that it is beautiful
to the good; both must put off their humanity, but the just man is
delivered from his body as from a prison, while the wicked man is torn
from it as from a jail. At the last moment hell yawns before the sinful
soul which has dreamed of annihilation. It knocks anxiously at the dark
portals of death; and it is not annihilation that answers.

The prisoner rolled upon the floor and wrung his hands, with moans more
heart-rending than the everlasting wail of the damned.

“God have mercy! Holy angels in heaven, if you exist, have pity upon me!
Nychol, brother Nychol, in our mother’s name, oh, let me live!”

The hangman held out his warrant.

“I cannot; the order is peremptory.”

“That warrant is not for me,” stammered the despairing prisoner; “it is
for one Musdœmon. That is not I; I am Turiaf Orugix.”

“You jest,” said Nychol, shrugging his shoulders. “I know perfectly well
that it is meant for you. Besides,” he added roughly, “yesterday you
would not have been Turiaf Orugix to your brother; to-day he can only
look upon you as Turiaf Musdœmon.”

“Brother, brother!” groaned the wretch, “only wait until to-morrow! It
is impossible that the chancellor could have given the order for my
death; it is some frightful mistake. Count d’Ahlefeld loves me dearly.
Dear Nychol, I implore you, spare my life! I shall soon be restored to
favor, and I will do whatever you may ask--”

“You can do me but one service, Turiaf,” broke in the hangman. “I have
lost two executions already upon which I counted the most, those of
ex-chancellor Schumacker and the viceroy’s son. I am always unlucky. You
and Hans of Iceland are all that are left. Your execution, being secret
and by night, is worth at least twelve gold ducats to me. Let me hang
you peaceably, that is the only favor I ask of you.”

“Oh, God!” sighed the prisoner.

“It will be the first and last, in good sooth; but, in return, I promise
that you shall not suffer. I will hang you like a brother; submit to
your fate.”

Musdœmon sprang to his feet; his nostrils were distended with rage; his
livid lips quivered; his teeth chattered; his mouth foamed with despair.

“Satan! I saved that d’Ahlefeld; I have embraced my brother,--and they
murder me! And I must die this very night in a dark dungeon, where none
can hear my curses; where I may not cry out against them from one end of
the kingdom to the other; where I may not tear asunder the veil that
hides their crimes! Was it for such a death that I have stained my
entire life? Wretch!” he added, turning to his brother, “would you
become a fratricide?”

“I am the executioner,” answered the phlegmatic Nychol.

“No!” exclaimed the prisoner; and he flung himself headlong upon the
executioner, his eyes darting flame and streaming with tears, like
those of a bull at bay,--“no, I will not die thus meekly; I have not
lived like a poisonous serpent to die like a paltry worm trampled under
foot! I will leave my life in my last sting; but it shall be mortal.”

So saying, he grappled like a bitter foe with him whom he had just
embraced as a brother; the fulsome, flattering Musdœmon now showed his
true spirit. Despair stirred up the foul dregs of his soul; and after
crawling prostrate like a tiger, like a tiger he sprang upon his enemy.
It would have been hard to decide which of the two brothers was the most
appalling, as they struggled, one with the brute ferocity of a wild
beast, the other with the artful fury of a demon.

But the four halberdiers, hitherto passive spectators, did not remain
motionless. They lent their aid to the executioner; and soon Musdœmon,
whose rage was his only strength, was forced to quit his hold. He dashed
himself against the wall, uttering inarticulate yells, and blunting his
nails upon the stone.

“To die! Devils in hell, to die! My shrieks unheard outside this roof,
my arms powerless to tear down these walls!”

He was seized, but offered no resistance; his useless efforts had
exhausted him. He was stripped of his gown, and bound; at this moment a
sealed packet fell from his bosom.

“What is that?” said the hangman.

An infernal light gleamed in the prisoner’s haggard eyes. He muttered:
“How could I forget that? Look here, brother Nychol,” he added in an
almost friendly tone; “these papers belong to the lord chancellor.
Promise to give them to him, and you may do what you will with me.”

“Since you are quiet now, I promise to grant your last wish, although
you have been a bad brother to me. I will see that the chancellor has
the papers, on the honor of an Orugix.”

“Ask leave to hand them to him yourself,” replied the prisoner, smiling
at the executioner, who, from his nature, had little understanding of
smiles. “The pleasure which they will afford his Grace may lead him to
confer some favor on you.”

“Really, brother?” said Orugix. “Thank you! Perhaps he will make me
executioner royal after all, eh? Well, let us part good friends! I
forgive you all the scratches which you gave me; forgive me for the
hempen collar which I must give you.”

“The chancellor promised me a very different sort of collar,” said
Musdœmon.

Then the halberdiers led him, bound, into the middle of the cell; the
hangman placed the fatal noose round his neck.

“Are you ready, Turiaf?”

“One moment! one moment!” said the prisoner, whose tenor had revived;
“for mercy’s sake, brother, do not pull the rope until I tell you to do
so!”

“I do not need to pull it,” answered the hangman.

A moment later he repeated his question. “Are you ready?”

“One moment more! Alas! must I die?”

“Turiaf, I have no time to waste.”

So saying, Orugix signed to the halberdiers to stand away from the
prisoner.

“One word more, brother; do not forget to give the packet to Count
d’Ahlefeld.”

“Never fear,” replied Nychol. He added for the third time: “Come, are
you ready?”

The unfortunate man opened his lips, perhaps to plead for another brief
delay, when the impatient hangman stooped and turned a brass button
projecting from the floor.

The plank gave way beneath the victim; the poor wretch disappeared
through a square trap-door with a dull twang from the rope, which was
stretched suddenly and vibrated fearfully with the dying man’s final
convulsions.

Nothing was seen but the rope swinging to and fro in the dark opening,
through which came a cool breeze and a sound as of running water.

The halberdiers themselves shrank back, horror-stricken. The hangman
approached the abyss, seized the rope, which still vibrated, and swung
himself into the hole, pressing both feet against his victim’s
shoulders; the fatal rope stretched to its utmost with a creak, and
stood still. A stifled sob rose from the trap.

“All is over,” said the hangman, climbing back into the cell. “Farewell,
brother!”

He drew a cutlass from his belt. “Go feed the fishes in the fjord. Your
body to the waves; your soul to the flames!”

With these words, he cut the taut rope. The fragment still fastened to
the iron ring lashed the ceiling, while the deep, dark waters splashed
high as the body fell, then swept on their underground course.

The hangman closed the trap as he had opened it; as he rose, he saw that
the room was full of smoke.

“What is all this?” he asked the halberdiers. “Where does this smoke
come from?”

They knew no better than he. In surprise, they opened the door; the
corridors were also filled with thick and nauseating smoke. A secret
outlet led them, greatly terrified, to the square courtyard, where a
fearful sight met their gaze.

A vast conflagration, fanned by a violent east wind, was consuming the
military prison and the barracks. The flames, driven in eddying whirls,
climbed stone walls, crowned burning roofs, leaped from gaping
window-frames; and the black towers of Munkholm now shone in a red and
ominous light, now vanished in a dense cloud of smoke.

A turnkey, who was escaping by the courtyard, told them hastily that the
fire had broken out in the monster’s cell during the sleep of Hans of
Iceland’s keepers, he having been imprudently allowed to have a fire and
straw.

“How unlucky I am!” cried Orugix, when he heard this story; “now I
suppose Hans of Iceland has slipped through my hands too. The rascal
must have been burned; and I sha’n’t even get his body, for which I paid
two ducats!”

Meantime, the unfortunate Munkholm musketeers, roused suddenly from
their sleep by imminent death, crowded toward the door only to find it
closely barred. Their shrieks of anguish and despair were heard
outside; they stood at the blazing windows, wringing their hands, or
dashed themselves madly upon the flagging of the court, escaping one
death to meet another. The victorious flames devoured the entire
structure before the rest of the garrison could come to the rescue.

All help was vain. Luckily, the building stood by itself. The door was
broken in with hatchets, but it was too late; for as it opened, the
burning roof and floors gave way, and fell upon the unfortunate men with
a loud crash.

The entire building disappeared in a whirlwind of fiery dust and burning
smoke, which stifled the faint moans of the expiring men.

Next morning nothing was left in the courtyard but four high walls,
black and smoking, around a horrid mass of smouldering ruins still
devouring each other like wild beasts in a circus.

When the pile had cooled, it was searched. Beneath a heap of stones and
iron beams, twisted out of shape by the flames, was found a mass of
whitened bones and disfigured corpses; with some thirty soldiers, most
of whom were crippled, this was all that remained of the crack regiment
of Munkholm.

When the site of the prison was searched, and they reached the fatal
cell where the fire had broken out, and where Hans of Iceland had been
imprisoned, they found the remains of a human body close beside an iron
pan and a heap of broken chains. It was curious that among these ashes
there were two skulls, although there was but one skeleton.




LI.

     _Saladin._ Bravo, Ibrahim! you are indeed the messenger of good
     fortune; I thank you for your joyful tidings.

     _The Mameluke._ Well, is that all?

     _Saladin._ What did you expect?

     _The Mameluke._ Nothing more for the messenger of good fortune.

                                    LESSING: _Nathan the Wise._




Pale and worn, Count d’Ahlefeld strode up and down his apartment; in his
hand he crushed a bundle of letters which he had just read, while he
stamped his foot on the smooth marble floor and the gold-fringed rugs.

At the other end of the room, in an attitude of deep respect, stood
Nychol Orugix in his infamous scarlet dress, felt hat in hand.

“You have done me good service, Musdœmon,” hissed the chancellor.

The hangman looked up timidly: “Is your Grace pleased?”

“What do you want here?” said the chancellor, turning upon him suddenly.

The hangman, proud that he had won a glance from the chancellor, smiled
hopefully.

“What do I want, your Grace? The post of executioner at Copenhagen, if
your Grace will deign to bestow so great a favor on me in return for the
good news I have brought you.”

[Illustration: “_The poor mother was insane._”

Photo-Etching.--From drawing by Démarest.]

The chancellor called to the two halberdiers on guard at his door:
“Seize this rascal; he annoys me by his impudence.”

The guards led away the amazed and confounded Nychol, who ventured one
word more: “My lord--”

“You are no longer hangman for the province of Throndhjem; I deprive you
of your office!” cried the chancellor, slamming the door.

The chancellor returned to his letters, angrily read and re-read them,
maddened by his dishonor; for these were the letters which once passed
between the countess and Musdœmon. This was Elphega’s handwriting. He
found that Ulrica was not his daughter; that, it might be, the Frederic
whom he mourned was not his son. The unhappy count was punished through
that same pride which had caused all his crimes. He cared not now if
vengeance evaded him; all his ambitious dreams vanished,--his past was
blasted, his future dead. He had striven to destroy his enemies; he had
only succeeded in losing his own reputation, his adviser, and even his
marital and paternal rights.

But he must see once more the wretched woman who had betrayed him. He
hastily crossed the spacious apartment, shaking the letters in his hand
as if they were a thunderbolt. He threw open the door of Elphega’s room;
he entered--

The guilty wife had just unexpectedly learned from Colonel Vœthaün of
her son Frederic’s fearful death. The poor mother was insane.




CONCLUSION.

     What I said in jest, you took seriously.--_Old Spanish Romance
     (King Alfonso to Bernard)._


For a fortnight the events which we have just related formed the sole
topic of conversation in the town and province of Throndhjem, judged
from the various standpoints of the various speakers. The people of the
town, who had waited in vain to see seven successive executions, began
to despair of ever having that pleasure; and purblind old women declared
that, on the night of the lamentable fire at the barracks, they had seen
Hans of Iceland fly up in the flames, laughing amid the blaze, as he
dashed the burning roof of the building upon the Munkholm musketeers;
when, after an absence which to his Ethel seemed an age, Ordener
returned to the Lion of Schleswig tower, accompanied by General Levin de
Knud and Chaplain Athanasius Munder.

Schumacker was walking in the garden, leaning on his daughter. The young
couple found it hard not to rush into each other’s arms; but they were
forced to be content with a look. Schumacker affectionately grasped
Ordener’s hand, and greeted the two strangers in a friendly manner.

“Young man,” said the aged captive, “may Heaven bless your return!”

“Sir,” replied Ordener, “I have just arrived. Having seen my father at
Bergen, I would now embrace my father at Munkholm.”

“What do you mean?” asked the old man, in great surprise.

“That you must give me your daughter, noble sir.”

“My daughter!” exclaimed the prisoner, turning to the confused and
blushing Ethel.

“Yes, my lord, I love your Ethel. I have devoted my life to her; she is
mine.”

Schumacker’s face clouded: “You are a brave and noble youth, my son.
Although your father has done me much harm, I forgive him for your sake;
and I should be glad to sanction this marriage. But there is an
obstacle--”

“What is it, sir?” asked Ordener, anxiously.

“You love my daughter; but are you sure that she loves you?”

The two lovers cast at each other a rapid glance of mute amazement.

“Yes,” continued the father. “I am sorry; for I love you, and would
gladly call you son. But my daughter would never consent. She has
recently confessed her aversion for you, and since your departure she is
silent whenever I speak of you, and seems to avoid all thought of you as
if you were odious to her. You must give up your love for her, Ordener.
Never fear; love may be cured as well as hatred.”

“My lord!” exclaimed the astonished Ordener.

“Father!” cried Ethel, clasping her hands.

“Do not be alarmed, my daughter,” interrupted the old man; “I approve of
this marriage, but you do not. I will never force your inclinations,
Ethel. This last fortnight has wrought a great change in me; you are
free to choose for yourself.”

Athanasius Munder smiled. “She is not,” he said.

“You are mistaken, dear father,” added Ethel, taking courage; “I do not
hate Ordener.”

“What!” cried her father.

“I am--” resumed Ethel. She hesitated.

Ordener knelt at the old man’s feet.

“She is my wife, father! Forgive me as my other father has forgiven me,
and bless your children.”

Schumacker, surprised in his turn, blessed the young couple.

“I have cursed so many people in my lifetime,” said he, “that I now
seize every opportunity for blessing. But explain.”

All was made clear to him. He wept with emotion, gratitude, and love.

“I thought myself wise; I am old, and I did not understand the heart of
a young girl!”

“And so I am Mrs. Ordener Guldenlew!” said Ethel, with child-like
delight.

“Ordener Guldenlew,” rejoined old Schumacker, “you are a better man than
I, for in the day of my prosperity I would never have stooped to wed the
penniless and disgraced daughter of an unfortunate prisoner.”

The general took the old man’s hand, and offered him a roll of
parchment, saying: “Do not speak thus, Count. Here are your titles,
which the king long since sent you by Dispolsen; his Majesty now adds a
free pardon. Such is the dowry of your daughter, Countess Danneskiold.”

“Pardon! freedom!” repeated the enraptured Ethel.

“Countess Danneskiold!” added her father.

“Yes, Count,” continued the general; “your honors and estates are
restored.”

“To whom do I owe all this?” asked the happy Schumacker.

“To General Levin de Knud,” answered Ordener.

“Levin de Knud! Did I not tell you, Governor, that Levin de Knud was the
best of men? But why did he not bring me the good news himself? Where is
he?”

Ordener pointed in surprise to the smiling, weeping general: “Here!”

The recognition of the two who had been comrades in the days of their
youth and power was a touching one. Schumacker’s heart swelled. His
acquaintance with Hans had destroyed his hatred of men; his acquaintance
with Ordener and Levin taught him to love them.

The gloomy wedding in the cell was soon celebrated by brilliant
festivities. Life smiled upon the young couple who had smiled at death.
Count d’Ahlefeld saw that they were happy; this was his most cruel
punishment.

Athanasius Munder shared their joy. He obtained the pardon of his twelve
convicts, and Ordener added that of his former companions in misfortune,
Jonas and Norbith, who returned, free and happy, to inform the appeased
miners that the king released them from the protectorate.

Schumacker did not long enjoy the union of Ethel and Ordener. Liberty
and happiness were too much for him; he went to enjoy a different
happiness and a different freedom. He died that same year, 1699, his
children accepting this blow as a warning that there is no perfect bliss
in this world. He was buried in Veer Church, upon an estate in Jutland
belonging to his son-in-law, and his tomb preserves all the titles of
which captivity deprived him. From the marriage of Ordener and Ethel
sprang the race of the counts of Danneskiold.


THE END.

       *       *       *       *       *





THE

LAST DAYS OF A CONDEMNED.

FROM THE FRENCH OF

M. VICTOR HUGO.

WITH OBSERVATIONS

ON

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT,

BY

SIR P. HESKETH FLEETWOOD.

BART., M.P.


DEDICATION.

TO

THE QUEEN’S MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY.


MADAM,--The personal favour which your Majesty has been so graciously
pleased to confer on me, in allowing the present dedication,--thus
implying a confidence in the probable nature of the work,--will not, I
trust, be found to have been misused by me, should your Majesty
hereafter honour the volume by perusal. In thus being the medium through
which the pleadings of a class of society, so far removed from the
sympathy of mankind, approach the throne of your Majesty, may I be
permitted to take this opportunity of expressing what is responded to by
every feeling heart in your Majesty’s dominions,--a respectful
appreciation of the mildness and clemency which have pervaded the
administration of the laws during the present merciful reign.

With sincere prayers for the happiness of your Majesty,

                    I have the honour to be, MADAM,

                            Your Majesty’s

                       Most humble and faithful

                         Servant and subject,

                         P. HESKETH FLEETWOOD.

ROSSALL HALL, _Lancashire_.




PREFACE.

     “To be, or not to be--that is the question.”


That is indeed the question we are about to consider,--BEING or DEATH; a
short sentence, but of unequalled importance. Yet how little does the
demise of a fellow-man dwell on the human mind, unless the ties of
kindred, or any peculiarity of circumstance by which the event may
happen to be encircled, impart to it adventitious interest.

A newspaper paragraph entitled “Awful and sudden death” may for a moment
arrest our attention; but it is the “awful and sudden,” not the actual
transit, which attracts the fancy. Perchance, also, it may be printed in
rather a larger type than the adjoining paragraph, or we may expect to
find some exciting detail of the facts of the case; but the awful
Reality, the earthly ending of the being, immortal though it is to be,
elicits little sympathy, and the wearied eye turns to some other news.

The dying _speech_ of the malefactor arrests our attention; the dead
_speaker_ of it is unregarded as a lump of clay. Who that amidst the
excitement of a crowded court of justice has turned his thoughts within
himself, and divesting the scene of all the panoply of pomp which
surrounds him, has reflected on the moral effect to be the result of
the sentence of death _if executed_, but has felt his sympathy rather
awakened in favour of the culprit, and confessed to himself how
inefficient the gibbet is when viewed (according to its intended
purpose) as the roadside guidepost, by which other earthly travellers,
who might be disposed to stray, should be warned of a pathway to be
avoided.

Alas! the body on the gibbet is but like the scarecrow in the field of
grain,--little heeded by its brethren in plumage, scarcely noticed by
aught save the vacant gape of curiosity; it dangles for a time, and is
remembered no more!

But let us take a more serious view of the question,--one which commands
our deepest respect and our gravest veneration. Let us consider the
question of the assumed right to take human life on the warranty, or, as
is sometimes said, on the express command of Scripture.

It has been often urged that it is expressly commanded in the Old
Testament that “he who sheddeth man’s blood, by man _shall_ his blood be
shed;” and, consequently, that the punishment of death for murder is
sanctioned by the high and holy God who inhabiteth eternity.

How cautious should we be, to ascertain that no fallacy exists in this
our opinion! I grant that, according to our translation, the above
isolated text, if taken alone, may be so construed; but what are the
acts of the Creator recorded as following upon this text? What was his
first judgment on the first of murderers, Cain? Not only did he not
inflict death, but by a special providence protected him from its
infliction by his fellow-man. Behold again the case of David, guilty of
at least imagining the death of Uriah. Was David struck dead for the
crime?

Whatever an isolated chapter (much less, then, a single verse) may
amount to of itself, if we take the context of the same part of Genesis
and behold the first murderer even especially guarded, by God’s mark,
from the effect of “every man’s hand being against him;” and again if we
search the New Testament, where we find no passage, under the new
dispensation, that can be construed to call for the infliction of death
for murder,--from these results I submit that the question must be left
solely to mundane argument, to stand or fall by its own efficacy as a
preventive of murder, and that the isolated phrase of Scripture should
not be construed into a command as to what ought to be done, but rather
as the probable result of human revenge, a feeling at variance with
God’s holy ordinance; for we read, “Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord,”--expressly and clearly withholding the power over human life from
mere mortal judgment.

Let me here give a short extract from the “Morning Herald,”--a paper
which has always so consistently and ably advocated the sacredness of
human life:--

     “On the motion of Mr. Ewart, some important returns connected with
     the subject of CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS have been made to the House of
     Commons, and ordered to be printed.

     “_First Class._--A return of the number of persons _sentenced to
     death_ for MURDER in the year 1834, whose punishment was
     _commuted_,--specifying the counties in which their crimes
     occurred, and stating the number of _commitments_ for murder in
     the same counties during the _same_ year and in the _following_
     year, together with the _increase_ or _diminution of commitments_
     for murder in the same counties in the year following the
     commutation of the sentences; similar returns for 1835, 1836, 1837,
     and 1838.

     “_Second Class._--A return of the number of EXECUTIONS which took
     place in England and Wales during the three years ending the 31st
     day of December, 1836, and also during the three years ending the
     31st day of December, 1839, together with the number of
     _commitments_ in each of those periods respectively for offences
     _capital_, on the 2d day of January, 1834. Also, the total number
     of _convictions_ for the same offences, together with the
     _centesimal proportions of convictions to commitments_ in each of
     those periods respectively.

     “The facts set forth upon the face of these returns furnish very
     strong evidence, indeed, to prove the utter _inutility of_ CAPITAL
     PUNISHMENTS as a means of preventing or repressing crime.

     “What are the facts?

     “We find that in one county (Stafford) in the year 1834 the
     sentence of one convict for _murder_ was _commuted_. In that year
     the commitments for murder were six, and in the following year the
     commitments for that crime were also six. Thus the commutation of
     the sentence in that instance was followed by neither a
     _diminution_ nor an _increase_ of commitments for murder.

     “It is sufficient for the argument of the advocates of abolition of
     capital punishment to show that the suppression of the barbarous
     exhibitions of the scaffold would _not_ necessarily cause an
     _increase_ of heinous offences; for if the amount of crime were to
     remain the _same_ under laws _non-capital_ as under those which are
     _capital_, to prefer the latter to the former would evince a
     passion for the wanton and unavailing destruction of human life,
     unspeakably disgraceful to the Government or Legislature of any
     civilized country.

     “In Derbyshire, in the year 1835, we find a similar result
     following a commutation of sentence for murder to that which
     followed a similar commutation in the county of Stafford in the
     preceding year; namely, the same number of _commitments for murder_
     in the year following the commutation as in that in which it
     occurred,--being two in each; thus, also, in this instance, there
     was neither increase nor diminution of the crime of murder in the
     year following that of the commutation, judging from the number of
     commitments.

     “In Warwickshire, in the year 1835, the sentence of a convict for
     murder was commuted, the number of commitments for the crime in
     that year being five, whereas in the year following there was but
     one commitment. In this instance, then, we have not only _no
     increase_ of the crime of murder, but an actual _diminution_
     amounting to four.

     “In Westmoreland, in the year 1835, there was one commutation; and
     the commitments in the year following showed neither an _increase_
     nor _diminution_, being two in each.

     “In Cheshire, in the year 1836, the sentences of _two_ convicts for
     _murder_ were _commuted_, the commitments for the crime in that
     year being two; the commitments for the year following were also
     two, showing _neither an increase nor diminution_.

     “Here we have an instance where the sentences of _all_ convicted
     were commuted, and no _increase_ of the crime followed.

     “In Devonshire, in the year 1836, there was one commutation of
     sentence for _murder_, the commitments being four. In the year
     following there were _no_ commitments, making a _decrease_ of four.

     “In Lancashire, in the year 1836, the sentences of _four_ convicts
     for _murder_ were commuted, the number of commitments in the same
     year being seven. In the year following the number of commitments
     was one, making a _decrease_ of six.

     “In the county of Norfolk, in the year 1836, the sentences of
     _five_ convicts for _murder_ were commuted, the number of
     commitments for the same year being eight. In the following year
     the number of commitments for murder were but five, giving a
     _decrease_ of three.

     “In the counties of Norfolk, Nottingham, and Stafford, in the year
     1837, there was one commutation of the sentence of murder for each
     respectively. The result was a fall in the committals of the
     following year from five to two in the first county,--giving a
     decrease of three; in the second county a fall from one to _none_;
     in the third county _neither_ an increase nor diminution,--the
     number of committals having been three in each year.

     “In the counties of Lincoln, Stafford, and Denbigh, in the year
     1838, there was respectively _one_ commutation of the sentence for
     _murder_. The result was that in the following year the commitments
     fell from two to one in the first county, from three to one in the
     second, and from one to _none_ in the third, thus giving
     respectively a decrease of one-half, two-thirds, and of the whole.
     The last is more correctly called an extinction than a decrease.

     “In Cheshire, Middlesex, Somersetshire, and Surrey, in the year
     1838, there were, respectively, _two_ commutations of the sentence
     for murder. The result was that in the first county the
     commitments, as between that year and the year following, fell from
     two to one; in the second county they fell from seven to three; in
     the third, from three to one; and in the fourth, from three to two;
     thus giving a diminution, respectively, of one-half, four-sevenths,
     two-thirds, and one-third.

     “In Kent, in the year 1838, the sentences of _nine_ convicts for
     murder were commuted, the commitments for that crime in the same
     year being seventeen. In the following year the commitments for
     murder were only two, showing a decrease of fifteen. In this last
     case, however, we cannot in fairness press the argument in favour
     of the _salutary_ effect of discontinuing capital punishments to
     the extent that the arithmetical table would show. That year, if
     we recollect right, was the year of the extraordinary outbreak
     headed by the madman Courtenay or Thom. That event swelled the
     commitments for murder to an unprecedented height. The fall in the
     commitments from seventeen, in that year, to two in the year
     following, is not a fall under _equal_ circumstances, and it would
     be illogical to make it an argument for more than this: that
     society received _no detriment_ because the deluded followers of
     the frantic Courtenay _were sent to a penal settlement, instead of
     being strangled on the scaffold_.

     “Looking to the table of EXECUTIONS, we find that in the _three_
     years ending the 31st of December, 1836, the number _executed_ was
     85, while during the _three_ years ending the 31st of December,
     1839, the number was only twenty-five. The _commitments_ in the
     former period were 3,104, in the latter 2,989, showing a
     _decrease_, though a small one, in the number of _commitments_,
     while there is exhibited an _increase_ in the number of
     _convictions_; namely, from 1,536 to 1,788, showing the
     _centesimal_ proportion of convictions to commitments in the two
     periods, to be represented by the figures 49·48 and 59·48
     respectively.

     “These returns, as far as they go, are highly satisfactory as the
     testimony of experience to the _safe_ policy of ABOLISHING CAPITAL
     PUNISHMENTS ALTOGETHER, and thus getting rid of the barbarous and
     brutalizing exhibitions of cold-blooded cruelty and deliberate
     slaughter which they present to the people.”

                                               _Morning Herald_, 1840.



From this statement of facts, and indeed from all that has taken place
regarding crimes where capital punishment has been remitted, there can
be little doubt that it is inexpedient; there can be none that it is
unnecessary. But if any still persist that the Divine sanction is given
by “He who sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed,” then
the tyrant who engages in a war of aggression, the general who sanctions
one effective shot being fired, should alike bear the penalty with the
midnight assassin. Nay, does not the man who accidentally “sheds the
blood” of him who is “made in the likeness of God,” literally come
within the pale of the command, if _command_ it be?

The Chinese but seek to carry out this principle: they merely say, and
with juster pretension to consistency, “we cannot remit it; there must
be blood for blood.”

Yet we would dispute their right to have _always_ blood for blood; why
then may we not question the right _ever_ to have blood shed, under
Bible sanction at least? God makes no mention of motives or comparative
reasonings as to guilt; in this His supposed command there is no
discretionary option to soften its asserted force. By whatever means or
under whatever circumstances one man kills another, _blood is shed_; and
if blood for blood should hold good, then under this reasoning the
slayer must die. If it be argued, that _wilful_ shedding of blood is
meant, I point to the words of the text; they refer to “life for life,”
they give no exceptions: “Who then, oh man! made thee a judge to tell
the signs of the times?”

Once grant an exception to execution, once admit the doctrine of
reprieve, and the authority, as a command, in the Bible ceases
altogether.

Those who argue in favour of executions say, “But as an earthly
punishment, we _may_ hang;” _may_, indeed! There are fifty things we
_may_ do that are better avoided. Why need we hang, when other
punishments will suffice, and have been proved to have succeeded in
other cases? A very few years back, and the advances we have recently
made in the civilization of our laws would have been scouted as equally
Utopian, as is now considered the attempt to abolish the punishment of
death altogether. Let us reflect too that in a case of murder, the
prisoner (from a feeling which imperceptibly affects the minds of all)
is looked on with a degree of suspicious anxiety to convict that almost
watches to make out a case against him sufficient to condemn. The very
fact of his being put on his trial for murder prejudges him in our eyes;
and a slight variation in reporting a conversation has marvellously
increased many a poor man’s danger of the gallows.

There is no recalling the erroneously condemned from the grave; a wrong
judgment cannot there be reversed! Let us bear in mind, also, that the
wisest judges may sometimes decide wrongfully. They were considered by
myself and others to have erred in respect to the privileges of the
House of Commons; why might they not commit a similar error in the case
of a prisoner?

But enough; let errors in judgment speak for themselves. They contain
matter for deep reflection and self-examination for us all.

If the average number of executions be reduced, even by one, I shall
have the satisfaction of feeling at least that I have been an humble
labourer in the great cause of mercy, which could not have a more
zealous advocate, though it may have many more powerful and successful
supporters.

Happy are we if, in all we do during the course of our career, we have
not to answer for one death; for the bitter word, the cruel neglect, the
light injurious observation, may be the cause of death, as well as the
bludgeon or the steel.

I would here desire to make a few observations as to the medium through
which I have introduced to the public my opinions in favour of the
abolition of Capital Punishment, and the advantages to the cause
obtained from its appearing in the form of a translation, the
reflections being those of a foreigner who looked not to England when he
penned his work. In all this there is a beneficial distraction of ideas
created, for we look, as it were, at a foreign scene when we read the
interesting paper of the narrative,--the sentiments conveyed, the idioms
transcribed, are foreign, and the reader appropriates alone the portion
he feels is applicable to the circumstances of his own country; in fact,
he examines the context, not as he would an original treatise, but as
one who would apply the problems found advantageous in one region to
another. He cavils not at words or similes; his criticism is reserved
for the object at which the translator aims,--no matter even if the
phraseology be too flowery, the expressions too strong. There may be
strange similes, strained amplifications; he studies but a translation,
and cares comparatively little for them. True, he may have some
curiosity awakened as to what the original author was in feeling and
ideas; but these thoughts are light and evanescent compared with the
anxiety, or more properly the curiosity, he has to ascertain what could
be the translator’s ideas in thus “wasting the midnight oil” by
reducing into the phraseology of his vernacular (English) tongue, the
varied thoughts, the acute observations, the (to English ears) novel
ideas of that clever, eccentric, single-minded writer, Victor Hugo.
“What was the aim of the copyist?” methinks I hear repeated by many; and
as my object is one of serious importance to the realities of life, and
to arrest the attention of the reader beyond the mere passing hour, I
reply: The object for which I plead is the priceless value of human
life. Well and truly may the reading public,--and happy for this my dear
native land is it that its public is a reading one,--well may this
public exclaim, “Who is he, or what his view, who has thus dared to
scatter these additional leaves on the pathway of a nation’s thoughts?
Why has he done so, what motives urged him, what end did he seek?”

Such are the surmises that may flit across the reader’s brain, and the
translator humbly hopes that the lightning scowl, or the thunder of
maledictive criticism, will be directed alone against the oaken plank of
a hundred years’ growth, and that this his nautilus bark will feel no
breeze beyond the _aura populi_. Probably to the English public many of
the observations in this translation will be original. Haply to the gay
and frivolous the thoughts may appear exaggerated; but, alas! with too
many they will come home to the heart. Numbers there are, who, steeped
in misery before they were steeped in crime, had as little inclination
to sin as their more fortunate fellow-men, but whose first
transgressions were the offsprings of their misery, the necessitous
urgings of their poverty. Yes, gentle reader,--for among the fair and
young I hope to have many readers; readers whose hearts yet know how to
feel,--ye would I address, and exclaim, for the startling fact is but
too true, that though,--

                      “we who in lavish lap have rolled
    And every year with new delight have told;
    We who recumbent on the lacquered barge
    Have dropped down life’s gay stream of pleasant marge;
    We may extol life’s calm untroubled sea,”

well may the miserable, the guilty answer,--

    “The storms of misery never burst on thee.”

“YOU NEVER FELT POVERTY. You never were comparatively tempted to crime.”
“A noble,” say they, and truly, “a noble is tried, is judged by his
peers, as being those who alone are considered to know, to be able to
appreciate his case. Let poverty have her peers also.” “My poverty and
not my will consented” is a phrase to which too little consideration is
given when we discuss the question of crime and punishment; for though
poverty cannot be pleaded by the criminal in justification of his
offence (nor should such justification be permitted in the legal view),
Society, whose interests are represented by the tribunal which adjudges,
should be careful that any circumstances or defects in its conformation
which may have had a tendency even to induce the criminality of the
culprit, should go in mitigation of his punishment. It would be a
startling observation in the present day, and one for which Society is
not yet prepared, to hear the assertion made that _punishment_ for
crime is more often unjust than just; but after much reflection on the
origin of crime, humanly speaking, I am constrained to come to this
conclusion: that the criminality of individuals is more frequently
traceable to the evils incidental to an imperfect social system than to
the greater propensity towards crime, as affecting others, that exists
in the heart of one person if compared with another. Had the judge or
the prosecutor entered life under the same circumstances as the
prisoner, been early initiated into the same habits, been taught to view
society through the same distorted glass, and had their feelings blunted
by the same cold blasts of adversity, who shall say what their
respective positions might have been?

In the phrase “My poverty but not my will consented,” let me not be
understood to speak of poverty merely in the light of want of money;
that is a very narrow view, and very confined as to what forms the real
pains of poverty. Poverty is the want of means, intellectual and moral
as well as pecuniary, to feed the being who is placed on the area of the
world; with mind active as well as body, sustenance is necessary to its
existence. If the poor man cannot obtain bread, he takes to gin to
assuage cravings of the stomach. No less, if the mind cannot obtain
light to guide it in the onward path, the visual organs become
habituated to the dark and murky gloom of almost darkness; and through
these confused gleamings, no wonder if the being fall into the pits and
whirlpools which beset with danger the pathway of man, even when blessed
with the clear light of day; how much more, therefore, when he has not
light to discern good from evil, nor an intellectual poor-law to supply
him with food, when a beggar by the way-side of knowledge! How strange
it is that we can incarcerate the _bodies_ of the poor because they are
poor, objecting to let them be dependent on casual charity for bodily
sustenance, and yet cannot be equally strict in legislating for the
mind.

Surely if, as members of one common society, we contend it is necessary
for the well-being of the community at large that each person should be
provided with work to enable him to procure food, and that if persons be
unable to obtain work, or purchase food, then that the State shall
provide for them,--should we not equally be provident for the mental as
well as we are for the corporeal wants of those who hold a less
fortunate position in the scale of society; more particularly when we
reflect on the effect mind has on matter, and that did we sufficiently
provide for the former, each individual would probably find little
difficulty in procuring a supply for his bodily wants.

The poverty of the mind, if relieved, will probably be a permanent good;
whereas bodily relief is at best but temporary. How vast, too, is the
effect of knowledge, on the creation of food. Knowledge teaches
industry; knowledge and industry multiply an hundred fold the product of
labour. Comfort and security are thus increased; idleness, and
consequently crime, is diminished,--for a man of information is seldom
idle, and one surrounded with comforts is rarely inclined to commit
crimes against society.

Would not, therefore, the effects resulting from education be the best
preventative of crime?--and, if so, heavy indeed is the responsibility
of every man who puts an impediment in the way of a nation’s
enlightenment. Circumstanced as Great Britain now is, internally
speaking, with her countless millions congregated or _hived_ in large
towns, ready to follow any leader of more daring or greater knowledge
than themselves, comparatively indifferent as to the means for
compassing any much desired end,--though actuated by no wish to work ill
to others, even when excited beyond the unmanageableness of irrational
physical force,--there is much to be feared from the effects of any
combustion which might suddenly inflame a people thus charged to the
full with every ingredient requisite for scenes of violence, whilst at
the same time, through a strong line of prescribed demarcation,
separated from the privileged classes; and it cannot but be mainly by
the controlling power of knowledge that we can expect to see the masses
endeavouring to be satisfied with their lot in life. Thus it is, as I
have before asserted, that the poverty of opportunity for information,
and consequently acquirement of knowledge, originates much of the
present state of crime. Oh, that I could distinctly see my way through
the halo which as yet obscures that glorious day, when ignorance shall
be deplored as much as shame! With what satisfaction would the statesman
then die and bequeath his country to the care of, not the fate of
accident, as now, but the masses of its own population. Methinks the
gleam which harbingers this bright morning, already, though faintly,
begins to tinge the horizon, under the happy auspices of our beloved
Queen; and to the credit of the liberal advisers of Her Majesty, a more
liberal arrangement of schools has been established,--though it
probably remains for ages yet unborn to develope fully the blessings of
such a system. Well worthy, aye, brighter than a diadem of a thousand
stars, is the advancement of a nation’s happiness. May such thoughts
have our beloved Queen’s deep and considerate attention; and as her
noble mind traces, on an ideal map, the future destinies of her people,
and turns to times when another generation, with its train of guilt or
happiness, shall arise, may she anticipate in time the benefits which
will flow from a system of general education!

But if these things be now lightly accounted, the time may arrive when
population shall be yet more dense, and the strong arm of numbers become
yet more strong; for if no countervailing power intervene, force and
numbers must prevail at last, and there must come a time when it will
alone depend upon the respective powers of intellect or animal force
being dominant, whether confidence in our stability shall be shaken,
capital cease to be here expended, and commerce leave our
shores,--whether, in fact, brute force or reason become the recognized
sovereign of the people; whether the influence of intellect has been
fostered, and nobler thoughts and more refined pleasures become the
pastime of this great nation. Then, but not till then, will crime hide
her head, and the race no longer be to the swift or the battle to the
strong: a calm and steady breeze will temper the course of the swift to
wrath, or the powerfully scientific lever of knowledge uproot violence
out of the councils of the nation; for they will then appreciate law,
knowing it is peculiarly the palladium of the defenceless, and
confident in the strength of their cause, they will cast off the
trammels of tradition, form unions of information, not restriction; and
when the various classes of society shall have learned to know that each
has his proper duties, each his proper limits, each is equally necessary
to each, whose strength is a combination of the whole,--like the arch,
sure to drop to pieces if the key-stone were removed.

Oh, how the heart bleeds to reflect on the pains which are taken to
render efficient the laws for punishing crime, and the little care to
fortify the minds of the people to resist the first impress of crime.
Train up the child in the way he should go, and he will not depart
therefrom. If, therefore, we train it not up, it never has wherefrom to
depart, but is cast forth, like a helmless, pilotless bark, on the
waters of life; strange if it founder not, or at least if it become not
damaged by striking on some of the shoals by which it is beset on every
side. We talk of “penal laws” or a “penal settlement” as though the aim
and intention of laws were to be _penal_, instead of being as they most
decidedly are, or ought to be, _sanitary_. Wherefore do we, as we term
it, _punish_, but to cure an evil which hurts and pains society? Just so
we cauterize a wound, in order to heal the body, not for the sake of
giving pain to the affected limb.

The very fact of the common acceptation of the word _penal_, as applied
to our criminal system, is of itself a strong proof of the
misunderstanding on which that system is founded, and on which we
legislate. If we arrogate to ourselves a right to judge men for their
criminality, instead of urging our only legitimate excuse for
punishing, namely, “the giving over the offending member to that course
of discipline we deem most likely to restrain a similar disposition to
delinquency in another member of the frame-work of society,” let us at
least carry out this principle to the full extent; and then the man who
cheats his neighbour of money by availing himself of his ignorance, and
leads him to make an improvident bargain, will be deemed as guilty in
the eye of the law as he who, throwing him off his guard,
surreptitiously conveys his hand into the other’s pocket.

But it is really absurd to talk of laws being framed to punish sin. It
is to restrain others, as well as the culprit himself, from similar
offences that pains and penalties are inflicted. If they fail of this
end they become themselves improper; if the same end can be attained by
a mild as by a severe sentence, the milder course should be adopted.

Perhaps there may be some who are only timid regarding the total
abolition of capital punishment because they are fearful of a license
being given which would render human life of less value in the sight of
man. Can then the destruction of a second life increase the reverence
for its sacredness? Surely, not! If we were, in imagination, to place
ourselves in the chamber of the condemned, or by the fire-side of the
mere spectator of an execution, we shall find the heart of the first
generally in a morbid state, whilst the spectator commiserates the fate
of the condemned more than he learns to reprobate the crime for which
the guilty one suffered.

Punishment, when strained beyond what is necessary becomes revenge;
punishment, also, should never exceed, but rather be milder than, public
opinion. In the awful decision of death, more especially, we should be
careful not to inflict a penalty which we cannot repay back to the
sufferer if the condemnation should afterwards prove to have been
erroneous. There can be no recall from the grave: in the beautiful words
of our author, “THE DOOR OF THE TOMB OPENS NOT INWARDS!”

       *       *       *       *       *

There are several points in “The Last Days of a Condemned” to which I
would particularly invite the attention of the reader. In the first
place, the story being left unfinished, and there being a doubt as to
whether the condemned was executed or pardoned, takes from the feeling
of horror without affecting our interest in his fate. It is as a veil
cast over the last moments,--a film, an indistinctness that blends into
harmony the last distorted features of the vision we are contemplating.

Next, I would mention the papers relating to chaplains. How touchingly
does the author paint the pure and pastorly being who has dwelt in the
homely cure, and amid the peaceful scenes of nature studied nature’s
God! At page 277, the poor captive, crushed in worldly feeling, yearns
for those “good and consoling words” that shall “heal the bruised reed,
and quench the smoking flax.” How beautiful to see the soul seeking for
that hope which dieth not; and whether we look at pages 279 and 280, or
289, we cannot but feel a happy and holy wish that Heavenly Peace may
rest on the poor condemned.

Pass we now to a beautiful scene of nature, page 290,--the final
interview between the prisoner and his infant daughter, which few could
read unmoved by its pathos. How happy for the parent who can enfold his
child in his arms,--a happiness of which parents seldom know the value
until the grave has closed over them, or they have left the homestead
and parental hearth for the pathway of independent manhood. Agonizing
must it be to a parent when absence has transferred much of the warmth
of filial affection to strangers, to behold the child you have pictured,
possibly for years, as anxious to welcome home from distant noxious
climes the parent from whom it parted in the happy days of innocence,
perhaps ere yet the mind was conscious of the father’s parting blessing.
How the pulse throbs and the heart beats when the vessel touches land,
and the waving handkerchief is indistinctly discerned amidst hundreds of
spectators; and if when disengaged from the crowd, and with the beloved
object seated beside you as the carriage speeds you to your home, how
scrutinizingly does the heart search each gaze, fearfully anxious lest
it should be able to fathom the depth of a love it would hold
fathomless! But oh! how bitter beyond expression must be a meeting such
as is described by the author of “The Condemned:” not only want of
recognition from the innocent little prattler, not only indifference
towards him,--but _terror_! How infinitely more must this have
reconciled him, and made him court death than all that myriads of
arguments could have effected!

A widely contrasted scene is painted from page 245 to 251, wherein is
described the departure of the convicts for the Galleys. What an
interesting and painful study for the philanthropist or the moralist! In
a few words we read the history of years, the downward path, the
emulation in vice. The pride of the hardened sinner to show his
superiority in crime, and the effort of the newer delinquent to hide his
inexperience under a more hardened exterior, prove forcibly how equally
emulative is man, whether the object be a sceptre or a public execution,
that his fellows may admire him when he is gone, that his compeers shall
not surpass him while he remains!

The deterioration of mind on all connected with a crowded gaol,--that
university for crime--is shown, in a paper a few pages further on (page
255), where even the song of a young girl, the outpouring of an
unburthened heart, is tainted by the details of crime. The words are
left in their original tongue; retained for the sake of showing the
ability of the author, but not translated, as being little suited to
give pleasure or effect any good. Alas! that the gaol should have power
thus to efface even the charms of melody, and render discordant music’s
silvery tones. But even that sweetest of sounds, a female voice, becomes
tainted by prison association: the rust of a gaol corrodes the heart,
and eats into every thing; time cannot efface its mark, nor the
brightest sun call forth one gleam from where its dimness has once
affixed itself.

As it mars lovely woman’s charms, so it renders disgustful the
venerableness of age. From the song of the young girl we trace its
earlier mildew; from the powerful paper narrating the history of the old
convict (which is by far the most stirring and full of adventure of the
whole, see pages 268 to 272) we learn its baleful effects on old age.

May a beneficent, rationally-grounded clemency be, in future, the means
of redeeming “all such as have erred;” and may a widely-spread system of
enlightened education happily train the children of adverse
circumstances “in the way they should go.”

                                               P. HESKETH FLEETWOOD.

[Illustration: “_Condemned to Death._”

Etched by R. de los Rios.--From drawing by François Flameng.]




THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED.




FIRST PAPER.


                                               BICÊTRE PRISON.

Condemned to death!

These five weeks have I dwelt with this idea,--always alone with it,
always frozen by its presence, always bent under its weight.

Formerly (for it seems to me rather years than weeks since I was free) I
was a being like any other; every day, every hour, every minute had its
idea. My mind, youthful and rich, was full of fancies, which it
developed successively, without order or aim, but weaving inexhaustible
arabesques on the poor and coarse web of life. Sometimes it was of
youthful beauties, sometimes of unbounded possessions, then of battles
gained, next of theatres full of sound and light, and then again the
young beauties, and shadowy walks at night beneath spreading
chestnut-trees. There was a perpetual revel in my imagination: I might
think on what I chose,--I was free.

But now,--I am a Captive! Bodily in irons in a dungeon, and mentally
imprisoned in one idea,--one horrible, one hideous, one unconquerable
idea! I have only one thought, one conviction, one certitude,--

_Condemned to death!_

Whatever I do, that frightful thought is always here, like a spectre,
beside me,--solitary and jealous, banishing all else, haunting me for
ever, and shaking me with its two icy hands whenever I wish to turn my
head away or to close my eyes. It glides into all forms in which my mind
seeks to shun it; mixes itself, like a horrible chant, with all the
words which are addressed to me; presses against me even to the odious
gratings of my prison. It haunts me while awake, spies on my convulsive
slumbers, and re-appears, a vivid incubus, in my dreams!

I have just started from a troubled sleep in which I was pursued by this
thought, and I made an effort to say to myself, “Oh, it was but a
dream!”

Well, even before my heavy eyes could read the fatal truth in the
dreadful reality which surrounds me,--on the damp and reeking
dungeon-walls, in the pale rays of my night-lamp, in the rough material
of my prison-garb, on the sombre visage of the sentry, whose cap gleams
through the grating of the door,--it seems to me that already a voice
has murmured in my ear,--

“_Condemned to death!_”




SECOND PAPER.


Five weeks have now elapsed since I was tried,--found
guilty,--sentenced.

Let me endeavour to recall the circumstances which attended that fatal
day.

It was a beautiful morning at the close of August. My trial had already
lasted three days; my name and accusation had collected each morning a
knot of spectators, who crowded the benches of the Court, as ravens
surrounded a corpse. During three days all the assembly of judges,
witnesses, lawyers, and officers had passed and repassed as a
phantasmagoria before my troubled vision.

The two first nights, through uneasiness and terror, I had been unable
to sleep; on the third I had slept, from fatigue and exhaustion. I had
left the jury deliberating at midnight, and was taken back to the heap
of straw in my prison, where I instantly fell into a profound
sleep,--the sleep of forgetfulness. These were the first hours of repose
I had obtained after long watchfulness.

I was buried in this oblivion when they sent to have me awakened, and my
sound slumber was not broken by the heavy step and iron shoes of the
jailor, by the clanking of his keys, or the rusty grating of the lock;
to rouse me from my lethargy it required his harsh voice in my ear, his
rough hand on my arm.

“Come,” shouted he, “rise directly!”

I opened my eyes, and started up from my straw bed: it was already
daylight.

At this moment, through the high and narrow window of my cell, I saw on
the ceiling of the next corridor (the only firmament I was allowed to
see) that yellow reflection by which eyes accustomed to the darkness of
a prison recognize sunshine. And oh, how I love sunshine!

“It is a fine day!” said I to the jailor.

He remained a moment without answering me, as if uncertain whether it
was worth while to expend a word; then, as if with an effort, he coolly
murmured, “Very likely.”

I remained motionless, my senses half sleeping, with smiling lips, and
my eyes fixed on that soft golden reflection which reverberated on the
ceiling.

“What a lovely day!” I repeated.

“Yes,” answered the jailor; “_they are waiting for you_.”

These few words, like a web which stops the flight of an insect, flung
me back into the reality of my position. I pictured to myself instantly,
as in a flash of lightning, that sombre Court of Justice, the Bench of
Judges, in their robes of sanguine hue, the three rows of stupid-looking
witnesses, two gendarmes at the extremity of my bench; black robes
waving, and the heads of the crowd clustering in the depth of the
shadow, while I fancied that I felt upon me the fixed look of the twelve
jurymen, who had sat up while I slept.

I rose: my teeth chattered, my hands trembled, my limbs were so weak
that at the first step I had nearly fallen; however, I followed the
jailor slowly.

Two gendarmes waited for me at the door-way of the cell; they replaced
my fetters, to which I yielded mechanically, as in a dream.

We traversed an interior court, and the balmy air of morning reanimated
me. I raised my head: the sky was cloudless, and the warm rays of the
sun (partially intercepted by the tall chimneys) traced brilliant angles
of light on the high and sombre walls of the prison. It was indeed a
delicious day.

We ascended a winding staircase; we passed a corridor, then another,
then a third, and then a low door was opened. A current of hot air,
laden with noise, rushed from it; it was the breath of the crowd in the
Court of Justice which I then entered.

On my appearance the hall resounded with the clank of arms and the hum
of voices; benches were moved noisily; and while I crossed that long
chamber between two masses of people who were walled in by soldiers, I
painfully felt myself the centre of attraction to all those fixed and
gaping looks.

At this moment I perceived that I was without fetters, but I could not
recall where or when they had been removed.

At length I reached my place at the bar, and there was a deep silence.
The instant that the tumult ceased in the crowd, it ceased also in my
ideas: a sudden clearness of perception came to me, and I at once
understood plainly, what until then I could not discover in my confused
state of mind, that _the decisive moment was come_! I was brought there
to hear my _sentence_!

Explain it who can: from the manner in which this idea came to my mind,
it caused me no terror! The windows were open; the air, and the sounds
of the City came freely through them; the room was as light as for a
wedding; the cheerful rays of the sun traced here and there the luminous
forms of the windows, sometimes lengthened on the flooring, sometimes
spreading on a table, sometimes broken by the angles of the walls; and
from the brilliant square of each window the rays fell through the air
in dancing golden beams.

The Judges at the extreme of the hall bore a satisfied appearance,
probably from the anticipation of their labours being soon completed.
The face of the President, softly lighted by a reflected sunbeam, had a
calm and amiable expression; and a young counsel conversed almost gaily
with a handsome woman who was placed near him.

The Jury alone looked wan and exhausted, but this was apparently from
the fatigue of having sat up all night. Nothing in their countenances
indicated men who would pass sentence of death.

Opposite to me a window stood wide open. I heard laughter in the Market
for Flowers beneath; and on the sill of the window a graceful plant,
illumined by sunshine, played in the breeze.

How could any sinister idea be formed amongst so many soothing
sensations? Surrounded by air and sunshine, I could think of nought save
freedom. Hope shone within me, as the day shone around me; and I awaited
my sentence with confidence, as one daily calculates on liberty and
life.

In the meantime my counsel arrived; after taking his place he leaned
towards me with a smile.

“I have hopes!” said he.

“Oh, surely!” I replied in the same light tone.

“Yes,” returned he; “I know nothing as yet of the verdict, but they have
doubtless acquitted you of premeditation, and then it will be only _hard
labour for life_!”

“What do you mean, sir?” replied I, indignantly; “I would prefer death!”

Then the President, who had only waited for my counsel, desired me to
rise. The soldiers carried arms; and, like an electric movement, all the
assembly rose at the same instant. The Recorder, placed at a table below
the Tribunal, read the verdict, which the Jury pronounced during my
absence.

       *       *       *       *       *

A sickly chill passed over my frame; I leaned against the wall to avoid
falling.

“Counsel, have you anything to say why this sentence should not be
passed?” demanded the President.

I felt that _I_ had much to urge, but I had not the power,--my tongue
was cleaving to my mouth.

My counsel then rose. His endeavour appeared to be, to mitigate the
verdict of the Jury, and to substitute the punishment of hard labour for
life,--by naming which he had rendered me so indignant! This indignation
must again have been powerful within me to conquer the thousand emotions
which distracted my thoughts. I wished to repeat aloud what I had
already said to him, but my breath failed, and I could only grasp him
by the arm, crying with convulsive strength, “No!”

The Attorney-General replied against my counsel’s arguments, and I
listened to him with a stupid satisfaction. The Judges then left the
Court; soon returned, and the President read my sentence.

“_Condemned to death!_” cried the crowd; and as I was led away the
assembly pressed on my steps with avidity, while I walked on, confused,
and nearly in unconsciousness. A revolution had taken place within me.
Until that sentence of Death I had felt myself breathe, palpitate,
exist, like other beings. Now I felt clearly that a barrier existed
between me and the world. Nothing appeared to me under the same aspect
as hitherto. Those large and luminous windows, that fair sunshine, that
pure sky,--all was pale and ghastly, the colour of a winding sheet.
Those men, women, and children who pressed on my path seemed to me like
phantoms.

At the foot of the stairs a black and dirty prison-cart was waiting; as
I entered it, I looked by chance around.

“The Condemned Prisoner!” shouted the people, running towards the cart.

Through the cloud which seemed to me to interpose between me and all
things, I distinguished two young girls who gazed at me with eager eyes.

“Well,” said the youngest, clapping her hands, “_it will take place in
six weeks_.”




THIRD PAPER.


Condemned to death!

Well, why not? I remember once reading, “All mankind are condemned to
death, with indefinite respites.” How then is my position altered?

Since my sentence was pronounced, how many are dead who calculated upon
a long life! How many are gone before me, who, young, free, and in good
health, had fully intended to be present at my execution! How many,
between this and then, perhaps, who now walk and breathe in the fresh
air any where they please, will die before me!

And then, what has life for me, that I should regret? In truth, only the
dull twilight and black bread of a prison, a portion of meagre soup from
the trough of the convicts; to be treated rudely,--_I_, who have been
refined by education; to be brutalized by turnkeys without feeling; not
to see a human being who thinks me worthy of a word, or whom I could
address; incessantly to shudder at what I have done, and what may be
done to me,--these are nearly the only advantages of which the
executioner can deprive me!

Ah! still it is horrible.




FOURTH PAPER.


The black cart brought me here to this hideous Bicêtre Prison.

Seen from afar, the appearance of that edifice is rather majestic. It
spreads to the horizon in front of a hill, and at a distance retains
something of its ancient splendour,--the look of a Royal Palace. But as
you approach it, the Palace changes to a ruin, and the dilapidated
gables shock the sight. There is a mixture of poverty and disgrace
soiling its royal façades; without glass or shutters to the windows, but
massive crossed-bars of iron instead, against which is pressed, here and
there, the ghastly face of a felon or a madman.




FIFTH PAPER.


When I arrived here the hand of force was laid on me, and numerous
precautions were taken: neither knife nor fork was allowed for my
repasts; and a strait-waistcoat--a species of sack made of
sail-cloth--imprisoned my arms. I had sued to annul my sentence, so the
jailors might have for six or seven weeks their responsibility; and it
was requisite to keep me safe and healthful for the Guillotine!

For the first few days I was treated with a degree of attention which
was horrible to me,--the civilities of a turnkey breathe of a scaffold.
Luckily, at the end of some days, habit resumed its influence; they
mixed me with the other prisoners in a general brutality, and made no
more of those unusual distinctions of politeness which continually kept
the executioner in my memory.

This was not the only amelioration. My youth, my docility, the cares of
the Chaplain of the prison, and above all some words in Latin which I
addressed to the keeper, who did not understand them, procured for me a
walk once a week with the other prisoners, and removed the
strait-waistcoat with which I was paralyzed. After considerable
hesitation they have also given me pens, paper, ink, and a night-lamp.
Every Sunday after Mass I am allowed to walk in the Prison-court at the
hour of recreation; there I talk with the prisoners, which is
inevitable. They make boon companions, these wretches. They tell me
their adventures,--enough to horrify one; but I know they are proud of
them. They also try to teach me their mystic idioms,--an odious
phraseology grafted on the general language, like a hideous excrescence;
yet sometimes it has a singular energy, a frightful picturesqueness. To
be hung is called “marrying the widow,” as though the rope of the
gallows were the widow of all who had been executed! At every instant
mysterious, fantastic words occur, base and hideous, derived one knows
not whence; they resemble crawling reptiles. On hearing this language
spoken, the effect is like the shaking of dusty rags before you.

These men at least pity me, and they alone do so. The jailors, the
turnkeys,--and I am not angry with them,--gossip and laugh, and speak of
me in my presence as of a mere animal.




SIXTH PAPER.


I said to myself, “As I have the means of writing, why should I not do
it? But of what shall I write? Placed between four walls of cold and
bare stone, without freedom for my steps, without horizon for my eyes,
my sole occupation mechanically to watch the progress of that square of
light which the grating of my door marks on the sombre wall opposite,
and, as I said before, ever alone with one idea,--an idea of crime,
punishment, death,--can I have anything to _say_, I who have no more to
_do_ in this world; and what shall I find in this dry and empty brain
which is worthy the trouble of being written?

“Why not? If all around me is monotonous and hueless, is there not
within me a tempest, a struggle, a tragedy? This fixed idea which
possesses me, does it not take every hour, every instant a new form,
becoming more hideous as the time approaches? Why should I not try to
describe for myself all the violent and unknown feelings I experience in
my outcast situation? Certainly the material is plentiful; and, however
shortened my life may be, there will still be sufficient in the anguish,
the terrors, the tortures, which will fill it from this hour until my
last, to exhaust my pen and ink! Besides, the only means to decrease my
suffering in this anguish will be to observe it closely; and to describe
it will give me an occupation. And then, what I write may not be without
its use. This journal of my sufferings, hour by hour, minute by minute,
torment after torment, if I have strength to carry it on to the moment
when it will be _physically_ impossible for me to continue,--this
history necessarily unfinished, yet as complete as possible, of my
sensations, may it not give a grand and deep lesson? Will not there be
in this process of agonizing thought, in this ever increasing progress
of pain, in this intellectual dissection of a condemned man, more than
one lesson for those who condemned? Perhaps the perusal may render them
less heedless, when throwing a human life into what they call ‘the scale
of justice.’ Perhaps they have never reflected on the slow succession of
tortures conveyed in the expeditious formula of a sentence of death.
Have they ever paused on the important idea, that in the man whose days
they shorten there is an immortal spirit which had calculated on life, a
soul which is not prepared for death? No! they see nothing but the
execution, and doubtless think that for the condemned there is nothing
anterior or subsequent!”

These sheets shall undeceive them. Published, perchance, some day, they
will call their attention a few moments to the suffering of the mind;
for it is this which they do not consider. They triumph in the power of
being able to destroy the body, almost without making it suffer. What an
inferior consideration is this! What is mere physical pain compared to
that of the mind? A day will come,--and perhaps these memoirs, the last
revelations of a solitary wretch, will have contributed--

That is, unless after my death the wind carries away these sheets of
paper into the muddy court, or unless they melt with rain when pasted to
the broken windows of a turnkey.




SEVENTH PAPER.


Suppose that what I write might one day be useful to others,--might make
the Judge pause in his decision, and might save the wretched (innocent
or guilty) from the agony to which I am condemned,--why should _I_ do
it? What matters it? When my life has been taken, what will it be to me
if they take the lives of others? Have I really thought of such
folly?--to throw down the scaffold which I had fatally mounted!

       *       *       *       *       *

What! sunshine, spring, fields full of flowers and birds, the clouds,
trees, nature, liberty, life,--these are to be mine no more!

Ah, it is myself I must try to save! Is it really true that this cannot
be, that I must die soon,--to-morrow, to-day perhaps; is it all thus?
Oh, heavens! what a dreadful idea,--of destroying myself against the
prison wall!




EIGHTH PAPER.


Let me consider what time generally elapses between the condemnation and
the execution of a prisoner.

Three days of delay, after sentence is pronounced, for the prisoner’s
final plea to annul it.

The plea forgotten for a week in a Court of Assize, before it is sent
to the Minister; a fortnight forgotten at the Minister’s, who does not
even know that there are such papers, although he is supposed to
transmit them, after examination, to the “Cour de Cassation.”

Then classification, numbering, registering; the guillotine-list is
loaded, and none must go before their turn! A fortnight more waiting;
then the Court assembles, rejects twenty pleas together, and sends all
back to the Minister, who sends them back to the Attorney-General, who
sends them back to the executioner: this would take three more days.

On the morning of the fourth day the Deputies of the Attorney-General
and Recorder prepare the order of execution; and the following morning,
from day-break, is heard the noise of erecting the scaffold, and in the
cross-streets a commotion of hoarse voices.

Altogether _six weeks_. The young girl’s calculation was right! I have
now been at least five weeks (perhaps six, for I dare not reckon) in
this fatal prison; nay, I think I have been even three days more.




NINTH PAPER.


I have just made my will; what was the use of this?

I have to pay my expenses, and all I possess will scarcely suffice. A
forced death is expensive.

I leave a mother, I leave a wife, I leave a child,--a little girl of
three years old, gentle, delicate, with large black eyes and chesnut
hair. She was two years and one month old when I saw her the last time.

Thus after my death there will be three women without son, without
husband, without father,--three orphans in different degrees; three
widows by act of law.

I admit that I am justly punished; but these innocent creatures, what
have they done? No matter; they will be dishonoured, they will be
ruined; and this is justice!

It is not so much on account of my poor old mother that I feel thus
wretched; she is so advanced in years, she will not survive the blow; or
if she still linger a short time, her feelings are so blunted that she
will suffer but little.

Nor is it for my wife that I feel the most. She is already in miserable
health, and weak in intellects; her reason will give way, in which case
her spirit will not suffer while the mind slumbers as in death.

But my daughter, my child, my poor little Mary, who is laughing,
playing, singing at this moment, and who dreams of no evil! Ah, it is
the thought of her which unmans me!




TENTH PAPER.


Here is the description of my prison: eight feet square; four walls of
granite, with a flagged pavement; on one side a kind of nook by way of
alcove, in which is thrown a bundle of straw, where the prisoner is
supposed to rest and sleep, dressed, winter, as in summer, in slight
linen clothing. Over my head, instead of curtains, a thick canopy of
cobwebs, hanging like tattered pennons. For the rest, no windows, not
even a ventilator; and only one door, where iron hides the wood. I
mistake; towards the top of the door there is a sort of window, or
rather an opening of nine inches square, crossed by a grating, and which
the turnkey can close at night. Outside, there is a long corridor
lighted and aired by means of narrow ventilators high in the wall. It is
divided into compartments of masonry, which communicate by a series of
doors; each of these compartments serves as an antichamber to a dungeon,
like mine. In these dungeons are confined felons condemned by the
Governor of the Prison to hard labour. The three first cells are kept
for prisoners under sentence of death, as being nearest to the goal,
therefore most convenient for the jailor. These dungeons are the only
remains of the ancient Bicêtre Castle, such as it was built in the
fifteenth century by the Cardinal of Winchester, he who caused Jeanne of
Arc to be burned. I overheard this description from some persons who
came to my den yesterday, to gratify their curiosity, and who stared at
me from a distance as at a wild beast in a menagerie. The turnkey
received five francs for the exhibition.

I have omitted to say that night and day there is a sentry on guard
outside the door of my cell; and I never raise my eyes towards the
square grating without encountering his eyes, open, and fixed on me.




ELEVENTH PAPER.


As there is no appearance of daylight, what is to be done during the
night? It occurred to me that I would arise and examine, by my lamp, the
walls of my cell. They are covered with writings, with drawings,
fantastic figures, and names which mix with and efface each other. It
would appear that each prisoner had wished to leave behind him some
trace here at least. Pencil, chalk, charcoal,--black, white, grey
letters; sometimes deep carvings upon the stone. If my mind were at
ease, I could take an interest in this strange book, which is developed
page by page, to my eyes, on each stone of this dungeon. I should like
to recompose these fragments of thought; to trace a character for each
name; to give sense and life to these mutilated inscriptions,--these
dismembered phrases.

Above where I sleep there are two flaming hearts, pierced with an arrow;
and beneath is written “Amour pour la vie.” Poor wretch! it was not a
long engagement.

Beyond this, a three-sided cocked hat, with a small figure coarsely done
beneath, and the words, “Vive l’Empereur!”

On the opposite wall is the name of “Papavoine.” The capital _P_ is
worked in arabesques and embellished with care.

A verse of a popular drinking-song.

A Cap of Liberty, cut rather deeply into the stone, with the words
beneath of “Bories, La Republique!”

Poor young man! he was one of the four subaltern officers of La
Rochelle. How horrible is the idea of their (fancied) political
necessity, to give the frightful reality of the guillotine for an
opinion, a reverie, an abstraction!--And I! _I_ have complained of its
severity!--I who have really committed crime--

Ah, what have I seen! I can go no farther in my research! I have just
discovered, drawn with chalk in the corner of the wall, that dreadful
image, the representation of that scaffold, which even at this moment is
perhaps being put up for my execution! The lamp had nearly fallen out of
my trembling hands!




TWELFTH PAPER.


I returned precipitately to sit on my straw bed; my head sunk on my
knees. After a time, my childish fear was dissipated, and a wild
curiosity forced me to continue the examination of my walls.

Beside the name of Papavoine, I tore away an enormous cobweb, thick with
dust, and filling the angle of the wall. Under this web there were four
or five names perfectly legible, among others of which nothing remained
but a smear on the wall,--DAUTAN, 1815. POULAIN, 1818. JEAN MARTIN,
1821. CASTAING, 1823.

As I read these names, frightful recollections crowded on me. _Dautan_
was the man who cut his brother in quarters, and who went at night to
Paris and threw the head into a fountain, and the body into a sewer.
_Poulain_ assassinated his wife. _Jean Martin_ shot his father with a
pistol as the old man opened a window. And _Castaing_ was the physician
who poisoned his friend; and while attending the illness he had caused,
instead of an antidote, gave him more poison. Then, next to these names,
was Papavoine, the horrible madman who stabbed children to death in his
phrenzy.

“These,” I exclaimed, as a shudder passed over me, “these, then, have
been my predecessors in this cell. Here, on the same pavement where I
am, they conceived their last thoughts,--these fearful homicides! Within
these walls, in this narrow square, their last steps turned and
re-turned, like those of a caged wild-beast. They succeeded each other
at short intervals; it seems that this dungeon does not remain empty.
They have left the place warm,--and it is to me they have left it. In my
turn I shall join them in the felons’ cemetery of Clamart, where the
grass grows so well!”

       *       *       *       *       *

I am neither visionary nor superstitious, but it is probable these ideas
caused in my brain a feverish excitement; for, whilst I thus wandered,
all at once these five fatal names appeared as though written in flames
on the dark wall; noises, louder and louder, burst on my ears; a dull
red light filled my eyes, and it seemed to me that my cell became full
of men,--strangers to me. Each bore his severed head in his left hand,
and carried it by the mouth, for the hair had been removed; each raised
his right hand at me, _except the parricide_.[5]

I shut my eyes in horror, and then I saw all even more distinctly than
before!

Dream, vision, or reality, I should have gone mad if a sudden impression
had not recalled me in time. I was near fainting, when I felt something
cold crawling over my naked foot. It was the bloated spider, whom I had
disturbed. This recalled my wandering senses. Those dreadful spectres,
then, were only the fumes of an empty and convulsed brain. The sepulchre
is a prison from whence none escape. The door of the tomb opens not
inwards!

       *       *       *       *       *




THIRTEENTH PAPER.


I have lately witnessed a hideous sight. As soon as it was day, the
prison was full of noise, I heard heavy doors open and shut; the grating
of locks and bolts; the clanking of bunches of keys; the stairs creaking
from top to bottom with quick steps; and voices calling and answering
from the opposite extremes of the long corridors. My neighbours in the
dungeons, the felons at hard labour, were more gay than usual. All in
the prison seemed laughing, singing, running, or dancing; I--alone
silent in this uproar, alone motionless in this tumult--listened in
astonishment.

A jailor passed; I ventured to call and ask him “if there were a Fête in
the Prison.”

“A Fête, if you choose to call it so,” answered he; “this is the day
that they fetter the galley-slaves who are to set off to-morrow for
Toulon. Would you like to see them? It would amuse you.”

For a solitary recluse, indeed, a spectacle of any kind was an event of
interest, however odious it might be; and I accepted the “amusement.”

The jailor, after taking the usual precautions to secure me, conducted
me into a little empty cell, without a vestige of furniture, and only a
grated window,--but still a real window, against which one could lean,
and through which one could actually perceive the sky! “Here,” said he,
“you will see and hear all that happens. You will be ‘alone in your
box,’ like the King!”

He then went out, closing on me locks, bolts, and bars.

The window looked into a square and rather wide court, on every side of
which was a large six-storied stone edifice. Nothing could seem more
wretched, naked, and miserable to the eye than this quadruple façade,
pierced by a multitude of grated windows, against which were pressed a
crowd of thin and wan faces, placed one above the other, like the stones
of a wall; and all, as it were, framed in the intercrossings of iron
bars. They were prisoners, spectators of the ceremony, until their turn
came to be the actors.

All looked in silence into the still empty court; among these faded and
dull countenances there shone, here and there, some eyes which gleamed
like sparks of fire.

At twelve o’clock, a large gateway in the court was opened. A cart,
escorted by soldiers, rolled heavily into the court, with a rattling of
irons. It was the Convict-guard with the chains.

At the same instant, as if this sound awaked all the noise of the
prison, the spectators of the windows, who had hitherto been silent and
motionless, burst forth into cries of joy, songs, menaces, and
imprecations, mixed with hoarse laughter. It was like witnessing a
masque of Demons; each visage bore a grimace, every hand was thrust
through the bars, their voices yelled, their eyes flashed, and I was
startled to see so many gleams amidst these ashes. Meanwhile the
galley-sergeants quietly began their work. One mounted on the cart, and
threw to his comrades the fetters, the iron collars, and the linen
clothing; while others stretched long chains to the end of the court and
the Captain tried each link by striking it on the pavement,--all of
which took place under the mocking raillery of the prisoners, and the
loud laughter of the convicts for whom they were being prepared.

When all was ready, two or three low doors poured forth into the court a
collection of hideous, yelling, ragged men; these were the
galley-convicts.

Their entry caused increased pleasure at the windows. Some of them,
being ‘great names’ among their comrades, were saluted with applause and
acclamation, which they received with a sort of proud modesty. Several
wore a kind of hat of prison straw, plaited by themselves, and formed
into some fantastic shape; these men were always the most applauded.

One in particular excited transports of enthusiasm,--a youth of
seventeen, with quite a girlish face. In his prison he had made himself
a straw-dress, which enveloped him from head to foot; and he entered the
court, jumping a summerset with the agility of a serpent. He was a
mountebank condemned for theft, and there was a furious clapping of
hands, and a volley of cheers, for him.

At length the names were called in alphabetical order, and they went to
stand two and two, companions by similar initials; so that even if a
convict had a friend, most likely their chains would divide them from
suffering together.

Whilst they were exchanging their worn-out prison-garments for the thin
and coarse clothing of the galleys, the weather, which had been hitherto
uncertain, became suddenly cold and cloudy, and a heavy shower chilled
their thin forms, and saturated their vesture.

A dull silence succeeded to their noisy bravadoes; they shivered, their
teeth chattered, and their limbs shook in the wet clothes.

One convict only, an old man, retained a sort of gaiety. He exclaimed
laughing, while wiping away the rain, and shaking his fist at the skies,
“This was not in the playbill!”

When they had put on their miserable vestments, they were taken in bands
of twenty or thirty to the corner of the court where the long chains
were extended. At every interval of two feet in these long chains were
fastened short transverse chains, and at the extremity of each of the
latter was attached a square iron collar, which opened by means of a
hinge in the centre and closed by an iron bolt, which is riveted, for
the whole journey, on the convict’s neck. The convicts were ordered to
sit down in the mud on the inundated pavement; the iron collars were
fitted on them, and two prison-blacksmiths, with portable anvils,
riveted the hard, unheated metal with heavy iron hammers.

This was a frightful operation, and even the most hardy turned pale!
Each stroke of the hammer, aimed on the anvil resting on their backs,
makes the whole form yield; the failure of its aim, or the least
movement of the head, might launch them into eternity.

When this operation was finished, the convicts rose simultaneously. The
five gangs joined hands, so as to form an immense circle, and thus ran
round and round in the court, with a rapidity that the eye could hardly
follow. They sung some couplets, in their own idiom, to a melody which
was sometimes plaintive, sometimes furious, often interrupted by hoarse
cries and broken laughter, like delirious ravings, while the chains,
clanking together in cadence, formed an accompaniment to a song more
harsh than their own noise. A large trough was now brought in; the
guards, striking the convicts to make them discontinue their dance, took
them to the trough, in which was swimming I know not what sort of herbs
in some smoking and dirty-looking liquid. Having partaken of it, they
threw the remainder on the pavement, with their black bread, and began
again to dance and sing. This is a liberty which is allowed them on the
day they are fettered and the succeeding night.

I gazed on this strange spectacle with such eager and breathless
attention, that I totally forgot my own misery. The deepest pity filled
my heart, and their laughter made me weep.

Suddenly, in the midst of a profound reverie into which I had fallen, I
observed the yelling circle had stopped, and was silent. Then every eye
was turned to the window which I occupied. “The Condemned! the
Condemned!” shouted they, pointing their fingers at me; and their bursts
of laughter were redoubled.

I was thunderstruck. I know not where they knew me, or how I was
recognized.

“Good day! good night!” cried they, with their mocking sneer. One of the
youngest, condemned to the Galleys for life, turned his shining, leaden
face on me, with a look of envy, saying, “He is lucky! he is to be
_clipped_! Good bye, Comrade!”

I cannot describe what passed within me. I was indeed their “comrade!”
The Scaffold is Sister to the Galleys. Nay, I was even lower than they
were; the convicts had done me an honour. I shuddered: yes! their
“comrade!” I remained at the window, motionless, as if paralyzed; but
when I saw the five gangs advance, rushing towards me with phrases of
disgusting cordiality; when I heard the horrible din of their chains,
their clamours, their steps at the foot of my wall, it seemed to me that
this knot of demons were scaling my cell! I uttered a shriek; I threw
myself against the door violently, but there was no means of flight. I
knocked, I called with mad fury. Then I thought I heard, still nearer,
the horrid voices of the convicts. I thought I saw their hideous heads
appearing on a level with the window; I uttered another shriek of
anguish, and fainted.

       *       *       *       *       *




FOURTEENTH PAPER.


When my consciousness returned it was night: I was lying on a truckle
bed; a lamp which swung from the ceiling enabled me to see a line of
beds similar to mine, and I therefore judged that I had been taken to
the Infirmary. I remained a few moments awake, but without thought or
recollection, totally engrossed by the happiness of being again in a
bed. Certainly, in former days, this prison-hospital bed would have made
me shrink with disgust; but I am no longer the same individual. The
sheets were brown, and coarse to the touch, the blanket thin and ragged,
and there was but one straw mattress.

No matter! I could stretch my limbs at their ease between these coarse
sheets; and under this blanket, thin as it was, I felt the gradual
decrease of that horrible chill in the marrow of my bones, to which I
had lately been accustomed.--I slept again.

A loud noise awakened me at daylight. The noise came from without; my
bed was beside the window, and I sat up to see from what it arose. The
window looked into the large Court of the Bicêtre, which was full of
people. Two lines of veterans had difficulty in keeping the crowd away
from a narrow passage across the Court. Between this double rank of
soldiers, five long wagons, loaded with men, were driven slowly jolting
at each stone; it was the departure of the convicts.

These wagons were open, and each gang occupied one. The convicts, in
consequence of their iron collars being attached to the centre chain,
are obliged to sit back to back, their feet hanging over the sides of
the wagon; the centre chain stretched the whole length of the cart, and
on its unfastened end the Sergeant stood with his loaded musket. There
was a continual clanking of the prisoners’ chains, and at each plunge of
the wagon their heads and pendant limbs were jolted violently. A quick
penetrating rain chilled the air, and made their wet slight vesture
cling to their shivering forms. Their long beards and short hair
streamed with wet; their complexions were saturnine; they were
shivering, and grinding their teeth with mingled rage and cold. But they
had no power of moving: once riveted to that chain, each becomes a mere
fraction of that hideous whole which is called the Gang. Intellect must
abdicate,--the fetters condemn it to death; and the mere animal must not
even hunger but at certain hours. Thus fixed, the greater part half
clad, with bare heads, and no rest for their feet, they begin their
journey of twenty-five days; the same sort of wagons, the same portion
of dress being used in scorching July as in the cold rains of November.
One would almost think that man wishes Heaven to take a part in his
office of executioner.

Between the crowd and the convicts a horrible dialogue was
maintained,--abuse on one side, bravadoes on the other, imprecations
from both; but at a sign from the Captain I saw the sticks of the Guard
raining indiscriminate blows into the wagon, on heads or shoulders, and
all returned to that kind of external calm which is called “order.” But
their eyes were full of vengeance, and their powerless hands were
clenched on their knees.

The five wagons, escorted by mounted gendarmes and guards on foot,
passed slowly under the high arched door of the Bicêtre. The crowd
followed them: all vanished like a phantasmagoria, and by degrees the
sounds diminished of the heavy wheels, clanking fetters, and the yells
of the multitude uttering maledictions on the journey of the convicts.
And such was their happy beginning!

What a proposition my counsel made! The Galleys! I was right to prefer
death; rather the Scaffold than what I had seen!




FIFTEENTH PAPER.


Unfortunately I was not ill; therefore the next day I was obliged to
leave the Infirmary to return to my dungeon.

Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows
freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body,
constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet,
nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,--an illness given by
the hand of man!

Since I came out of the Infirmary a vivid idea has occupied me,--a
thought which affects me to madness; namely, that I might have escaped,
had they left me there! Those Physicians, those Charity Sisters seemed
to take an interest in me. “To die so young! and by such a death!” One
would have imagined they pitied me by their pressing round my bed. Bah!
it was curiosity! I have no chance now! My plea will be rejected,
because all was legal; the witnesses gave correct evidence, the counsel
pleaded well, the Judges decided carefully. I do not reckon upon it,
unless--No! folly; there is no hope. The plea is a cord which holds you
suspended over an abyss, and which you feel giving way at each instant
until it breaks. It is as if the axe of the Guillotine took six weeks to
fall.

If I could obtain my pardon!--my pardon! From whom, for what, and by
what means? It is impossible that I should be pardoned. They say _an
example is requisite_.




SIXTEENTH PAPER.


During the few hours I passed at the Infirmary, I seated myself at a
window in the sunshine (for the afternoon had become fine), and I
enjoyed all the sun which the gratings of the window would allow me.

I sat thus, my heavy and fevered head within my hands, my elbows on my
knees, my feet on the bar of the chair; for dejection had made me stoop,
and sink within myself, as if I had neither bone nor muscular power.

The stifling air of the prison oppressed me more than ever; I still
fancied the noise from the convicts’ chains rung in my ears; I was
almost overcome. I wished that some guardian spirit would take pity on
me, and send even a little bird to sing there, opposite, on the edge of
the roof.

I know not if it were a spirit of good or evil which granted my wish;
but almost at the moment I uttered it, I heard beneath my window a
voice,--not that of a bird, but far better,--the pure, fresh, _velvet_
voice of a young girl of fifteen!

I raised my head with a start; I listened with avidity to the song she
sung. It was a slow and plaintive air,--a sad yet beautiful melody. As I
gathered the sense of the words, I cannot describe my pain and
disappointment, while the following stanzas of prison-dialect marred the
sweet music.[6]

I heard no more. I could listen to no more. The meaning, half-hidden,
half-evident, of this horrible lament,--the struggle between the felon
and the police; the thief he meets and despatches for his wife; his
dreadful explanation to her: “I have sweated an oak” (“I have
assassinated a man”) the wife who goes to Versailles with a petition,
and the King indignantly exclaiming that he “will make the guilty man
dance where there is no floor!”--and all this sung to the sweetest air,
and by the sweetest voice that ever soothed human ear! I was shocked,
disgusted, overcome. It was a repulsive idea that all these monstrous
words proceeded from a fresh rosy mouth: it was like the slime of a
snail over a rosebud!

I cannot express what I felt; I was at once pained and gratified. The
idiom of crime, a language at once sanguinary and grotesque, united to
the voice of a young girl, that graceful transition from the voice of
childhood to the voice of woman,--all these deformities of words
delightfully sung, cadenced, rounded!

Ah, how infamous is a prison! It contains a venom which assails all
within its pestilential reach. Everything withers there, even the song
of a girl of fifteen!

If you find a bird within its courts, it has mud on its wing. If you
gather a beauteous flower there, it exhales poison!




SEVENTEENTH PAPER.


Whilst I was writing, my lamp faded, daylight appeared, and the clock of
the chapel struck six.

       *       *       *       *       *

What can be the meaning of what has since happened? The turnkey on duty
came into my cell; he took off his cap, bowed to me, apologized for
disturbing me, and making an effort to soften his rough voice, inquired
what I wished to have for my breakfast--

A shudder has come over me. _Is it to take place to-day?_




EIGHTEENTH PAPER.


I feel that it _is_ for to-day!

The Governor of the prison himself came to visit me. He asked me how he
could serve or accommodate me; he expressed a hope that I had no
complaint to make respecting him or his subordinates; and he inquired
with interest regarding my health, and how I had passed the night. On
leaving me, he called me “Sir!”

Oh, it surely is for to-day!




NINETEENTH PAPER.


The Governor of the prison thinks I have no cause of complaint against
him or his jailors. He is right, and it would be wrong of me to
complain; they have done their duty, they have kept me safe; and then
they have been complaisant at my arrival and departure. Ought I not to
be satisfied?

This Governor, with his benign smile, his soft words, his eye which
flatters and spies, his coarse heavy hands,--he is the incarnation of a
prison!

Ah, hapless creature! what will become of me? What will they do with me?

       *       *       *       *       *




TWENTIETH PAPER.


Now I am calm. All is finished--quite finished!

I am relieved from the dreadful anxiety into which I was thrown by the
Governor’s visit; for I confess I still felt hope. Now, thank Heaven!
hope is gone.

Let me record what has happened.

At half-past six the door of my cell was opened; an old man with white
hair entered, dressed in a brown great-coat. He unfastened it, and
beneath I saw the black cassock and bands of a priest. He was not the
usual Chaplain to the prison, and I thought this appeared ominous. He
seated himself opposite to me, with a quiet smile; then shook his head,
and raised his eyes to heaven. I understood him.

“My son!” said he, “are you prepared?”

I answered, in a low tone, “I am not prepared--but I am ready.”

Then my sight became troubled; a chill damp pervaded my frame. I felt
the veins on my temples swelling, and a confused murmur in my ears.

Whilst I vacillated on my chair as though asleep, the old man continued
speaking,--at least, so it appeared to me, for I think I remember seeing
his lips move, and his hand raised.

The door was opened again; the noise of the lock roused me from my
reverie, and the Priest from his discourse. A person dressed in black
entered, accompanied by the Governor of the prison, and bowed
profoundly to me; he carried a roll of paper.

“Sir,” said he, with a courteous smile, “I have the honour to bring you
a message from the Attorney-General.”

The first agitation was over; all my presence of mind returned, and I
answered in a firm tone, “Read on, Sir.”

He then read a long, technically-expressed paper, the purport of which
was the rejection of my plea. “The execution will be to-day,” added he;
“we shall leave this for the Conciergerie Prison at half-past seven. My
dear Sir, will you have the extreme goodness to accompany me at that
hour?”

For some instants I had no longer listened to him; for while his eyes
were fixed on the paper the Governor was occupied talking to the Priest;
and I looked at the door which they had left half open!... Ah, hapless
me! Four sentinels in the corridor. Again I was asked when I would be
ready to go.

“When you please,” I said; “at your own time.”

“I shall have the honour of coming for you, then, in half an hour,” said
he, bowing; and all the party withdrew.

Oh, for some means of escaping! Good heavens! any means whatever! I
_must_ make my escape! I must! Immediately! By the doors, by the
windows, by the roof! Even though in the struggle I should destroy
myself!

Oh, rage! demons! malediction! It would take months to pierce this wall
with efficient tools. And I have not one nail, nor one hour!




TWENTY-FIRST PAPER.

                                               CONCIERGERIE PRISON.


Here I am transferred, then. Let me record the details.

At half-past seven the messenger again presented himself at the
threshold of my dungeon. “Sir,” said he, “I wait for you.”

Alas! and I saw that four others did the same! I rose, and advanced one
step. It appeared to me I could not make a second. My head was so heavy,
and my limbs so feeble; but I made an effort to conquer my weakness, and
assumed an appearance of firmness.

Prior to leaving the cell, I gave it a final look; I had almost become
attached to it. Besides, I left it empty and open, which gives so
strange an appearance to a dungeon.

It will not be long untenanted. The turnkeys said they expected some one
this evening,--a prisoner who was then being tried at the Court of
Assizes.

At the turn of the corridor the Chaplain rejoined us; he had just
breakfasted.

At the threshold of the gaol, the Governor took me by the hand; he had
reinforced my escort by four veterans.

By the door of the Infirmary a dying old man exclaimed, “Good bye, we
shall soon meet again!”

We arrived in the courtyard, where I could breathe again freely, and
this refreshed me greatly; but we did not walk long in the open air. The
carriage was stationed in the first court. It was the same which had
brought me there,--a sort of oblong van, divided into two sections by a
transverse grating of close wire. Each section had a door; one in the
front, one in the back of the cart; the whole so dirty, so black, so
dusty, that the hearse for paupers is a state carriage by comparison!
Before I buried myself in this moving tomb, I cast a look round the
yard,--one of those despairing looks which seem to ask a miracle. The
court was already encumbered with spectators. Like the day when the
convicts departed, there was a slight, chilling shower of the season; it
is raining still, and doubtless there will be rain all the day,--which
will last when I am no more! We entered the van. The messenger and a
gendarme, in the front compartment, the Priest, myself, and a gendarme
in the other, with four mounted gendarmes around the carriage. As I
entered it, an old grey-eyed woman who stood near exclaimed, “I like
seeing this, even better than seeing the galley convicts!”

I can conceive this. It is a spectacle more easily taken in at one view.
Nothing divides the attention; there is but one man, and on this
isolated being there is as much misery heaped as on all the other
convicts together. The van passed with a dull noise under the gateway,
and the heavy doors of the Bicêtre were closed after us. I felt myself
moving, but in stupor, like a man fallen into a lethargy, who can
neither move nor cry out, and who fancies he feels that he is being
buried alive. I listened vaguely to the peal of bells on the collars of
the post-horses which drew the van, the iron wheels grating over various
substances in the road, the clacking whips of the postillion, the
galloping of the gendarmes round the carriage,--all seemed like a
whirlwind which bore me away.

My mind was so stupefied with grief that I only conceived ideas as in a
dream. I saw the blue towers of Nôtre Dame in the distance. “Those who
will be on the tower with the flag will see my execution well,” said I
to myself, smiling stupidly.

I think it was at that moment that the Priest addressed me again; I
patiently let him speak. I had already in my ears the noise of the
wheels, the galloping horses, and the postillion’s whip; therefore it
was only one more incomprehensible noise. I listened in silence to that
flow of monotonous words, which deadened my thoughts, like the murmur of
a brook; and they passed before my torpid mind, always varied yet always
the same, like the crooked elms we passed by the road-side. The short
and jerking voice of the messenger in the front of the van suddenly
aroused me.

“Well, Chaplain,” said he, in almost a gay tone, “what news have you
to-day?”

The Chaplain, who spoke to me without ceasing, and who was deafened by
the carriage, made no answer.

“Well, well! how the van rattles; one can hardly hear oneself. What was
I saying to you, Chaplain! Oh, aye!--do you know the great news of Paris
to-day?”

I started as if he were speaking to me.

“No,” said the priest, who had at last heard him, “I have not had time
to read the papers this morning: I shall see them this evening. When I
am occupied in this way all day, I order my servant to keep the papers,
and I read them on my return.”

“Bah!” replied the other, “it is impossible that you have not heard what
I mean. The news of Paris--the news of this morning.”

It was now my turn to speak; and I said, “I know what you mean.”

The Messenger looked at me. “You? really! and pray what is your opinion
about it?”

“You are inquisitive,” said I.

“How so, sir?” replied he. “Every one should have a political opinion: I
esteem you too much to suppose that you are without one. As to myself, I
am quite in favour of re-establishing the National Guard. I was a
serjeant in my company; and, faith! it was very agreeable to--”

I interrupted him by saying, “I did not think this was the subject in
question.”

“What did you suppose, then? You professed to know the news.”

“I spoke of something else with which Paris is also occupied to-day.”

The fool did not understand, and his curiosity was awakened.

“More news! Where the deuce could _you_ learn news? What is it, my dear
sir? Do you know what it is, Chaplain? Do let me hear all about it, I
beg. I like news, you see, to relate to the President; it amuses him.”

He looked from one to the other, and obtained no answer.

“Well,” said he, “what are you thinking of?”

“I am thinking,” said I, “that I shall be past thinking, this evening.”

“Oh, that’s it,” returned he. “Come, come, you are too sad. Mr. Castaing
conversed on the day of his execution.”

Then, after a pause, he continued: “I accompanied Mr. Papavoine on his
last day. He wore his otter-skin cap, and smoked his cigar. As for the
young men of La Rochelle, they only spoke among themselves, but still
they spoke. As for you, I really think you are too pensive, young man.”

“Young man?” I repeated. “I am older than you; every quarter of an hour
which passes makes me a year older.”

He turned round, looked at me some minutes with stupid astonishment, and
then began to titter.

“Come, you are joking; older than I am? why, I might be your
grandfather.”

“I have no wish to jest,” I answered gravely. He opened his snuff-box.

“Here, my good sir, don’t be angry. Take a pinch of snuff, and don’t
bear malice.”

“Do not fear,” said I; “I shall not have long to bear it against you.”

At this moment the snuff-box which he extended to me came against the
grating which separated us. A jolt caused it to strike rather violently,
and it fell, wide open, under the feet of the gendarme.

“Curse the grating!” said the Messenger; then, turning to me, he added,
“Now, am I not unlucky? I have lost all my snuff!”

“I lose more than you,” said I.

As he tried to pick up his snuff, he muttered between his teeth, “More
than I! that’s very easily said. No more snuff until I reach Paris! It’s
terrible.”

The Chaplain then addressed him with some words of consolation; and I
know not if I were pre-occupied, but it seemed to me to be part of the
exhortation of which the commencement had been addressed to me.

By degrees conversation increased between the Chaplain and the officer;
and I became again lost in thought. The van was stopped for a minute
before the toll-gate, and the inspector examined it. Had it contained a
sheep or an ox which was going to be slaughtered, they would have
required some money; but a human head pays no duty!

We passed through the gates, and the carriage trotted quickly through
those old and crooked streets of the Faubourg St. Marceau and the city,
which twist and cross each other like the many paths of an ant-hill. On
the pavement of these narrow streets the rolling of the wheels became so
noisy and rapid that I could hear no other sound, though I saw that
people exclaimed, as the van passed, and bands of children followed its
track. I fancied also I occasionally saw in the cross-streets ragged
men displaying in their hands a bundle of printed papers, their mouths
open as if vociferating something, while the passers stopped to
purchase.

Half-past eight struck by the palace clock as we arrived in the court of
the Conciergerie Prison. The sight of its wide staircase, its dark
chapel, its sombre gates, made me shudder; and when the carriage
stopped, I fancied the beatings of my heart stopped also.

But I collected my strength; the door was opened; with the rapidity of
lightning I jumped from the moving prison, and passed between two lines
of soldiers: already there was a crowd formed on my path.




TWENTY-SECOND PAPER.


All my resolution abandoned me when I reached the low doors, private
stairs, and interior corridors, which are only entered by the condemned.
The Officer still accompanied me: the Priest had left me for a couple of
hours--perchance to read the papers!

I was then taken to the Governor, into whose charge the Officer gave me.
They made an exchange. The Director told him to wait a moment, as he had
some “game” for him to take back in the Van to the Bicêtre. No doubt it
was the man condemned to-day. He is to sleep to-night on the bundle of
straw which I have not had time to wear out.

“Oh, very well,” said the Officer to the Governor, “I will wait with
pleasure; we can make out the two papers together, and it will be very
convenient.”

They then placed me in a small room adjoining the Governor’s office, and
left me, locked in, alone.

I know not of what I was thinking, or how long I had been there, when a
sudden and loud burst of laughter in my ear dispersed my reverie.

I raised my eyes with a start. I was no longer alone in the cell; a man
was beside me. He was about fifty-five years old, middle-sized,
wrinkled, stooping, and bald: with a sinister cast in his grey eyes, and
a bitter sneer on his countenance; he was dirty, half-clothed, ragged,
disgusting.

We looked at each other steadfastly for some moments; he prolonging his
bitter laugh, while I felt half astonished, half alarmed.

“Who are you?” said I to him at last.

“That is a funny question,” said he. “I am a _friauche_.”

“A friauche?” said I; “what does that mean?”

This question redoubled his merriment.

“Why,” cried he, in the midst of a shout of laughter, “it means that
they will play the same game with my head in six weeks hence, as they
will with thine in six hours! Ha! ha! ha! thou seem’st to understand
now!”

And truly I was pale, and my hair stood on end. This, then, was the
other condemned prisoner, the one just sentenced, whom they expected at
the Bicêtre; the heir of my cell.

He continued: “Never mind! Here’s _my_ history. I am son of a famous
thief; it is a pity that they gave him one day a hempen cravat; it was
during the ‘reign of the Gallows by the grace of Heaven.’ At six years
of age I had neither father nor mother; in summer I turned summersets in
the dust on the high-road, that carriage-travellers might throw me
money; in winter I walked with naked feet in the mud, in ragged clothes,
and blowing on my purple hands to excite pity. At nine years old I began
to use my fingers; at times I emptied a pocket or a reticule; at ten
years old I was a pilferer: then I made acquaintances, and at seventeen
I became a thief. I broke into a shop, I robbed the till; I was taken
and sent to the Galleys. What a hard life that was! Sleeping on bare
boards, drinking plain water, eating black bread, dragging a stupid
fetter which was of no use; sun-strokes and whip-strokes: and then all
the heads are kept shaved, and I had such fine chesnut hair! Never mind!
I served my time; fifteen years. That wears one famously!

“I was two-and-thirty years old; one fine morning they gave me a map of
the road, a passport, and sixty-six francs, which I had amassed in my
fifteen years at the Galleys, working sixteen hours a-day, thirty days
a-month, twelve months a-year. Never mind! I wished to be an honest man
with my sixty-six francs; and I had finer sentiments under my rags than
you might find beneath the cassock of a priest. But deuce take the
passport! It was yellow, and they had written upon it ‘_Freed convict_.’
I was obliged to show this at every village, and to present it every
week to the mayors of the towns through which I was ordered to pass. A
fine recommendation! a galley-convict! I frightened all the folk, and
little children ran away, and people locked their doors. No one would
give me work; I expended the last of my sixty-six francs,--and then--one
must live. I showed my arms, fit for labour; the people shut their
doors. I offered my day’s work for fifteen sous, for ten sous, for five
sous! and no one would have me. What could be done? One day, being
hungry, I knocked my elbow through a baker’s window; I seized on a loaf,
and the baker seized on me. I did not eat the loaf, yet I was condemned
to the Galleys for life, with three letters branded on my shoulder; I’ll
show them to you if you like. They call that sort of justice _the
relapse_. So here I was, a returned horse. I was brought back to
Toulon,--this time among the Green-caps (galley-slaves for life); so now
I decided to escape. I had _only_ three walls to pierce, two chains to
break, and I had one nail! I escaped. They fired the signal gun; for we
convicts are, like the Cardinals of Rome, dressed in red, and they fire
cannons when we depart! Their powder went to the sparrows! This time, no
yellow passport, but then no money either. I met some comrades in the
neighbourhood who had also served their time or broken their chains.
Their captain proposed to me to join the band. They killed on the
highways. I acceded, and I began to kill to live. Sometimes we attacked
a Diligence, sometimes it was a post-chaise, sometimes a grazier on
horseback. We took the money, we let the horses go, and buried the
bodies under a tree, taking care that their feet did not appear; and
then we danced on the graves, so that the ground might not seem fresh
broken.

“I grew old this way, hiding in the bushes, sleeping in the air, hunted
from wood to wood, but at least free and my own master. Everything has
an end, and this like the rest: the gendarmes one night caught us at our
tricks; my comrades escaped; but I, the oldest, remained under the claw
of these cats in cocked hats. They brought me here. I had already
mounted all the steps of the justice-ladder, except one. Whether I had
now taken a handkerchief or a life was all the same for me. There was
but one ‘relapse’ to give me,--the executioner. My business has been
short: faith, I began to grow old and good for nothing. My father
_married the widow_ (was hanged); I am going to retire to the Abbey of
Mont-à-Regret (the Guillotine); that’s all, comrade!”

I remained stupefied during the recital. He laughed louder than at the
beginning, and tried to take my hand. I drew back in horror.

“Friend,” cried he, “you don’t seem game. Don’t be foolish on the
scaffold: d’ye see? There is one bad moment to pass on the board, but
that’s so soon done. I should like to be there to show you the step!
Faith, I’ve a great mind not to plead, if they will finish me with you
to-day. The same Priest will serve us both. You see I’m a good fellow,
eh? I say, shall we be friends?”

Again he advanced a step nearer to me.

“Sir,” I answered, repulsing him, “I decline it.”

Fresh bursts of laughter at my answer.

“Ha, ha, ha! Sir, you must be a Marquis.”

I interrupted him, “My friend, I require reflection: leave me in peace.”

The gravity of my tone rendered him instantly thoughtful. He shook his
grey and nearly bald head, while he murmured between his teeth, “I
understand now,--the Priest!”

After a few minutes’ silence, he said to me, almost timidly,--

“Sir, you are a Marquis; that is all very well; but you have on such a
nice great-coat, which will not be of much use to you. The Executioner
will take it. Give it to me, and I will sell it for tobacco.”

I took off my great-coat, and gave it to him. He began to clap his hands
with childish joy; then looking at my shirt-sleeves, and seeing that I
shivered, he added, “You are cold, Sir; put on this; it rains, and you
will be wet through; besides, you ought to go decently on the wagon!”

While saying this, he took off his coarse, grey woollen jacket, and put
my arms into it, which I allowed him to do unconsciously. I then leaned
against the wall, and I cannot describe the effect this man had on me.
He was examining the coat which I had given him, and uttered each moment
an exclamation of delight. “The pockets are quite new! The collar is not
in the least worn! It will bring me at least fifteen francs. What luck!
I shall have tobacco during all my six weeks.”

The door opened again. They were come to conduct me to the room where
the condemned finally await their execution; and the guard was also
come to take the other prisoner to the Bicêtre. He placed himself,
laughingly, amongst them, and said to the gendarmes,--

“I say, don’t make a mistake! We have changed skins, the gentleman and
I; but don’t take me in his place. That won’t suit me at all, now that I
can have tobacco for six weeks!”




TWENTY-THIRD PAPER.


That old scoundrel! he took my great-coat from me, for I did not give it
to him; and then he left me this rag, his odious jacket. For whom shall
I be taken?

It was not from indifference, or from charity, that I let him take it.
No; but because he was stronger than I! If I had refused, he would have
beaten me with those great coarse hands. Charity, indeed! I was full of
bad feeling; I should like to have strangled him with my own hands, the
old thief!--to have trampled him under my feet.

I feel my heart full of rage and bitterness, and my nature turned to
gall: the approach of violent death renders one wicked.




TWENTY-FOURTH PAPER.


They brought me into an empty cell. I asked for a table, a chair, and
writing materials. When all these were brought, I asked for a bed. The
turnkey eyed me with astonishment, and seemed mentally to say, “What
will be the use of it?” However they made up a chaff bed in the corner.
But at the same time a gendarme came to install himself in what was
called my chamber. Are they afraid that I would strangle myself with the
mattress?




TWENTY-FIFTH PAPER.


It is ten o’clock.

Oh, my poor little girl! In six hours more thy Father will be
dead,--something to be dragged about the tables of lecturing rooms; a
head to be cast by one party, a trunk to be dissected by another; then
all to be thrown together into a bier, and despatched to the felons’
burial-ground. This is what they are going to do with thy Father; yet
none of them hate me, all pity me, and all could save me! They are going
to kill me, Mary, to kill me in cold blood,--a ceremonial for the
general good. Poor little girl! thy Father, who loved thee so well, thy
Father who kissed thy little white neck, who passed his hands so fondly
through the ringlets of thy silken hair, who danced thee on his knee,
and every evening joined thy two little hands to pray to God!

Who will do all this for thee in future? Who now will love thee? My
darling child, what wilt thou do for my presents, pretty play things,
and kisses? Ah, unfortunate Orphan! What wilt thou do for food and
raiment?

If the Jury had seen thee, my pretty little Mary, they would have
understood it was wrong to kill the Father of a child three years old.

And when she grows up, what will become of her? Her Father will be one
of the disgraces of Paris. She will blush for me and at hearing my name;
she will be despised, rejected, reviled, on account of him who loved her
with all the tenderness of his heart. Oh, my little Mary, whom I so
idolized! can it be true that thou wilt encounter shame and horror
through me?

Oh! can it be true that I shall die before the close of day? Those
distant shouts which I hear, that mass of animated spectators who are
already hastening to the Quays, those gendarmes preparing in their
barracks,--is it all for me? Yes, I--myself am going to die?--this
actual self which is here, which lives, moves, breathes,--this self
which I touch and can feel!




TWENTY-SIXTH PAPER.


If I even knew how _it_ is built, and in what way one dies upon it; but
it is horrible, I do not know this.

The very name of it is frightful, and I cannot understand how I have
hitherto been able to write and utter it. The idea I attach to this
hateful name is vague, undefined, and therefore more sinister. I
construct and demolish in my mind continually its hideous scaffolding.

I dare not ask a question about it; yet it is dreadful not to know what
it is, and how to act. I fancy there is a sort of hollow, and that you
are laid on your face, and--

Ah, my hair will be white before my head falls!




TWENTY-SEVENTH PAPER.


I had a glimpse of _it_ once. I was passing by the Grêve in a carriage,
about eleven o’clock, one morning, when a crowd impeded our progress. I
looked out of the window; a dense throng of men, women, and children
filled the place and the neighbouring streets. Above the crowd I saw a
kind of frame of red wood, which three men were building. I turned away
my head with disgust. Close to the carriage there was a woman who said
to a child, “Now, look! the axe slides badly; they are going to grease
the slide with a candle-end.”

They are probably doing the same now. Eleven o’clock has just struck. No
doubt they are greasing the slide.

Oh, unhappy creature! this time I shall not turn away my head.




TWENTY-EIGHTH PAPER.


Oh for a pardon! My reprieve! Perhaps I shall be pardoned. The King has
no dislike to me. I wish to see my lawyer! He was right, and I should
prefer the galleys. Five years of the galleys,--nay, twenty years, or
even the galleys for life. Yes, and to be branded with letters! But it
would let me have a reprieve of my life! A galley-slave can move, come
and go, and see the sunshine.

Oh! I must see my lawyer; he shall discover some new plea to urge in
mitigation of my sentence.

[Illustration: _The Priest and the Condemned Man._

Photo-Etching.--From drawing by J. F. Raffaelli.]

How can I thus write when every point of his eloquence has already
failed, and been unanswerably refuted!




TWENTY-NINTH PAPER.


The Priest returned. He has white hair, a very gentle look, a good and
respectable countenance, and is a charitable man. This morning I saw him
empty his purse into the hands of the prisoners. Whence is it then that
his voice causes no emotion, and he does not ever seem affected by his
own theme? Whence is it that he has as yet said nothing which has won on
my intellect or my heart?

This morning I was bewildered; I scarcely heard what he said; his words
seemed to me useless, and I remained indifferent; they glided away like
those drops of rain off the window-panes of my cell.

Nevertheless, when he came just now to my room, his appearance did me
good. Amongst all mankind he is the only one who is still a brother for
me, I reflected; and I felt an ardent thirst for good and consoling
words.

When he was seated on the chair, and I on the bed, he said to me,--

“My son,--”

This word opened my heart. He continued:

“My son, do you believe in God?”

“Oh, yes, Father!” I answered him.

“Do you believe in the holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church?”

“Willingly,” said I.

“My son,” returned he, “you have an air of doubt.”

Then he began to speak. He spoke a long time; he uttered a quantity of
words. Then, when he had finished, he rose, and looked at me for the
first time since the beginning of his discourse, and said “Well?”

I protest I had listened to him with avidity at first, then with
attention, then with consideration.

I also rose and said, “Sir, leave me for a time, I beg of you.”

He asked, “When shall I return.”

“I will let you know, Sir.”

Then he withdrew in silence, but shaking his head as though inwardly
exclaiming, “An Unbeliever.”

No! low as I have fallen, I am _not_ an unbeliever. God is my witness
that I believe in Him. But how did that old man address me? Nothing to
be felt, nothing to affect me, nothing to draw forth tears, nothing
which sprung from his heart to enter into mine,--nothing which was
addressed from himself to myself.

On the contrary, there was something vague, inaccentuated, applicable to
any case and to none in particular: emphatic where it should have been
profound, flat where it ought to have been simple; a species of
sentimental sermon and theological elegy. Now and then a quotation in
Latin; here and there the names of Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory,
and others of the Calendar. And throughout he had the air of reciting a
lesson which he had already twenty times repeated; seeming to go over a
theme almost obliterated in his memory from being so long known; but
not one look in his eyes, not one accent in his voice, to indicate that
_he_ was interested!

And how could it be otherwise? This Priest is the head Chaplain of the
Prison; his calling is to console and exhort,--that is, he lives by it.
Condemned felons are the spring of his eloquence; he receives their
confession, and prays with them, because he keeps his place by it. He
has advanced in years in conducting men to death from his youth, he has
grown accustomed to that which makes others shudder. The dungeon and
scaffold are every-day matters with him.

He receives notice the preceding evening that he will have to attend
some one the following day, at a certain hour. He asks, “Is it for the
Galleys or an execution?” and he asks no more respecting them, but comes
next day as a matter of course.

_Oh that they would bring me, instead of this man, some young curate,
some aged Priest, taken by chance from the nearest parish! Let them find
him at his devotional studies, and, without warning, say to him, “There
is a man who is going to die, and it is reserved for you to console him.
You must be there when they bind his hands; you must take a place in the
fatal cart, with your crucifix, and conceal the executioner from him.
You must pass with him through that horrible crowd which is thirsting
for his execution; you must embrace him at the foot of the scaffold, and
you must remain there until his soul has flown!”_

_When they have said this, let them bring him hither, agitated,
palpitating, all shuddering from head to foot. Let me throw myself into
his arms; then kneel at his feet, and he will weep, and we will weep
together; and he will be eloquent, and I shall be consoled, and my heart
will unburthen itself into his heart,--and I shall receive the blessed
hope of Redemption, and he will take my Soul!_




THIRTIETH PAPER.


But that old man, what is he to me? What am I to him? Another individual
of an unhappy class, a shadow of which he has seen so many; another unit
to add to his list of executions.

I have been wrong, perhaps, not to attend to him more; it is he who is
good, while I am the reverse. Alas! it was not my fault. The thought of
my violent death has spoiled and hardened all within me.

They have just brought me food, as if I could possibly wish for it! I
even tried to eat, but the first mouthful fell untasted from my lips.




THIRTY-FIRST PAPER.


Since then a strange circumstance happened. They came to relieve my good
old gendarme, with whom, ungrateful egotist that I am, I did not even
shake hands. Another took his place; a man with a low forehead, heavy
features, and stupid countenance. Beyond this I paid no attention, but
seated myself at the table, my forehead resting on my hands, and my
mind troubled by thought. A light touch on my shoulder made me look
round. It was the new gendarme, with whom I was alone, and who addressed
me pretty nearly in these terms:--

“Criminal, have you a kind heart?”

“No!” answered I, impatiently. The abruptness of my answer seemed to
disconcert him. Nevertheless, he began again, hesitatingly,--

“People are not wicked for the pleasure of being so?”

“Why not?” answered I. “If you have nothing but that to say to me, leave
me in peace. What is your aim?”

“I beg your pardon, Criminal,” he returned; “I will only say two words,
which are these: If you could cause the happiness of a poor man, and
that it cost you nothing, would you not do so?”

I answered gravely, “Surely, you cannot allude to me as having power to
confer happiness?”

He lowered his voice and assumed a mysterious air, which ill-suited with
his idiotic countenance.

“Yes, Criminal, yes,--happiness! fortune!” whispered he; “all this can
come to me through you. Listen here, I am a poor gendarme; the service
is heavy, the pay is light; my horse is my own, and ruins me. So I put
into the lottery as a counterbalance. Hitherto I have only missed by not
having the right numbers. I am always very near them. If I buy
seventy-six, number seventy-seven comes up a prize. Have a little
patience, if you please; I have almost done. Well, here is a lucky
opportunity for me. It appears, Criminal, begging your pardon, that you
are to be executed to-day. It is a certain fact that the dead who are
destroyed that way see the lottery before it is drawn on earth. Promise
that your spirit shall appear to me to-morrow evening, to give me three
numbers,--three good ones, eh? What trouble will it be to you? and I am
not afraid of ghosts. Be easy on that point. Here’s my address:
Popincourt Barracks, staircase A, No. 26, at the end of the corridor.
You will know me again, won’t you? Come even to-night, if it suits you
better.”

I would have disdained to reply to such an imbecile, if a mad hope had
not crossed my mind. In my desperate position there are moments when one
fancies that a chain may be broken by a hair.

“Listen,” said I to him, acting my part as well as a dying wretch could.
“I can indeed render thee richer than the King. I can make thee gain
millions, on one condition.”

He opened his stupid eyes.

“What, what? I will do anything to please you, Criminal.”

“Then instead of three numbers I promise to tell you four. Change coats
with me.”

“Oh, is that all?” cried he, undoing the first hooks of his uniform
cheerfully.

I rose from my chair; I watched all his movements with a beating heart.
I already fancied the doors opening before the uniform of a gendarme;
and then the prison--the street--the town--left far behind me! But
suddenly he turned round with indecision, and asked,--

“I say,--it is not to go out of this?”

I saw that all was lost; nevertheless, I tried one last effort, useless
as it was foolish.

“Yes, it is,” said I to him; “but as thy fortune will be made--”

He interrupted me.

“Oh, law, no! on account of my numbers! To make them good, you must be
dead, you know!”

I sat down again, silent, and more desponding, from all the hope that I
had conceived.




THIRTY-SECOND PAPER.


I shut my eyes, covered them with my hands, and sought to forget the
present in the past. In a rapid reverie, the recollections of childhood
and youth came back one by one, soft, calm, smiling, like islands of
flowers on the black gulf of confused thoughts which whirled through my
brain.

I was again a child,--a laughing, healthy schoolboy, playing, running,
shouting with my brothers, in the broad green walks of the old garden
where my first years were passed.

And then, four years later, behold me there again, still a child, but a
passionate dreamer. And there is a young girl in the garden,--a little
Spaniard, with large eyes and long hair, her dark polished skin, her
rosy lips and cheeks, the Andalusian of fourteen, named _Pepa_. Our
mothers had told us to “go and run together;” we had come forth to
walk. They had told us to play; but we had talked instead. Only the year
before, we used to play and quarrel and dispute together. I tyrannized
over Pepita for the best apple in the orchard; I beat her for a bird’s
nest. She cried; I scolded her, and we went to complain of each other to
our mothers. But now--she was leaning on my arm, and I felt proud and
softened. We walked slowly, and we spoke low. I gathered for her some
flowers, and our hands trembled on meeting. She spoke to me of the
birds, of the sky above us, of the crimson sun-set behind the trees; or
else of her schoolfellows, her gown and ribbons. We talked in innocence,
but we both blushed. The child had grown into a young girl. After we had
walked for some time, I made her sit down on a bank; she was smiling. I
was serious.

“Sit down there,” said she, “there is still daylight; let us read
something. Have you a book?”

I happened to have a favourite volume with me. I drew near her, and
opened it by chance. She leaned her shoulder against mine, and we began
to read the same page. Before turning the leaf, she was always obliged
to wait for me. My mind was less quick than hers. “Have you finished?”
she would ask, when I had only just commenced. Then our heads leaned
together, our hair mixed, our breath gradually mingled, and at last our
lips met.

When we again thought of continuing our reading it was starlight. I
shall remember that evening all my life!

Oh, heavens! All _my_ life!




THIRTY-THIRD PAPER.


The clock had just struck some hour,--I do not know which. I do not hear
the strokes plainly. I seem to have the peal of an organ in my ears. It
is the confusion of my last thoughts. At this final day, when I look
back over the events of life, I recall my crime with horror; but I wish
to have still longer to repent of it. I felt more remorse after my
condemnation; since then it seems as if there were no space but for
thoughts of death. But now, oh, how I wish to repent me thoroughly! When
I had lingered for a minute on what had passed in my life, and then came
back to the thought of its approaching termination, I shuddered as at
something new. My happy childhood, my fair youth,--a golden web with its
end stained. If any read my history, after so many years of innocence
and happiness, they will not believe in this execrable year, which began
by a crime, and will close with an execution. It would appear
impossible.

And nevertheless, oh,--imperfection of human laws and human nature!--I
was not ill-disposed.




THIRTY-FOURTH PAPER.


Oh! to die in a few hours, and to think that a year ago, on the same
day, I was innocent and at liberty, enjoying autumnal walks, wandering
beneath the trees! To think that in this same moment there are, in the
houses around me, men coming and going, laughing and talking, reading
newspapers, thinking of business; shopkeepers selling their wares, young
girls preparing their ball-dresses for the evening; mothers playing with
their children!




THIRTY-FIFTH PAPER.


I remember once, when a child, going alone to see the belfry of Nôtre
Dame.

I was already giddy from having ascended the dark winding staircase,
from having crossed the slight open gallery which unites the two towers,
and from having seen Paris beneath my feet; and I entered the cage of
stone and woodwork where the great bell is hung. I advanced with
trembling steps over the ill-joined planks, examining at a distance that
bell, so famous amongst the children and common people in Paris; and it
was not without terror that I observed the slated pent-houses, which
surrounded the belfry with inclined planes, were just on a level with my
feet. Through the openings I saw, in a bird’s-eye view, the street
beneath, and the passengers diminished to the size of ants.

Suddenly the enormous bell resounded; its deep vibration shook the air,
making the heavy tower rock, and the flooring start from the beams. The
noise had nearly upset me. I tottered, ready to fall, and seemed on the
point of slipping over the pent-houses. In an agony of terror I lay down
on the planks, pressing them closely with both my arms,--speechless,
breathless, with this formidable sound in my ears, while beneath my eyes
was the precipice, a profound abyss, where so many quiet and envied
passengers were walking.

Well, it appears to me as if I were again in that belfry; my senses seem
again giddy and dazzled; the booming of that bell seems to press on my
brain, and around me I no longer see that tranquil and even life which I
had quitted (where other men walk still) except from a distance, and
beyond a terrible abyss.




THIRTY-SIXTH PAPER.


It is a quarter past one o’clock.

The following are my sensations at present: a violent pain in my head,
my frame chilled, my forehead burning. Every time that I rise, or bend
forward, it seems to me that there is a fluid floating in my head, which
makes my brain beat violently against the bone.

I have convulsive startings, and from time to time my pen falls from my
hand as if by a galvanic shock. My eyes ache and burn, and I suffer
greatly in all my limbs.

In two hours and three-quarters hence, _all will be cured_.




THIRTY-SEVENTH PAPER.


They say that it is nothing,--that one does not suffer; that it is an
easy death. Ah! then, what do they call this agony of six weeks,--this
summing-up in one day? What, then, is the anguish of this irreparable
day, which is passing so slowly and yet so fast? What is this ladder of
tortures which terminates in the scaffold? Are they not the same
convulsions whether life is taken away drop by drop, or intellect
extinguished thought by thought?




THIRTY-EIGHTH PAPER.


It is singular that my mind so often reverts to the King. Whatever I do,
there is a voice within me which says,--

“There is, in this same town, at this same hour, and not far from hence,
in another Palace, a man who also has guards to all his gates; a man
alone, like thee, in the crowd,--with this difference, that he is as
high as thou art low. His entire life is glory, grandeur, delight. All
around him is love, respect, veneration; the loudest voices become low
in speaking to him, and the proudest heads are bent. At this moment he
is holding a Council of Ministers, where all coincide with his opinions;
or else he thinks of the Chase to-morrow, or the Ball for this evening,
feeling certain that the Fête will come, and leaving to others the
trouble of his pleasures.

Well, this man is of flesh and blood like thee! And in order that at
this instant the scaffold should fall, and thou be restored to life,
liberty, fortune, family, it would only be requisite for him to write
his name at the foot of a piece of paper; or even that his carriage
should meet thy fatal cart! And he is good, too, and perhaps would be
glad to do it; and yet it will not be done!




THIRTY-NINTH PAPER.


Well then, let me have courage with death,--let me handle this horrid
idea, let me face it boldly. I will ask what it is, know what it
demands, turn it in every sense, fathom the enigma, and look before-hand
into the tomb.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have speculated upon Death and Eternity until my mind seems bewildered
by its own horrible fantasies. My ideas wander. Oh, for a Priest,--a
Priest who could instruct me! I must have a Priest, and a crucifix to
embrace.

Alas! here is the same Priest again!




FORTIETH PAPER.


After a time, I begged of him to let me sleep. I threw myself on the
bed. I had a fulness of blood in my head which made me sleep,--my last
sleep on earth. I had a horrible dream, from which I awoke in terror,
shuddering and in agony.

The Chaplain was seated at the foot of my bed, reading prayers.

“Have I slept long?” I inquired of him.

“My son,” said he, “you have slept an hour. They have brought your
child, who is waiting in the next room; I would not allow them to awaken
you.”

“Oh,” cried I, “my darling child! Let them bring in my idolized child!”




FORTY-FIRST PAPER.


My child looked rosy and happy, and her large eyes were bright. Oh, she
is so pretty! I drew her towards me; I raised her in my arms, and
placing her on my knees, kissed her dear hair. I asked, “Why is her
Mother not with her?” And I learnt that she was very ill, and my poor
old mother also.

Mary looked at me with astonishment. Caressed, embraced, devoured with
kisses, she submitted quietly; but, from time to time, cast an uneasy
look towards her Nurse, who was crying in the corner.

At length I was able to speak.

“Mary,” I exclaimed. “My own little Mary!” and I pressed her violently
against my breast, which was heaving with sobs. She uttered a little
cry, and then said, “Oh, you hurt me, Sir.”

“_Sir!_” It is nearly a year since she has seen me, poor child! She has
forgotten me, face, words, voice; and then who could know me with this
beard, this dress, and this pallor?

What! already effaced from that memory,--the only one where I wished to
survive! What! already, no longer a Father, am I condemned to hear no
more that word, so soft in the language of children that it cannot
remain in the language of men, “Papa”?

And yet to have heard it from that sweet mouth, once more,--only once
more,--that is all that I would have asked in payment for the forty
years of life they will take from me.

“Listen, Mary,” said I to her, joining her two little hands in mine. “Do
you not know me?”

She looked at me with her bright beautiful eyes and answered,--

“Oh, no indeed.”

“Look at me well,” I repeated. “What! dost thou not know who I am?”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered. “You are a gentleman.”

Alas! while loving one being on earth, loving with all your deep
affection, having that being before you, who sees and looks at you,
speaks and answers you, and yet knows you not! You wish for consolation
but from this one being, who is the only one that does not know that you
require it because you are going to die!

“Mary,” I continued, “hast thou a papa?”

“Yes, Sir,” said the child.

“Well, then, dearest, where is he?”

She raised her large eyes in astonishment:--

“Ah, then you don’t know, Sir? Papa is dead.”

Here she began to cry: I nearly let the little angel fall.

“Dead!” I exclaimed: “Mary, knowest thou what it is to be dead?”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered. “He is in earth and in Heaven;” and she
continued of her own accord, “I pray to God for him morning and evening
at mamma’s knees.”

I kissed her on her forehead.

“Mary, say to me thy prayer.”

“I could not, Sir; a prayer you do not say in the middle of the day.
Come to-night to my house, and you shall hear me say it.”

This was enough. I interrupted her.

“Darling Mary, it is _I_ who am thy papa.”

“You!” returned she.

I added, “Wouldst thou like me for thy papa?”

The child turned away. “No, Sir; my papa was much prettier.”

I covered her with kisses and tears. She tried to escape from my arms,
crying,--

“Sir, you hurt me with your beard.”

Then I replaced her on my knees, devouring her with my eyes, and
continued,--

“Mary, canst thou read?”

“Yes,” she answered, “I can read very well. Mamma makes me read my
letters.”

“Well, then, read a little to me,” said I, pointing to a printed paper
which she held crumpled in one of her dimpled hands.

She shook her pretty head, saying,--

“Oh, dear me! I can only read fables.”

“But try, my darling: come, open your paper.”

She unfolded the paper, and began to spell with her finger, “S E
N--sen,--T E N C E--tence,--_Sentence_.” I snatched it from her hands.
It was my own sentence of death she was reading to me!

Her nurse had bought the paper for a penny. To me it had cost more.

No words can convey what I felt; my violence had alarmed the child, who
was ready to cry.

Suddenly she said to me,--

“Do give me back my paper; I want to play with it!”

I restored her to her nurse.

“Take her hence!” and I fell back in my chair, gloomy, desolate, in
despair! Now they may come: I care for nothing more; the last fibre of
my heart is broken.




FORTY-SECOND PAPER.


The Priest is kind; so is the jailor: tears came in their eyes when I
sent away my child.

It is done. Now I must fortify myself, and think firmly of the
Executioner, the cart, the gendarmes, the crowd in the street and the
windows.

I have still an hour to familiarize myself with these ideas. All the
people will laugh and clap their hands, and applaud; yet among those
men, now free, unknown to jailors, and who run with joy to an
execution,--in that throng there is more than one man destined to follow
me sooner or later, on the scaffold.

More than one who is here to-day on my account, will come hereafter on
his own.




FORTY-THIRD PAPER.


My little Mary. She is gone away to play; she will look at the crowd
from the coach-window, and already she thinks no more of the
“Gentleman.” Perhaps I may still have time to write a few pages for her,
so that she may read them hereafter, and weep, in fifteen years hence,
the sorrows of to-day. Yes, she shall know my history from myself, and
why the name I leave her is tarnished.




FORTY-FOURTH PAPER.

MY HISTORY.


[NOTE. The pages which immediately followed this have not been found.
Perhaps, as the next chapter seems to indicate, the Condemned had not
time to write his history, as it was so late when he thought of it.]




FORTY-FIFTH PAPER.

                                         From a Chamber of the Town Hall.


The Town Hall. Yes, I am here; the execrable journey is over. The place
of execution is before me, and beneath the window, a horrible throng,
laughing and yelling, while they await my appearance. My efforts at
composure were vain: when above the heads of the crowd I saw the
frightful scaffold, my heart failed. I expressed a wish to make my last
declaration; so they brought me in here, and have sent for some
law-officer to receive it. I am now waiting for him; so there is thus
much gained. Here is what occurred, on my removal from the Conciergerie.

At three o’clock they came to tell me it was time. I trembled as if I
had thought of any thing else during the last six hours, six weeks, six
months. It produced on me the effect of something quite unexpected. They
made me cross corridors, and descend stairs, they pushed me through a
low door into a sombre room, narrow, arched, and scarcely lighted by a
day of rain and fog. A chair was in the centre, on which I seated myself
at their desire. Some persons were standing near the door; and beside
the Priest and gendarmes, there were three men. The first of these, the
tallest and oldest, was stout, with a red countenance. This was HE.

This was the Executioner,--the servant of the Guillotine; the others
were his own servants. When I was seated, these walked quietly behind
me; then suddenly I felt the cold of steel in my hair, and heard the
grating action of scissors. My hair, cut carelessly, fell in heavy locks
on my shoulders, and the executioner removed them gently with his coarse
hand.

The parties in the room spoke in subdued tones. There was a heavy dull
sound from without, which I fancied at first was caused by the river;
but a shout of laughter soon proved to me it came from the crowd.

A young man near the window, who was writing with a pencil, in his
pocket-book, asked one of the turnkeys, what was the name of the present
operation? He was answered “The Toilet of the Condemned.” From this I
gathered that he was preparing the Report for to-morrow’s newspaper. One
of the servants then removed my waistcoat, and the other one taking my
hands, placed them behind me, and I felt the knots of a cord rolled
slowly round my wrists; at the same time the other took off my cravat.
My linen,--the only remains of former times,--being of the finest
quality, caused him a sort of hesitation for a moment; but at length he
began to cut off the collar.

At this dreadful precaution, and the sensation of the steel touching my
neck, a tremor passed over me, and a stifled groan escaped; the man’s
hand trembled.

“Sir,” said he, “I beg your pardon; I fear I’ve hurt you.”

The people shouted louder in the street. The tall red-faced man offered
a handkerchief, steeped in vinegar, for me to inhale.

“Thank you,” said I to him, in the firmest tone I could summon, “it is
needless; I am recovered.”

Then one of the men stooped down and fastened a small cord to my ankles,
which restricted my steps; and this was again tied to the cord around my
wrists; finally, the tall man threw my jacket over my shoulders, and
tied the sleeves in front. All was now completed.

Then the Priest drew near with his Crucifix.

“Come, my son,” said he.

The men raised me by my arms; and I walked, but my steps were weak and
tottering. At this moment the folding doors were thrown open. A furious
clamour, a chill breeze, and a strong white light reached me in the
shade. From the extreme of the dark chamber I saw through the rain a
thousand yelling heads of the expectant mass. On the right of the
doorway, a range of mounted gendarmes; in front, a detachment of
soldiers; on the left, the back of the cart, with a ladder. A hideous
picture, with the appropriate frame of a prison-door.

It was for this dread moment that I had reserved my courage. I advanced
a few steps, and appeared on the threshold.

“There he is! there he is!” bellowed the crowd. “He’s come out at last!”
and the nearest to me clapped their hands. Much as a king might be
loved, there could not be more greeting for him.

The tall man first ascended the cart.

“Good morning, _Mr. Sampson_!” cried the children hanging by the
lamp-posts. One of his servants next followed. “Bravo, _Tuesday_!” cried
out the children, as the two placed themselves on the front seat.

It was now my turn, and I mounted with a firm step.

“He goes well to it!” said a woman beside the gendarmes.

This atrocious commendation gave me courage. The Priest took his seat
beside me. They had placed me on the hindmost seat, my back towards the
horse. I shuddered at this last attention. There is a mixture of
humanity in it.

I wished to look around me,--gendarmes before and behind: then crowd!
crowd! crowd! A sea of heads in the street. The officer gave the word,
and the procession moved on, as if pushed forward by a yell from the
populace.

“Hats off! hats off!” cried a thousand voices together, as if for the
King. Then I laughed horribly also myself, and said to the Priest,
“Their hats--my head.”

We passed a street which was full of public-houses, in which the windows
were filled with spectators, seeming to enjoy their good places,
particularly the women.

There were also people letting out tables, chairs, and carts; and these
dealers in human life shouted out, “Who wishes for places?”

A strange rage seized me against these wretches, and I longed to shout
out to them, “Do you wish for mine?”

The procession still advanced. At each step the crowd in the rear
dispersed; and I saw, with my wandering eyes, that they collected again
farther on, to have another view. I know not how it was, that,
notwithstanding the fog and the small white rain which crossed the air
like gossamer, nothing which passed around escaped me; every detail
brought its torture: words fail to convey my emotions. My great dread
was lest I should faint. Last vanity! Then I endeavoured to confuse
myself into being blind and deaf to all, except to the Priest, whose
words I scarcely heard amidst the tumult. I took the Crucifix and kissed
it.

“Have mercy on me,” said I. “O my God!”

And I strove to engross myself with this thought.

But every shake of the cart disturbed me; and then I became excessively
chilled, as the rain had penetrated my clothes, and my head was bare.

“Are you trembling with cold, my son?” demanded the Priest.

“Yes,” answered I. “Alas! not only from cold.”

At the turn to the Bridge, the women expressed pity at my being so
young. We approached the fatal Quay. My hearing and sight seemed about
to fail me. All those voices, all those heads at the windows, at doors,
at shop fronts, on lamp-posts; these thirsting and cruel spectators;
this crowd where all knew me, and I knew none; this road paved and
walled with human visages,--I was confounded, stupefied, senseless.
There is something insupportable in the weight of so many looks being
fixed upon one. I could scarcely maintain my place on the seat, and lent
no further attention to the Priest. In the tumult which surrounded me, I
no longer distinguished exclamations of pity from those of satisfaction,
or the sounds of laughter from those of complaint. All formed together a
noise in my ears like sounding brass.

My eyes read mechanically the signs over the shops.

Once I felt a painful curiosity to look round on _that_ which we were
approaching.

It was the last mental bravado, and the body would not aid it; for my
neck remained paralyzed, and I could not turn it.

And the cart went on, on. The shops passed away; the signs succeeded
each other,--written, painted, gilt; and the populace laughed while they
tramped through the mud; and I yielded my mind, as persons do in
sleeping. Suddenly this series of shops ended as we turned into the
square; the voice of the mob became still more loud, yelling, and
joyous; the cart stopped suddenly, and I had nearly fallen on my face.
The Priest held me up.

“Courage!” murmured he.

They next brought a ladder to the back of the cart. I leaned on the arm
of the Priest and descended. I made one step, and turned round to
advance another, but I had not the power; beyond the lamp I saw
something startling....

Oh, it was THE REALITY!

I stopped as if staggered by a blow.

“I have a last declaration to make,” cried I, feebly.

And then they brought me up here.

I asked them to let me write my last wishes; and they unbound my hands;
but the cord is here, ready to be replaced.




FORTY-SIXTH PAPER.


A judge, a Commissioner, a Magistrate,--I know not what was his
rank,--has just been here.

I intreated him to procure my pardon; I begged it with clasped hands,
and dragging myself on my knees at his feet.

He asked, with a fatal smile, if that were all I had to say to him?

“My pardon, my pardon!” I repeated. “Oh, for mercy’s sake, five minutes
more! Who knows, my pardon may come. It is so horrible at my age to die
in this manner. Reprieves have frequently arrived even at the last
moment! And to whom would they show mercy, Sir, if not to me?”

That detestable Executioner! He came in to tell the Judge that the
execution was ordered for a certain hour, which hour was at hand, and
that he was answerable for the event.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake! five minutes to wait for my pardon,” cried I, “or
I will defend myself.”

The Judge and the Executioner went out. I am alone,--at least with only
two gendarmes present.

That horrible throng, with its hyena cry! Who knows but that I shall
escape from it, that I shall be saved? If my pardon,--it is impossible
but that they will pardon me! Hark! I hear some one coming upstairs!

                     FOUR O’CLOCK.




PREFACE

OF

M. VICTOR HUGO,

TO THE RECENT EDITIONS OF

“LE DERNIER JOUR D’UN CONDAMNÉ.”




PREFACE.


In the earlier editions of this work, published at first without the
name of the author, the following lines formed the sole introduction to
the subject:--

     “There are two ways of accounting for the existence of the ensuing
     work. Either there really has been found a roll of papers on which
     were inscribed, exactly as they came, the last thoughts of a
     condemned prisoner; or else there has been an author, a dreamer,
     occupied in observing nature for the advantage of society, who,
     having been seized with those forcible ideas, could not rest until
     he had given them the tangible form of a volume.”

       *       *       *       *       *

At the time when this book was first published, I did not deem fit to
give publicity to the full extent of my thoughts; I preferred waiting to
see whether the work would be fully understood, and I find such has been
its fate.

I may now, therefore, unmask the political and social ideas which I
wished to render popular under this harmless literary guise. I avow
openly, that “The Last Day of a Condemned” is only a pleading, direct
or indirect, for _the abolition of punishment by death_. My design
herein (and what I would wish posterity to see in my work, if its
attention should ever be given to so slight a production) is, not to
make out the special defence of any particular criminal, such defence
being transitory as it is easy: I would plead generally and permanently
for _all_ accused persons, present and future; it is the great point of
Human Right stated and pleaded before society at large,--that highest
judicial court; it is the sombre and fatal question which breathes
obscurely in the depths of each capital offence, under the triple
envelopes of pathos in which legal eloquence wraps them; it is the
question of life and death, I say, laid bare, denuded of the sonorous
twistings of the bar, revealed in daylight, and placed where it should
be seen, in its true and hideous position,--not in the law courts, but
on the scaffold,--not among the judges, but with the Executioner!

This is what I have desired to effect. If futurity should award me the
glory of having succeeded,--which I dare not hope,--I desire no other
crown.

I proclaim and repeat it, then, in the name of all accused persons,
innocent or guilty, before all courts, juries, or judges. And in order
that my pleading should be as universal as my cause, I have been
careful, while writing “The Last Day of a Condemned,” to omit any thing
of a special, individual, contingent, relative, or modifiable nature, as
also any episode, anecdote, known event, or real name,--keeping to the
limit (if “limit” it may be termed!) of pleading the cause of _any_
condemned prisoner whatever, executed at any time, for any offence;
happy if, with no other aid than my thoughts, I have mined sufficiently
into my subject to make a heart bleed, under the _æs triplex_ of a
magistrate! happy if I could render merciful those who consider
themselves just! happy if I penetrate sufficiently deep within the Judge
to reach the man.

When this book first appeared, some people thought it was worth while to
dispute the authorship. Some asserted that it was taken from an English
work, and others that it was borrowed from an American author. What a
singular mania there is for seeking the origin of matters at a great
distance,--trying to trace from the source of the Nile the streamlet
which flows through our village! In this work there is no English,
American, or Chinese assistance. I formed the idea of “The Last Day of a
Condemned” where you all might form it,--where perhaps you may all have
formed it (for who is there that has not reflected and had reveries of
“the last day of a condemned”?)--there, on the public walk, the place of
execution!

It was there, while passing casually during an execution, that this
forcible idea occurred to me; and, since then, after those funereal
Thursdays of the Court of Cassation, which send forth through Paris the
intelligence of an approaching execution, the hoarse voices of the
assembling spectators, as they hurried past my windows, filled my mind
with the prolonged misery of the person about to suffer, which I
pictured to myself, from hour to hour, according to what I conceived was
its actual progress. It was a torture which commenced from daybreak,
and lasted, like that of the miserable being who was tortured at the
same moment, until _four o’clock_. Then only, when once the _ponens
caput expiravit_ was announced by the heavy toll of the clock, I
breathed again freely, and regained comparative peace of mind. One day
at length--I think it was after the execution of Ulbach--I commenced
writing this work; and since then I have felt relieved. When one of
those public crimes called _legal executions_ is committed, my
conscience now acquits me of participation therein. This, however, is
not sufficient; it is well to be freed from self-accusation, but it
would be still better to endeavour to save human life. I do not know any
aim more elevated, more holy, than that of seeking the abolition of
capital punishment; with sincere devotion I join the wishes and efforts
of those philanthropic men of all nations who have laboured, of late
years, to throw down the patibulary tree,--the only tree which
revolution fails to uproot! It is with pleasure that I take my turn to
give my feeble stroke, after the all-powerful blow which, seventy years
ago, Beccaria gave to the ancient gibbet, which had been standing during
so many centuries of Christianity.

I have just said that the scaffold is the only edifice which revolutions
do not demolish. It is rare indeed that revolutions are temperate in
spilling blood; and although they are sent to prune, to lop, to reform
society, the punishment of death is a branch which they have never
removed! I own, however, if any revolution ever appeared to me capable
and worthy of abolishing capital punishment, it was the Revolution of
July, 1830. It seemed, indeed, as if it belonged to the merciful
popular rising of modern times to erase the barbarous enactments of
Louis the Eleventh, of Richelieu, and of Robespierre, and to inscribe at
the head of the code, “the inviolability of human life!” 1830 was worthy
of breaking the axe of 1793.

At one time we really hoped for it. In August, 1830, there seemed so
much generosity afloat, such a spirit of gentleness and civilization in
the multitude, that we almost fancied the punishment of death was
abolished, by a tacit and unanimous consent, with the rest of the evils
which had oppressed us. For some weeks confiding and credulous, we had
faith in the inviolability of life, for the future, as in the
inviolability of liberty.

In effect, two months had scarcely passed, when an attempt was made to
resolve into a legal reality the sublime Utopia of Cæsar Bonesana.
Unfortunately, this attempt was awkward, imperfect, almost hypocritical,
and made in a different spirit from the general interest.

It was in the month of October, 1830, as may be remembered, that the
question of capital punishment was brought before the Chamber of
Deputies, and discussed with much talent, energy, and apparent feeling.
During two days there was a continued succession of impressive eloquence
on this momentous subject; and what was the subject?--to abolish the
punishment of death? Yes and No! Here is the truth.

Four “gentlemen,”--four persons well known in society,[7]--had attempted
in the higher range of politics one of those daring strokes which Bacon
calls crimes, and which Machiavel calls _enterprises_. Well! crime or
enterprise,--the law, brutal for all, would punish it by death; and the
four unfortunates were prisoners, legal captives guarded by three
hundred tri-coloured cockades at Vincennes. What was now to be done? You
understand the impossibility of sending to the place of execution, in a
common cart, ignobly bound with coarse ropes, seated back to back with
that functionary who must not be named,--four men of our own rank,--four
“gentlemen”!

If there were even a mahogany Guillotine!

Well, to settle the matter, they need only _abolish the punishment of
death_; and thereupon the Chamber set to work!

Only yesterday they had treated this abolition as Utopian,--as a theory,
a dream, a poetic folly. This was not the first time that an endeavour
had been made to draw their attention to the cart, the coarse ropes, and
the fatal machine. How strange it is that these hideous details acquired
such sudden force in their minds!

Alas! it was not on account of the general good that they sought to
abolish capital punishment, but for their own sakes,--as Deputies, who
might become Ministers. And thus an alloy of egotism alters and destroys
the fairest social combinations. It is the dark vein in statuary marble,
which, crossing everywhere, comes forth at each moment unexpectedly
under the chisel!

It is surely unnecessary for me to declare that I was not among those
who desired the death of the Ministers. When once they were imprisoned,
the indignant anger I had felt at their attempt changed with me, as with
every one else, into profound pity. I reflected on the prejudices of
education of some among them; on the ill-developed head of their chief
(fanatic and obstinate relapse of the conspiracies of 1804), whitened
before its time, in the damp cells of state prisons; on the fatal
necessity of their common position; on the impossibility of their
placing a drag on that rapid slope down which monarchy rushed blindly on
the 8th of August, 1829; on the influence of personal intercourse with
Royalty over them, which I had hitherto under-rated: and finally I
reflected, above all, on the dignity which one among them spread, like a
purple mantle, over their misfortunes! I was among those who sincerely
wished their lives saved, and would have readily lent my aid to that
effect.

If a scaffold had been raised for them in Paris, I feel quite certain
(and if it be an illusion, I would preserve it) that there would have
been an insurrection to pull it down; and I should have been one of the
rioters.

Here I must add that, in each social crisis, of all scaffolds, the
political one is the most abominable, the most fatal, the most
mischievous, the most necessary to extirpate.

In revolutionary times, beware of the first execution. It excites the
sanguinary passions of the mob.

I therefore agreed thoroughly with those who wished to spare the four
Ministers, both as a matter of feeling and of political reasoning. But I
should have liked better that the Chamber had chosen another occasion
for proposing the abolition of capital punishment. If they had suggested
this desirable change not with reference to those four Ministers, fallen
from a Palace to a Prison, but in the instance of the first
highwayman,--in the case of one of those wretches to whom you neither
give word nor look, and from whom you shrink as they pass: miserable
beings, who, during their ragged infancy, ran barefoot in the mud of the
crossings; shivering in winter near the quays, or seeking to warm
themselves outside the ventilator from the kitchens of the hotels where
you dine; scratching out, here and there, a crust of bread from the
heaps of filth, and wiping it before eating; scraping in the gutter all
day, with a rusty nail, in the hopes of finding a farthing; having no
other amusement than the gratuitous sight of the King’s fête, and the
public executions,--that other gratuitous sight,--poor devils! whom
hunger forces on theft, and theft to all the rest; children disinherited
by their step-mother, the world; who are adopted by the House of
Correction in their twelfth year,--by the Galleys at eighteen,--and by
the Guillotine at forty! unfortunate beings whom, by means of a school
and a workshop, you might have rendered good, moral, useful; and with
whom you now know not what to do,--flinging them away like a useless
burthen, sometimes into the red ant-heaps of Toulon, sometimes into the
silent cemetery of Clamart; cutting off life after taking away liberty.

If it had been in the instance of one of these outcasts that you had
proposed to abolish the punishment of death, oh, then your councils
would have indeed been noble, great, holy, majestic! It has ever
belonged to those who are truly great and truly powerful, to protect the
lowly and weak. How grand would be a Council of Bramins advocating the
cause of the Paria! And with us the cause of the Paria is the cause of
the people. In abolishing the penalty of death for sake of the people,
and without waiting until you were personally interested in the
question, you would have done more than a political work,--you would
have conferred a social benefit.

Instead of this, you have not yet even completed a political act, while
seeking to abolish it not for the abolition’s sake, but to save four
unfortunate Ministers detected in political delinquency. What has
happened? As you were not sincere, the people were distrustful; when
they suspected the cause of your change, they became angry at the
question altogether, and, strange to say, they declared in favour of
that condign punishment, the weight of which presses entirely on
themselves.

Immediately after the famous discussion in the Chamber, orders were
given to respite, indefinitely, all executions. This was apparently a
great step gained; the opponents of punishment by death were rendered
happy; but the illusion was of short duration. The lives of the
Ministers were spared, and the fortress of Ham was selected as a medium,
between death and liberty. These different arrangements once completed,
all fear was banished from the minds of the ruling statesmen; and along
with fear humanity was also banished. There was no farther question of
abolishing capital punishment; and, when they no longer wished to prove
to the contrary, Utopia became again Utopia!

There were yet in the prisons some unfortunate condemned wretches, who,
having been allowed during five or six months to walk about the
prison-yards and breathe the fresh air, felt tranquil for the future,
sure of life, mistaking their reprieve for pardon.

There had indeed been a reprieve of six months for these hapless
captives, whose sufferings were thus gratuitously aggravated, by making
them cling again to life: then, without reason, without necessity,
without well knowing why, the respites were all revoked, and all these
human beings were launched into eternity.

Let me add, that never were executions accompanied by more atrocious
circumstances than since that revocation of the reprieve of July. Never
have the “anecdotes” been more revolting, or more effectual to prove the
execration of capital punishment. I will cite here two or three examples
of the horrors which have attended recent executions. I must shock the
nerves of the wives of king’s counsel. _A wife is sometimes a
conscience!_

In the South, towards the close of last September, the following
circumstance occurred: I think it was at Pamiers. The officers went to a
man in prison, whom they found quietly playing at cards, and gave him
notice that he was to die in two hours. The wretched creature was
horror-struck; for during the six months he had been forgotten, he had
no longer thought on death; he was confessed, bound, his hair cut off,
he was placed in the fatal cart, and taken to the place of execution.
The Executioner took him from the Priest; laid him down and bound him on
the Guillotine, and then let loose the axe. The heavy triangle of iron
slowly detached itself, falling by jerks down the slides, until,
horrible to relate, it wounded the man, without killing him! The poor
creature uttered a frightful cry. The disconcerted Executioner hauled up
the axe, and let it slide down again. A second time, the neck of the
malefactor was wounded, without being severed. Again he shrieked, the
crowd joining him. The Executioner raised the axe a third time, but no
better effect attended the third stroke. Let me abridge these fearful
details. Five times the axe was raised and let fall, and after the fifth
stroke, the condemned was still shrieking for mercy. The indignant
populace commenced throwing missiles at the Executioner, who hid himself
beneath the Guillotine, and crept away behind the gendarmes’ horses: but
I have not yet finished. The hapless culprit, seeing he was left alone
on the scaffold, raised himself on the plank, and there standing,
frightful, streaming with blood, he demanded with feeble cries that some
one would unbind him! The populace, full of pity, were on the point of
forcing the gendarmes to help the hapless wretch, who had five times
undergone his sentence. At this moment the servant of the Executioner, a
youth under twenty, mounted on the scaffold, told the sufferer to turn
round, that he might unbind him: then taking advantage of the posture of
the dying man, who had yielded himself without any mistrust, sprang on
him, and slowly cut through the neck with a knife! All this happened;
all this was seen.

According to law, a judge was obliged to be present at this execution;
by a sign he could have stopped all. Why was he leaning back in his
carriage then, this man, while they massacred another man? What was he
doing, this punisher of assassins, while they thus assassinated, in
open day, his fellow-creature? And the Judge was not tried for this; nor
the Executioner was not tried for it; and no tribunal inquired into this
monstrous violation of all law on one of God’s creatures.

In the seventeenth century, that epoch of barbarity in the criminal
code, under Richelieu, under Christophe Fouquet, Monsieur de Chalais was
put to death at Nantes by an awkward soldier, who, instead of a
sword-stroke, gave him thirty-four strokes of a cooper’s adze.[8] But at
least it was considered execrable by the parliament of Paris, there was
an inquest and a trial; and, although Richelieu and Fouquet did not
suffer, the soldier was punished,--an injustice doubtless, but in which
there was some show of justice.

In the modern instance, nothing was done. The fact took place after
July, in times of civilization and march of intellect, a year after the
celebrated lamentation of the Chamber on the penalty of death. The
circumstance attracted no attention; the Paris papers published it as an
anecdote, and no one cared about it. It was only known that the
Guillotine had been put out of order by a dismissed servant of the
Executioner, who, to revenge himself, had taken this method of action.

Another instance. At Dijon, only three months ago, they brought to the
scaffold a woman (a woman!). This time again the axe of the Guillotine
failed of its effect, and the head was not quite detached. Then the
Executioner’s servants pulled the feet of the woman; and, amidst the
yells of the populace, thus finished the law!

At Paris, we have come back to the time of secret executions; since July
they no longer dare to decapitate in the town, for they are afraid. Here
is what they do. They took lately from the Bicêtre prison a man, under
sentence of death, named Desandrieux, I think; they put him into a sort
of panier on two wheels, closed on every side, bolted and padlocked;
then with a gendarme in front, and another at the back, without noise or
crowd, they proceeded to the deserted barrier of St. James. It was eight
in the morning when they arrived, with but little light. There was a
newly erected Guillotine, and for spectators, some dozens of little
boys, grouped on the heaps of stones around the unexpected machine.
Quickly they withdrew the man from the basket; and without giving him
time to breathe, they furtively, secretly, shamefully deprived him of
life! And that is called a public and solemn act of high justice!
Infamous derision! How then do the lawgivers understand the word
civilization? To what point have we attained? Justice reduced to
stratagems and frauds! The law reduced to expedient! Monstrous! A man
condemned to death, it would seem, was greatly to be feared, since they
put an end to him in this traitorous fashion!

Let us be just, however; the execution was not quite secret. In the
morning people hawked and sold, as usual, the sentence of death through
the streets. It appears there are people who live by such sales. The
crime of a hapless fellow-creature, its punishment, his torture, his
agony, forms their stock in trade--a paper that they sell for a penny.
Can one conceive anything more hideous than this coin, _verdigrised_ in
blood?

Here are enough of facts; here are too many. Is not all this horrible?
What can be alleged in favour of punishment by death?

I put this question seriously. I ask it that it may be answered; I ask
it of Legislators, and not of literary gossips. I know there are people
who take “the excellence of punishment by death” for a text of
paradoxes, like any other theme; there are others who only advocate
capital punishment because they hate so-and-so who attack it. It is for
them almost a literary question, a question of persons, and proper
names; these are the envious, who do not find more fault with good
lawyers than with good artists. The Joseph Grippas are no more wanting
to the Filangieri than the Torregiani to the Michael Angelos, and the
Scuderies to the Corneilles.

It is not to these that I address myself, but to men of law, properly so
called,--to logicians, to reasoners; to those who love the penalty of
death for its beauty, its goodness, its grace!

Let them give their reasons.

Those who judge and condemn say that “punishment by death is
necessary,--first, because it is requisite to remove from the social
community a member which has already injured it, and might injure it
again.”

If this be all, perpetual imprisonment would suffice. What is the use of
inflicting death? You argue that a prisoner may escape from gaol,--keep
watch more strictly! If you do not believe in the solidity of iron bars,
how do you venture to have menageries? Let there be no executioner
where the jailer can be sufficient.

They continue, “But society must avenge itself, society must punish.”

Neither one nor the other; _vengeance_ is an individual act, and
_punishment_ belongs to God. Society is between the two; punishment is
above its power, retaliation beneath it. Society should not punish, to
avenge itself; it should correct, to ameliorate others!

Their third and last reason remains, the theory of example. “We must
make examples. By the sight of the fate inflicted on criminals, we must
shock those who might otherwise be tempted to imitate them!”

Well, in the first place, I deny the power of the example. I deny that
the sight of executions produces the desired effect. Far from edifying
the common people, it demoralizes and ruins their feeling, injuring
every virtue; proofs of this abound and would encumber my argument if I
chose to cite them. I will allude to only one fact, amongst a thousand,
because it is of recent occurrence. It happened only ten days back from
the present moment when I am writing; namely, on the 5th of March, the
last day of the Carnival. At St. Pol, immediately after the execution of
an incendiary named Louis Camus, _a group of Masqueraders came and
danced round the still reeking scaffold_!

Make, then, your fine examples! Shrove Tuesday will turn them into jest!

If, notwithstanding all experience, you still hold to the theory of
example, then give us back the Sixteenth Century; be in reality
formidable. Restore to us a variety of suffering; restore us Farinacci;
restore us the sworn torturers; restore us the gibbet, the wheel, the
block, the rack, the thumb-screw, the live-burial vault, the burning
cauldron; restore us in the streets of Paris, as the most open shop
among the rest, the hideous stall of the Executioner, constantly full of
human flesh; give us back Montfaucon, its caves of bones, its beams, its
crooks, its chains, its rows of skeletons; give us back, in its
permanence and power, that gigantic outhouse of the Paris Executioner!
This indeed would be wholesale example; this would be “punishment by
death,” well understood; this would be a system of execution in some
proportion,--which, while it is horrible, is also terrible!

But do you seriously suppose you are making an example, when you take
the life of a poor wretch, in the most deserted part of the exterior
Boulevards, at eight o’clock in the morning?

Do not you see then, that your public executions are done in private?
That fear is with the execution, and not among the multitude? One is
sometimes tempted to believe, that the advocates for capital punishment
have not thoroughly considered in what it consists. But place in the
scales, against any crime whatever, this exorbitant right, which society
arrogates to itself, of taking away that which it did not bestow: that
most irreparable of evils!

The alternatives are these: First, the man you destroy is without
family, relations, or friends, in the world. In this case, he has
received neither education nor instruction; no care has been bestowed
either on his mind or heart; then, by what right would you kill this
miserable orphan? You punish him because his infancy trailed on the
ground, without stem, or support: you make him pay the penalty of the
isolated position in which you left him! you make a crime of his
misfortune! No one taught him to know what he was doing; this man lived
in ignorance: the fault was in his destiny, not himself. You destroy one
who is innocent.

Or, Secondly,--the man has a family; and then do you think the fatal
stroke wounds him alone?--that his father, his mother, or his children
will not suffer by it? In killing him, you vitally injure all his
family: and thus again you punish the innocent.

Blind and ill-directed penalty; which, on whatever side it turns,
strikes the innocent!

Imprison for life this culprit who has a family: in his cell he can
still work for those who belong to him. But how can he help them from
the depth of the tomb? And can you reflect without shuddering, on what
will become of those young children, from whom you take away their
father, their support? Do you not feel that they must fall into a career
of vice?

In the Colonies, when a slave is condemned to public execution, there
are a thousand francs of indemnity paid to the proprietor of the man!
What, you compensate a master, and you do not indemnify a family! In
this country, do you not take the man from those who possess him? Is he
not, by a much more sacred tie than master and slave, the property of
his father, the wealth of his wife, the fortune of his children?

I have already proved your law guilty of assassination; I have now
convicted it of robbery!

And then another consideration. Do you consider the soul of this man? Do
you know in what state it is, that you dismiss it so hastily?

This may be called “sentimental reasoning,” by some disdainful
logicians, who draw their arguments only from their minds. I often
prefer the reasonings of the heart; and certainly the two should always
go together. Reason is on our side, feeling is on our side, and
experience is on our side. In those States where punishment by death is
abolished, the mass of capital crime has yearly a progressive decrease.
Let this fact have its weight.

I do not advocate, however, a sudden and complete abolition of the
penalty of death, such as was so heedlessly attempted in the Chamber of
Deputies. On the contrary, I desire every precaution, every experiment,
every suggestion of prudence: besides, in addition to this gradual
change, I would have the whole penal code examined, and reformed; and
time is a great ingredient requisite to make such a work complete. But
independently of a partial abolition of death in cases of forgery,
incendiarism, minor thefts, et cætera, I would wish that, from the
present time, in all the greater offences, the Judge should be obliged
to propose the following question to the Jury: “Has the accused acted
from Passion, or Interest?” And in case the Jury decide “the accused
acted from Passion,” then there should be no sentence of death.

Let not the opposite party deceive themselves; this question of the
penalty of death gains ground every day. Before long, the world will
unanimously solve it on the side of mercy. During the past century,
punishments have become gradually milder: the rack has disappeared, the
wheel has disappeared; and now the Guillotine is shaken. This mistaken
punishment will leave France; and may it go to some barbarous
people,--not to Turkey, which is becoming civilized, not to the savages,
for they will not have it;[9] but let it descend some steps of the
ladder of civilization, and take refuge in Spain, or Russia!

In the early ages, the social edifice rested on three columns,
Superstition, Tyranny, Cruelty. A long time ago a voice exclaimed,
“Superstition has departed!” Lately another voice has cried, “Tyranny
has departed!” It is now full time that a third voice shall be raised to
say, “The Executioner has departed!”

Thus the barbarous usages of the olden times fall one by one; thus
Providence completes modern regeneration.

To those who regret Superstition, we say, “GOD remains for us!” To those
who regret Tyranny, we say, “Our COUNTRY remains!” But to those who
could regret the Executioner we can say nothing.

Let it not be supposed that social order will depart with the scaffold;
the social building will not fall from wanting this hideous keystone.
Civilization is nothing but a series of transformations. For what then
do I ask your aid? The civilization of penal laws. The gentle laws of
CHRIST will penetrate at last into the Code, and shine through its
enactments. We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians
shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the Galleys. Liberty
and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly
applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in
anger. This change will be simple and sublime.

THE CROSS SHALL DISPLACE THE GIBBET.


THE END.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Gypsy form of marriage.

[2] There were grave differences between Denmark and Sweden, because
Count d’Ahlefeld insisted, during the negotiation of a treaty between
the two States, that the Danish king should be addressed as _rex
Gothorum_, which apparently attributed to him supremacy over Gothland,
a Swedish province; while the Swedes persisted in styling him _rex
Gotorum_, a vague title, equivalent to the ancient name of Danish
sovereigns,--King of the Goths. It is probably to this “h”--the cause
not of a war, but of long and threatening negotiations--that Schumacker
alluded.

[3] Certain chroniclers assert that in 1525 a bishop of Borglum made
himself notorious by his depredations. He is said to have kept pirates
in his pay, who infested the coast of Norway.

[4] According to popular superstition, Nistheim was the hell reserved
for those who died of disease or old age.

[5] This forcible passage scarcely requires the explanation that in
France a parricide has the right hand taken off, prior to execution,
and all criminals about to be guillotined have their hair removed, lest
the axe might be impeded, and cause extra suffering.

[6] The translator having a detestation of “slang idiom” in any
language has declined the task of rendering this prison-song into
English; not from any actual indecorum being in its clever though
coarse composition, but from a doubt of any advantage to be obtained by
familiarizing the reading public with the idiom of a Gaol, and which
was doubtless invented for the concealment and furtherance of immoral
or criminal purposes.

It has become a sort of fashion of the hour to descend from the
utmost refinement of sentiment, or the most elevated speculation of
philosophy, to grovel and almost revel in the phraseology hitherto
confined to the obscure haunts of crime. In order to render justice
to M. Victor Hugo’s versatile powers, his skilful imitation of a low
ballad shall be given here, in the original, the translator only
disliking to be the means of interrupting the refined illusion arising
from the author’s elegant conception of the “Condemned.” The general
meaning of the song is given afterwards in the text.

      SONG OF THE YOUNG GIRL OF THE PRISON.

                    I.

    C’est dans la rue du Mail, Lirlonfa malurette,
    Où j’ai été coltigé, Maluré,
    Par trois coquins du railles, lirlonfa malurette,
    Sur mes sique’ ont foncé, lirlonfa maluré.


                    II.

    Ils m’ont mis la tartouve, lirlonfa malurette,
    Grand Meudon est aboulé, lirlonfa maluré;
    Dans mon trimin rencontre, lirlonfa malurette,
    Un peigre du quartier, lirlonfa maluré.

                    III.

    Va-t’en dire à ma largue, lirlonfa malurette,
    Que je suis enfourraillé, lirlonfa maluré.
    Ma largue tout en colère, lirlonfa malurette,
    M’dit: Qu’ as-tu donc morfillé? lirlonfa maluré.

                    IV.

    J’ai fait suer un chêne, lirlonfa malurette,
    Son auberg j’ai enganté, lirlonfa maluré.
    Son auberg et sa toquante, lirlonfa malurette,
    Et ses attach ’s de cés, lirlonfa maluré.

                    V.

    Ma largu’ part pour Versailles, lirlonfa malurette,
    Aux pieds d’ sa Majesté, lirlonfa maluré.
    Elle lu fonce un babillard, lirlonfa malurette,
    Pour m’ fair’ defourrailler, lirlonfa maluré.

                    VI.

    Ah! si j’en défourraille, lirlonfa malurette,
    Ma largue j’entiferai, lirlonfa maluré.
    J’li ferai porter fontange, lirlonfa malurette,
    Et souliers galuchés, lirlonfa maluré.

                    VII.

    Mais grand dabe qui s’fâche lirlonfa malurette,
    Dit: par mon caloquet, lirlonfa maluré,
    J’li ferai danser une danse, lirlonfa malurette,
    Où il n’y a pas de plancher, lirlonfa maluré.


[7] The Ministers, who were afterwards imprisoned in the fortress of
Ham.

[8] La Porte says twenty-two strokes, but Aubery says thirty-four.
Monsieur de Chalais shrieked until the twentieth.

[9] The Parliament of Otaheite have just abolished capital punishment.






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