Pretty Michal Part 40

The prior was satisfied with the compact, and when Valentine took up his pen to subscribe it the other unctuously exclaimed:

"Such a good sowing will produce a good harvest!"

And Valentine could not help thinking, as he handled the pen, "I wonder what sort of harvest the letters I am now sowing will bring in to me."

The matters to be settled with the general, too, were not a whit less captious. The relations between the military and the civic authorities had to be very carefully defined and settled, once for all. The city had an armed garrison of its own, and reserved to itself the complete control of this garrison. The gates were to be watched by both parties together. So the Gordian knot to be untied was this: how two sets of men diametrically opposed in nationality, religion, and politics were to be made to consent to be faithful guardians of the law of the land and the prerogatives of the Kaiser, without prejudicing the liberties of the city, or interfering in any way with one another, or attempting to violently hew the knot in two with the sword.

And that Kalondai settled this complicated matter also in the wisest possible way is sufficiently obvious from the fact that neither party was quite contented with his decision.

Last of all, it occurred to him that there was still someone standing behind him--the headsman.

He did not tell the fellow to stand forth, but alluded to him in the third person, and as the man had a Slovack accent, he addressed him in the Slovack tongue, just as if they had never squabbled with each other in their youth in the Hungarian, German, and Latin languages.

"Master Henry will be at his post on the scaffold at six o'clock to-morrow morning, and there await with his apprentices the arrival of the magistrates."

He wasted no more words on the subject, but closed the session and went home.

In the evening of the same day the very reverend dean was sent for to come to Kalondai's house to give a lady the sacrament of the altar.

The dean at once supposed that Dame Sarah was on the point of death, and great was his astonishment when they led him to the bedside of the younger lady. It was pretty Michal who desired the last sacraments.

The very reverend gentleman was beyond measure astonished thereat.

Had he not seen Michal piously praying in church only the day before! And now she desired the sacrament of the dying!

"Would you haggle with G.o.d?" asked Valentine.

So pretty Michal partook of the Lord's Supper, and the clergyman gave her his benediction.

And pretty Michal at that moment had no bodily ailment, yet for all that she was on the point of death.

Next day--it was a dark January morning--the gloomy scaffold stood ready in the market-place of Ka.s.sa. The early risers could see through the thick mists the headsman's apprentices, in their pointed caps, moving like h.e.l.lish shadows about the burning fire, in which they were heating their terrible tools red-hot, and warming their hands the while, to prevent them from growing stiff.

When the clock in the church-tower struck seven, the watchmen on the bastions struck the big drum three times, whereupon the felon's bell in the tower of the townhall began to toll--a sad, heartrending sound. Then the gates of the courtyard were thrown open, and out came the procession in the usual order, the headsman first on horseback, then the convict, and last of all the members of the town council, the sheriff, the superrector, the conrector, the syndic, and the civic warden. All these took their places on the dais, with the sheriff in the center, while the headsman dismounted from his horse and ascended the scaffold.

The soldier who had been condemned to be beheaded was accompanied to the place of execution by his comrades. It was the special privilege of every citizen of Ka.s.sa who suffered capital punishment to go to the scaffold free and unfettered, take leave there of his family and friends, and not be maltreated by the headsman.

The convict in question advanced with a cheerful countenance and head erect. Two of his comrades accompanied him, consoling and consoled by him.

"Never mind, gossips! I am not the first to whom it has happened. I don't take it so much to heart, and it doesn't hurt anyone else. G.o.d bless those who are left behind!"

Then he kissed and embraced his little children one after the other, and distributed them among his friends.

"To you I give my little son, and to you I leave my little daughter."

And so he parted with them all.

Who is that weeping so loudly?

It is the sheriff beneath his canopy. He cannot refrain from sobbing.

The convict had compa.s.sion upon his judge, and said to him:

"Weep not, Master Sheriff! you have p.r.o.nounced a righteous judgment over me. I deserve to die. Not a drop of my blood will ever burden your soul, for it was a righteous sentence. Turn your head aside if you find it hard to see the sentence carried out!"

But Valentine Kalondai did not cover his eyes. He bade them weep no more, but watch the scene to the very end.

He was learning!

He was learning how to mount the seven steps of the scaffold with a firm step, how to cheerily tap the headsman on the shoulder, ask him if his ax was sharp, and then send his last greetings to those at home.

The man sat down without any a.s.sistance on the low stool, put his hands on his knees, stretched forward his head, and began to sing the well-known verse: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O ----" The word "Lord" was still upon his lips as he stood before the throne of G.o.d.

Valentine had learnt something.

Another and far more terrible scene now ensued. They brought up the witch.

_She_ did not endure her fate calmly. She bit, kicked, scratched, cursed the saints and all mankind, and called upon the devil to help her. They had to bind her by force to the pillar.

And Henry Catsrider actually took pleasure in the hideous contest.

It is one of the most ghastly privileges of the headsman to wound with words the wretches whom he is worrying to death, to torture their souls as well as their bodies.

"Oh--oh, you old witch! So you have come under my hands at last, eh?"

"I suckled you, you dog! You have sucked witch's milk from me. Show yourself the devil you are!"

"Come along then, you queen of witches, come and be crowned!"

With that he placed upon her head the crown, made of three staves, and began to screw them together.

Red Barbara turned her face toward Valentine Kalondai and cried; "Judge! make them take this crown off, it hurts me!"

"Wait a bit!" said the headsman, with a harsh laugh; "I'll give you a sedative immediately;" and seizing a scourge with one hand, he gave a vicious twist at the screw with the other.

The tortured hag bellowed for anguish.

"Judge, let them kill me outright, let me die!"

"Don't be afraid! I'll wake you up again," sneered the headsman, and he tore her gown from her shoulders, so as to give freer play to the lashes of his scourge.

It was just such another purple gown as that in which Michal had once so greatly excited Valentine's admiration, and the recollection of that dress occurred to Henry also.

"Is not this the dress you stole from my wife, you thief, you incendiary?" and again the lash hissed through the air.

"Do you strike me, you hangman? You knacker, you! I'll strike you back now! I'll brand your face so that you will bear the marks about with you to your dying day. You cuckold, you horned beast! You have crowned me, have you! I'll crown you still better. Your wife, your pretty Michal, still lives, and is the mistress of that sheriff yonder! You have two horns on your head, bear them as best you can!"

The headsman's apprentices began to laugh.