CHAPTER II.
THE HEADSMAN'S FAMILY.
The house of the headsman is surrounded by a stone wall, its door isstudded with huge nails, acacia trees rustle in front of it. Its windowsare hidden by a high fence. On its roof from time to time somethingflap-flaps like a black flag; it is a raven which has chosen the roof ofthat house as a refuge. No other animal likes the hangman. The dogs bayat him, the oxen run bellowing out of his way, only the ravensacknowledge him as their host. They are his own birds.
It is late in the evening, the sun has long since set, it may be aboutnine or ten o'clock, and yet the sky is unusually bright. Everywhere astrange reflected glare torments the eye of man. Not a cloud is visible;there is not a star in the heavens, yet a persistent, murky yellownessembraces the whole sky like a shining mist, as if the night, instead ofputting on her usual cinder-grey garment, had clothed herself inflame-coloured weeds. Any sounds that may be audible seem as if theycome from an immeasurable distance, and are hollow and awe-inspiring.
Close to the horizon the pointed steeples of Hetfalu are visible, theirblack outlines stand out in sharp contrast against the burning sky.
The whole district is empty and deserted. At other times, in the summerevenings, one would have seen tired yet boisterous groups of peasantsreturning home from working in the fields and hastening back to theirrespective villages. The voice of the vesper bell would everywhere havebeen resounding, the sweetly-sad songs of the good-humoured peasantgirls would have soothed the ear, mingled with the jingle of the bellsof the homeing kine, and the joyous barking of the dogs bounding on infront of their masters. Now everything is dumb. The fields for the mostpart lie fallow and overgrown by weeds and thistles, never seen before.In other places the green wheat crop, choked by tares, has already beenmown down. Means of communication have everywhere been interrupted bythe sanitary cordons. The high road is covered with broad patches ofgrass on both sides. Men hold handkerchiefs to their mouths and noses,and do not trust themselves to breathe. The tongues of the bells haveeverywhere been removed. At the end of every village stands a good-sizedfour-cornered piece of ground surrounded by a ditch, and within it, hereand there, graves have been dug well beforehand.
Throughout this lonely wilderness the furious barking of a watch-dogsuddenly resounds, to which all the dogs in the distant villageinstantly begin to respond. Two men are fumbling at the latch of theheadsman's door, and the chained dog within the courtyard, scenting astranger, gives him a hostile greeting.
"Who is there?" inquires from within an unpleasant, hoarsely screechingvoice, the owner whereof at the same time soothing the big dog which,snarling fiercely, thrusts his nose between the door and the lintel, andsnaps from time to time through the opening.
"Open the door, Mekipiros, and don't bawl!" answers one of the newarrivals, impatiently beating with his fists upon the door. "There's nonecessity for closing the door either, for who is likely to come? Evenif you left it wide open, nobody would stray in, I'll be bound, saveyour pal, Old Nick, and here he is."
At this well-known voice the wolf-hound ceased to bark, and when thedoor was opened leaped joyously upon the neck of the new-comer, whiningand sniffing.
"Send this filthy sea-bear to the deuce, Mekipiros, can't you? It'slicking my very nose off."
The person so addressed was a curious sport of nature. It was asquare-set creature dressed completely in women's clothes. Its featureswere those of a semi-bestial type. It had an immense round head coveredwith short, tangled, unkempt hair, a large broad mouth, a stumpy,wide-spreading nose, a projecting forehead furrowed with deep wrinkles,thick bushy eyebrows, and one half of the horny-skinned face was coveredby immature furry whiskers. And this masculine creature wore women'sclothes! On perceiving the new-comer, it seized the yelping dog, big asa calf though it was, by the chain with a bony hand and hurled itbackwards, grinning and grunting all the time without any apparentcause.
"Come! go in and don't stand staring aimlessly about," said thenew-comer turning to his comrade, who was standing in melancholyamazement on the threshold, wrapped up in a large mantle, with abroad-brimmed hat on his head.
The dog accompanied the guests as far as the door of his kennel,sniffing all the time at the heels of the stranger, whilst the gabblingMekipiros tugged away at its chain. A hideous moustache had been paintedon the monster's lip either with blood or red chalk, and he tried tocall attention to it with extreme self-satisfaction.
"Is the master at home, or the missus, eh! Mekipiros?" inquired thefirst-comer.
"The master is singing and the mistress is dancing," replied thehalf-man with a bestial chuckle.
"Tell them that we have arrived, come! off you go, and look sharp aboutit," and with that he gave a kick accompanied by a vigorous buffet tothe monster, who regarded him for a time with a broad grin, as ifexpecting a repetition of the dose, and then plunged clumsily throughthe kitchen door bellowing with mirth. Meanwhile the two men remainedoutside in the courtyard.
One of them was a tall fair youth clad from head to foot in a greasyleather costume. He had round washed-out features, a callous sort ofapathy played around his lips, and a cold indifference to suffering wasvisible in his red-rimmed green eyes. What struck one most about him wasthe furtive, prying expression of his face; he was evidently a spy bynature, although he attempted to conceal his real character beneath amask of stupidity and absent-mindedness. But he pricked up his ears atevery word spoken in his presence. He reminded one of a snake which,when captured, stiffens itself out and pretends to be dead, and will letitself be broken in pieces before it will move.
The other youth was a pale-faced man, plainly a prey to the mostoverwhelming depression. The ends of his little black moustachestraggled uncared for about the corners of his mouth, his hat waspressed right down over his eyes. You could see at a glance that hismind and his body were wandering miles apart from each other.
There they stood, then, in the courtyard of the headsman's house. Theappearance of this courtyard formed an overwhelming contrast with theidea one generally pictures to one's self of such a place. A prettygreen lawn covered the whole courtyard, clinging to the walls werecreeping fig and apricot trees; in the background was a pretty vine;heart-shaped flower-beds had been cut out of the lawn, and they werefull of fine wallflowers and the most fragrant sylvan flowers of everyspecies; further away stood melon beds, sending their far-reachingshoots in every direction, red currant bushes, a weeping willow or two,yellow rose bushes, myriad hued full-blown poppies--and little whitered-eyed rabbits were bounding all over the grass plot.
And yet this is the dwelling of the headsman.
"You can come in!" cried a strong, penetrating, sonorous woman's voicefrom within, and the same instant Mekipiros bounded through the doorwith his huge shaggy head projecting far in front of him. It was plainthat he had not quitted the room voluntarily, but in consequence of avigorous impulsion from behind.
The man in leather now shoved his melancholy comrade on in front of him,and the headsman's door closed behind them.
It was a kitchen into which they had entered, in no way different fromthe hearth and home of ordinary men. The plates and dishes shone withcleanliness, everything was in apple-pie order, the fire flickeredmerrily beneath the chimney, and yet--fancy was continually findingsomething in every object reminiscent of blood-curdling circumstances.That axe, for instance, stuck in a block in front of the fireplace? Twoyears ago the executioner had beheaded a parricide--perchance 'twas onthat very block!
That rope, again, attached to that bucket, that curved piece of ironglowing red in the fire, that heavy chain dangling down from thechimney--who knows of what accursed horrible scenes they may not havebeen the witnesses at some time or other? Yet, perhaps, there may benothing sinister at all about them; perhaps they are employed for quitesimple, honest, culinary purposes. Still, this is the headsman's house,remember!
Here and there on the walls black spots are visible. What are they?Blood, perhaps. One's eye cannot tea
r itself away from them; again andagain it goes back to them, and the mind cannot reconcile itself to thethought: perchance this may be the blood of some beast, the blood ofsome common fattened beast which man must kill that he may eat andlive--for is not this the dwelling of the headsman?
A woman is roasting and frying over the hearth, a tall, muscularly builtvirago, to whose sinewy arms, dome-like breast, red shining cheeks, andburning eyes, the flickering flames gave a savage, uncanny look; herfine black locks are wound up in a large knot at the back of her head,her large eyebrows have grown together, and the upper surface of herred, swollen lips are amber-coloured with masculine down.
"Sit down!" she cries to the new arrivals with a rough growling voice."You are hungry, eh? Well, soon you shall have something to eat. There'sthe table"--and she went on cooking and piling up the fire; as it roaredup the chimney it gave her red face an infernal expression. This was theheadsman's wife.
The melancholy youth sat down abstractedly at the table, the otherstrode up to the hearth and began whispering to the woman, whilst fromtime to time they cast glances at the stranger-guest.
The man's whispers were inaudible, but it was possible to catch everyword the woman said, for, try as she might, she could not soften downher thunderous voice into a whisper.
"I know him," said she, "he will soon get used to this place.... Nobodywill look for him here.... Get away from here? How can he?"
Presently she placed a dish of boiled flesh before her guests. The paleyouth picked at his food slowly and sadly, the other attacked it withravenous haste, throwing a word over his shoulder to the woman thewhile, or urging his comrade to eat, or flinging bones to the dog andkicking him viciously in the ribs when he snapped them up.
"Can one have a word with the old man?" he inquired of the woman.
"Let him bide, the old man is plagued with his devils again. Don't youhear how he sings? Why, he voices it as lustily as any Slovak student onSt Lucia's day."
And indeed from some room far away now came this verse of a well-knownhymn, sung in a deep vibrating voice full of a woeful, contritetremulousness:
"Oh, Lord, the number of our sins And vileness, who shall purge? Withhold the fury of Thy wrath, Though we deserve its pouring forth, And stay Thy chastening scourge!"
Melancholy, heart-rending was the sense of penitence conveyed by thisdeep, vibrating, bell-like voice. A penitential hymn in the house of theheadsman!
The sad-faced youth shivered at the sound of this voice and seemed toawake suddenly from out of a reverie. He passed his hand once or twiceacross his forehead as if to rally his wits and reduce the chaos withinand around him to some sort of order, but gradually sank back again intohis former lethargy.
A short time afterwards the same hymn was heard again; but the voice ofthe singer this time was not the sonorous, manly voice they had heardbefore, it was a heavenly, pure, childlike voice which now began tosing, full of the magic charm and sweetness of a crystal harmonica:
"Yet know we, Lord, whoso repents And turns his heart to Thee, Shall aye find favour in Thy sight; Nor wilt thou hide from him Thy light, Thy mercy he shall see."
Angels in Heaven could not have sung more sweetly than the voice thatsang this verse. Who could it be? An angel proclaiming remission of sinsin the house of the headsman!
"So the old cut-throat still keeps the girl under a glass case, eh?"
"He wants to bring her up as a saint on purpose to aggravate me, for heknows very well that I never could endure anything of the saintlysort."
"Apparently the old chap is stark staring mad."
"He is possessed by devils, I fancy. Last week three of his 'prenticesbolted because they could not stand his sanctimoniousness any longer.Before dinner he would insist on reading to them out of the Bible forhalf an hour at a stretch, and if any of them dared to laugh he flunghim out of doors like a puppy dog; you may imagine what a pretty figurea headsman cuts who is always preaching about the other world, andproclaiming the word of the Lord with his clenched fists."
"I'll be bound to say he has even taught Mekipiros to go down on hishams."
"Ho, ho, ho! Call him in! Come hither, Mekipiros, you bear's cub, you!"
Mekipiros came in.
"Come hither, I would box your chaps. There, take that! What, stillgrinning, eh? There's another then! Weep immediately, sirrah! can't you!Pull a wry mug! So! Put your hands together! Cast down your eyes! So!And now fire away!"
And the monster did indeed begin to recite a prayer. One might perhapshave expected him to mumble something altogether unintelligible. But no!He recited it to the end with a solemn voice, and his eyes remained castdown the whole time. His face even began to assume a more humanexpression, and when he came to the words which announced remission ofsins to the truly penitent sinner, two heavy tear-drops welled forth andran down his rough wrinkled face.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the headsman's wife, and she smacked the foreheadof the suppliant repeatedly with the palm of her hand; "a lot of goodmay it do you!"
Suddenly, like the rolling echo of a descending thunderbolt, a song ofpraise uttered in an awe-inspiring voice from the adjoining room cutshort this inhuman mockery.
"Who thunders so loudly in the lurid heavens above? What means this mighty quaking? Why doth the round earth move?"
At the same instant the boiling water overflowed from the caldron andput the fire out, and they were all in darkness. There was a deadsilence, when suddenly a blast of wind caught the half-open door andslammed it to violently, and in the dead silence that followed could beheard something like the cry of a bird of ill-omen or the yell of amaniac flying from the pursuit of his own soul: "Death!--a bloodydeath--a death of horror!"
Gradually the last sounds of this voice died away in the distance. Thechained watch-dog sent a dismal howl after it.
And when the feeble light of the tallow candles shone again through thedarkness, it fell upon three shapes which had sunk upon their knees interror, the two 'prentices of the headsman, and the monster. But theproud, defiant virago turned towards the elder of the 'prentices, andlooked him up and down contemptuously.
"Then you, too, are one of them, eh?" cried she.
"Did you not hear the cry of the death-bird?" stammered he.
"What are you afraid of? Tis only my half-crazy old mother."
* * * * *
At night the headsman's apprentices sleep on the floor of the loft. Theheadsman himself has a room overlooking the courtyard; Mekipiros sleptin the stable outside with the watch-dog.
All was silent. Outside, the wind had died away, not the leaf of a treewas stirring; one could distinguish the deep breathing of the sleepers.
At such times the lightest sound fills the sleepless watcher with fear.Sometimes he fancies that a man hidden beneath the bed is slowly raisinghis head, or that someone is lifting a latch, or the wind shakes thedoor as if someone were rattling it from the outside. There is a hummingand a buzzing all around one. Night beetles have somehow or other litupon a piece of paper, and they crinkle it so that it sounds as ifsomeone were writing in the dark. Out in the street men seem to berunning to and fro and muttering hoarsely in each other's ears. Thechurch clocks strike one after another, thrice, four times--one cannottell how often. The time is horribly long and the night is an abyss ofblackness.
On a bed of straw, with a coarse coverlet thrown over them, theheadsman's two apprentices sleep side by side. Are they really asleep?Can they sleep at all in such a place? Yet their eyes are closed. No,one of them is not asleep. When he perceives that his comrade does notmove, he slowly pushes the coverlet from off him and creeps on all foursinto the inner room; there he lies down flat on his stomach and peepsthrough a crevice in the rafters. Then he arises, creeps on tiptoe tothe chimney and knocks at the partition wall three times, then he climbsdown from his loft by means of a ladder, withdraws the ladder from theopening, and whistles to the watch-dog to come fo
rth. One can hear howthe chained beast scratches his neck, and growling and sniffing liesdown before the door of the loft.
Meanwhile the other apprentice has been carefully observing everymovement of his companion with half open eyes. Whenever the first riserturns towards him he feigns to be asleep; but as soon as he takes hiseyes off him he opens his own eyes again and looks after him.
When the last sound has died away, he also arises from his sleeplesscouch and looks through that crevice into the inner room through whichhis comrade had looked before. It was easy to find, the ray of a lamppierced through the crevice in the beam, and that ray comes from thehangman's bedroom.
Carefully he bends down and looks through this little peep-hole.
He sees before him a room furnished with the most rigorous simplicity.Close to the wall stands a black chest, fastened with three locks; inthe middle of the room is a strong wooden table; further away are twobeds, a large one and a small one; there are also two armlessfour-legged chairs; in the window recess are a few shabby books; abovethe beds is a heavy blunderbuss. The pale light of the lamp falls uponthe table. Sitting beside it is a child reading out of the Bible. At thefeet of the child lies a man with his face pressed down to the ground.
The man is of mighty stature--a giant, and he lays down his head,covered with a wildered shock of grey hair, at the feet of a child whosebeauty rivets the eye and makes the heart stand still.
It is a pretty little light-haired angel, twelve or thirteen years ofage, her hair is of a silvery lightness, like soft feather-grass ormoonbeams, her face is of a heavenly whiteness, she has the smile of anangel. The smile of this white face is so unearthly, that neither joynor good-humour is reflected from it, but something of a higher order,which the human heart is not pure enough to comprehend.
The old man lies there on the ground, with his fingers clutching hisgrey locks, and the ground on which his face has rested is wet. But thelittle girl, with hair like soft feather-grass, reads with a honey-sweetvoice verses full of mercy and pardon from the Holy Book. From time totime her little fingers turn a leaf over, and whenever she comes to thename of the Lord she raises gentle eyes full of devout reverence.
"Pray, pray, my angel, go on praying! God will hear thy words. Oh! thyfather is indeed a sinner, a great, great sinner!"
The child leant over him, kissed his grey head, and went on reading.
The old man fell a-weeping bitterly.
"Oh! thy father's hands are so bloody! Who can ever wash them clean? Ihave killed so many men who never offended me, never did me any harm.Oh! how they feared death! how sad they were as they waited for me! howthey looked and looked to see whether a white flag would not be hoistedafter all! Oh! how they begged and prayed, how they kissed my hands inorder that I might wait a moment, but one moment more--life was so sweetto them, yes, so sweet! And yet I had to kill them. I murderedthem--because the law commanded it."
A deep and bitter sob choked the old man's voice.
"Who will answer for me when God asks in a voice of thunder: 'Who hasdared to deal out death--the prerogative of God alone?' Who will answerfor me, who will defend me, when my judges will be so many pale, coldshapes, me in whose hands were Death and Terror? And if we meet togetherabove there--or, perchance, down below, we, the executioner and theexecuted, and sit down at one table! oh! those bloody souls!--movingabout headless, perchance, even in the other world, oh! horrible,horrible! To have to answer for the head of a man! And what if he wereinnocent besides, what if the judge erred, and the blood of thecondemned cries out to Heaven for vengeance? Alas! oh, Mighty HeavenlyFather!"
The grey-headed giant writhed on the ground convulsively, and smote hisbosom with his clenched fists. One could now catch a glimpse of hisface. It was a hard, weather-beaten countenance, bronzed by the suns ofmany a year, large patches of his beard were grizzled, but his eyebrowswere of a deep black. He was quite beside himself, every muscle writhedand quivered.
The little girl knelt down beside him and tenderly stroked hissweat-covered forehead, took his head into her lap, and did not seem tofear him terrible as he looked--like one of the damned on the verge ofthe grave.
The old man kissed the girl's hands and feet, and timidly, tenderlyembracing her with his large, muscular, tremulous arms, bent over her,hid his face in her lap, and sobbing and groaning, spoke in a voice nearto choking--it was as though his very soul was bursting away from hisbosom along with these terrible words.
"Look, my little girl!--once the judges condemned a young man todeath--my God! there was no trace of a beard upon his face, so young washe. For three days he was placed in the pillory, and everybody wept whobeheld him--the youth was accused of having murdered his father. Hecould not deny that he slept in the same room, and a bloody knife wasconcealed in the bed. In vain he said that he was innocent, in vain hecalled God to witness--he must needs die. On the day when he wasbeheaded, two women, weeping and wailing, and dressed in deep mourning,ran beside the felon's car to the place of execution. One was his dearmother, the other his loving sister. In vain they screamed that he wasinnocent, that he ought not to die, and, even if he were guilty theyforgave him the mourning dresses they wore, though they were thesufferers and had lost everything. It was useless, he must needs die.When he sat down in front of me in the chair of death, and took off hisclothes, even then he turned to me and said: 'Woe is me that I must die,for I am innocent.' I bound up his eyes. But my hand shook as I aimedthe blow at him, and the blood that spurted on to my hand burnt likefire. Oh, my child! that blood was innocent. A year ago I executed anotorious highwayman, and as I was ascending the ladder with him, heturned and laughed in my face: 'Ha, ha!' cried he, 'it was in this veryplace that you beheaded a fine young fellow whom they accused of havingmurdered his father; it was I who killed that father of his and hid theknife in his bed, and now hang me up and look sharp about it.' Oh, mychild, thou fair angel, beseech God that _He_ will let me forget thosewords!"
"Go to sleep, go to sleep, my good father. God is good, God is wrathwith no man. Why dost thou weep? Thou art not a bad man, surely, elsethou wouldst not love me. Look now! Last summer two children went fromthe village into the woods to pluck flowers, there Heaven's warfareovertook them, and when they sought a refuge beneath a tree to avoid therain, the lightning struck both of them dead. Yet the lightning is God'sown weapon, and both the children were innocent. God knows wherefore Hegives life and death, we do not. Go to sleep, my good father! God iseverywhere near us, and turns away from nobody who lifts up his eyestowards Him. Look, I see Him everywhere. He watches over me when Isleep, He holds me by the hand when I walk in the darkness; I see Him ifI look up at the sky, I see Him when I cast down my eyes. He abandonsnobody. Kiss me and go to sleep!"
The big muscular man slowly struggled to his knees. He pressed the fairchild to his bosom and raised his hard rough face. He looked up, hislips quivered, he seemed to be praying, and his tears flowed apace. Thenhe stood up, and the little girl embraced his arm, that huge arm of hislike the trunk of a tree. Fumbling his way along, he allowed himself tobe led to his bed, and plunged down upon it fully dressed as he was.After turning about restlessly for a moment or two, a loud snore likethunder, which made the whole room vibrate, proclaimed that he hadfallen asleep at last. But his slumbers were restless and uneasy.Frequently he would start and cry aloud as if in agony, or utter brokenunintelligible half sentences and groan horribly.
But the fair little girl extinguished the lamp before she got ready tolie down herself. The pale light of the moon shone through the windowand made her face whiter, her hair more silvery than ever, as if byenchantment. It shone right upon her snow-white bed. It shone upon hersoft eyebrows, her smiling face, upon her sweet lips as they tremulouslyprayed.
So slumber came upon her in the shape of a snow-white moonbeam. With asmiling face, hands clasped together, and praying lips, she fellasleep--and her guardian angel stood at the head of her snow-white bed.
The youth had watched the whole scene through
the rift in the door withbated breath and great amazement. When he rose to his feet, he remainedfor a long time, rapt in a brown study, leaning against the wall andstaring blankly before him, lost in wonder that two such differentbeings should be slumbering together beneath the same roof.
He sighed deeply. In the stillness of the night it seemed to him as ifhe heard the echo of his own sigh coming back to him in whisperingwords. He listened attentively--he could plainly distinguish the deepdroning voice of the headsman's wife, which seemed to him to come fromsomewhere below at the opposite end of the house.
He went in the direction of the voice, and when he came to the placewhere his comrade had knocked thrice on the boards near the chimney, hedistinctly heard two people talking to each other in a low voice. It wasthe headsman's wife and her lover.
The youth turned away full of loathing. Nevertheless, it soon occurredto him that this tempestuous _tete-a-tete_ could have little to do withlove. The voice of the headsman's wife frequently arose in anger.
"Let him go to hell!" he heard her exclaim.
"Hush! hush!" murmured the young 'prentice, "somebody might overhearus."
"Pooh! God and men both slumber now."
What could they be talking about? Whom did they want to harm? Such folkshad it not in them to love anyone. Woe to those whom they had cause toremember!
So he crept softly to the spot and listened.
"If these people should rise they will not leave one stone uponanother," the headsman's apprentice was saying.
"And do you suppose they will rise up because you tell them to?"
"I have thought the matter well out. The common folks about here do notlove their masters, there is no reason why they should. Their lords havekicked and cuffed and spat upon them, and treated them worse than dogs.You have but to cast a burning fagot into the mass of discontent, andit will flame up at once. Even the wisest among them who do knowsomething about it, are the most narrow-minded. If there be two versionsof a matter they always believe the most absurd one. I told them to beon their guard against danger. I told them to look after their wells andtheir granaries, as their masters wanted to poison them. When they askedwhy? I told them that the whole kingdom was surrounded on every side byenemies, and the gentry wanted to raise a pestilence in the kingdom tokeep the enemy out of it. At my words the common people at once becamesuspicious, for they have heard for a long time that the gentry wereexpecting a pestilence, and as this was the first explanation of theprophesied epidemic that had come to their ears, they believed it atonce. Suspicion is contagious. And as the gentry have since had theimprudence to order a separate graveyard to be dug for the corpses ofthose who may die of the cholera (naturally in order to prevent the deadbodies from spreading the contagion), the common folks have believed mywords as if I were a prophet, and quite expect that the gentry are goingto poison the poor people. The digging of the churchyard they take to bea first move in that direction."
"Devilish clever of you, Ivan, I must say."
"And then don't forget the announcement of the Kassa doctors to theeffect that if the common folks will not take the salutary bismuthpowder voluntarily, it must be forced upon them, thrown into theirwells and scattered about their barns. It looks as if everyone wasintent upon playing into our hands."
"Does the young chap upstairs suspect anything?"
"I don't think so, but let us speak in a lower tone. I promised to hidehim here. He fancies he has shot his captain dead. He caught him withhis sweetheart and banged away at him; the man fell to the ground, buthe did not die. But the young fellow ran away and deserted his colours.I have been persuading him to desert for a long time, as I had need ofhim. This, in fact, is the third time he has deserted, and if they catchhim now they will undoubtedly string him up. Not a bad idea for him tofly to the headsman's house, eh? They will seek him everywhere but underthe gallows-tree. And if they find him here, they won't have very muchmore trouble with him, that's all."
"Ho, ho, ho! Suppose he were to hear you?"
And he did hear!
"You see, this was my object all along. I shall put his pursuers on histrack in any case, and they will capture him here and take him toHetfalu, where the court-martial will pronounce sentence of death, andthen have him exposed in the pillory. All the common folk about Hetfalulove the youth as if he was their own son, but they hate his father likethe devil. It will be no very great masterpiece to stir up the people inthese troublous times, and when they see the young fellow led out to behanged they will be quite ready to seize their scythes and dung-forks,set him free, raise him on their shoulders, and rush with him to thecastle of his father (who, by the way, has done his best to hound hisson to death), and level it with the ground, and there you have apeasant revolt in full swing straight off."
"But will the lad consent to be put at the head of such an enterprise?"
"Never fear! Death is an awful prospect. There is no road, howeverterrible, which a man will not take in order to avoid it. Besides, atsuch times a man is not himself, but does everything almostunconsciously, and thus our names will not appear in the business atall; and if it is put down, he will be looked upon as the ringleader.Not the shadow of a suspicion will fall upon us."
"Bravo, Ivan! I could kiss you for this."
"A more amazing popular rebellion than this will be has never beenknown. From village to village the rumour will fly that his own son hasrisen against his poisoner of a father at the head of the people, hascut to pieces every member of his family, and levelled his ancestralhalls to the ground. He will be looked upon as a public avenger.Horribly black rumours will be noised abroad all over the kingdom, andat the tidings thereof the people will run downright mad with savagefury, and the gentry will not know which way to turn to escape theunforeseen danger which will suddenly break out at their very doors."
"You are the Devil's own son, Ivan; come and let me cuddle you."
The youth rose from the chimney-place trembling in every limb. He hadheard every word they said.
For an instant he remained standing there quite beside himself, halfmad, half senseless from sheer terror and amazement. Presently he beganto gaze about him with desperate alertness, like a wild beast that hasfallen into a trap and looks eagerly for a way out of it, rallying allits powers for a final struggle, becoming resourceful and inventive inproportion to its peril, and forgetting the very instinct of life in thelonging for freedom, at last gets to fear nobody and nothing. Afterfruitless struggles it surrenders in despair, lies down, closes itseyes, and the next instant once more begins the hopeless fight forliberty.
The youth looked down through the opening in the floor. The ladder hadbeen removed, and in the courtyard below a big shaggy dog was slouchingsurlily about and shaking its collar, and from time to time it wouldtear at its skin with its teeth or worry its tail and bay at the moon.
And now there is a good sharp knife in the youth's hands. He sticks itbetween his teeth and looks carefully around him. In case of need hewould have risked a fight with the dog, and perhaps killed it; but thiscould not happen without a great deal of noise, and he wished, at anyprice, to escape unnoticed.
The fence, too, surrounding the enclosure, was very high, how was he toget over it? Nowhere could he see the ladder.
At the extreme end of the house, right opposite the windows of theheadsman's bedroom, was a large mulberry tree, whose wide-spreadingbranches bent down over the roof of the house. With the help of thesebranches one could easily get to the fence, and then a bold leap downfrom the top of it would do the rest.
Like a panther escaping from its cage the young man crept along thenarrow window-ledge of the garret with his knife between his teeth.Wriggling along on his belly he clutched hold of the ridge of the house,and crawled cautiously on till he came to the branches of themulberry-tree, then he seized an overhanging branch, clambered up it andscrambled to the very end of it--and all so quietly, without making theleast noise.
From the extreme edge of the branch, howeve
r, to the top of the fence hehad to make a timely spring, and in so doing overestimated the strengthof the branch on which he stood--with a great crash it broke beneathhim, and he remained clinging like grim death to the fence half-way up.
At the sound of the snapping branch the watch-dog became aware of thefugitive, and rushed barking towards him; and while he was strugglingwith all his might to scramble up to the top of the fence it seized himby one of the tails of his coat and furiously tried to drag him down.
"Who is that?" a loud voice suddenly roared. The headsman had beenaroused by the noise outside his window, and was now looking down intothe courtyard. He there perceived a man quite unknown to him clamberingup the fence, while the dog was tugging away at him to bring him down."Ho, there! stop, whoever you are!" he thundered, and mad with rage heseized the musket and took aim at the fugitive. His eyes were wild andbloodshot.
Then a white hand lowered the weapon, and a clear ringing childish voicefrom behind him exclaimed:
"Wilt thou slay yet again, oh, my father?"
The man's hand sank down. For a moment he was motionless, and his facegrew very pale. Then the calm look of self-possession came back to him.He embraced the child who had pushed the gun aside. Then he took aimonce more. There was a loud report, and the watch-dog, without so muchas a yelp, fell to the ground stiff and stark. The fugitive with a finaleffort leaped over the fence.