Chapter XI: Conclusion (1)

At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his _schreibers_ or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool, his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who remained standing behind her.

The presence of the young Fraulein was of rare occurrence upon occasions of judicial ceremony in the old town-hall. But a solemn appeal to her testimony had been made by the witchfinder; and her father, whose sense of justice considered that a matter of accusation of so heavy and serious a nature as that of witchcraft, should be investigated in all its bearings, had commanded her presence. Her heart, full of the purest milk of human kindness, revolted, however, from witnessing the progress of such terrible proceedings--the justice of which her simple mind, tutored according to the dark prejudices of the age, never once doubted, but which curdled her blood with horror. And she sat pale and sad, with downcast eyes, scarcely daring to raise them upon the crowd that filled the hall, much less upon the most conspicuous object in the scene before her--the unhappy being against whom all curses, all evil feelings, all insane desires of blood and death, were then directed. Perhaps there was another reason also, which, almost unconsciously, caused her to keep her eyes fixed upon the earth; perhaps she feared that they might meet two other mild blue eyes, the expression of which was that of a deep--far too deep--an interest; for it caused her heart to beat, and her spirit to be troubled; and her bosom to heave and sigh, she knew not wherefore: unless, indeed, she were, in truth, bewitched.

In the centre of the hall was placed the accused woman. She was seated upon a rude three-legged stool, which was firmly fixed upon a raised flooring, elevated about three feet from the ground--her face turned towards her judge. A slight chain passed round the middle of her body, and fastened her down to her seat. She was still attired in the dark hood and cloak which had been her customary dress, and sat, with head bent downwards, and her hands clasped languidly upon her knees, as if resigned, in the bitterness of her despair, to meet the cruel fate that awaited her.

Below, was a compact and turbulent crowd of the lower orders of the town, which was with difficulty kept, by the pikemen, within the limits assigned to it; and which, from time to time, let forth low howls against the supposed sorceress, that increased, like the _crescendo_ of distant thunder, and then died away again.

On either side, towards the upper end, were ranged upon benches some of the more reputable _bourgeois_ and their spouses, all decked out in their finest braveries, as if they were present at a theatrical show, or a church mystery: and, in truth, the representation about to be given, was but little more in their own eyes, than a sort of show got up for their especial gratification.

Guarded by two pikemen, stood the cripple--his teeth set firmly, although his lips quivered with excitement--his light eyes glaring fiercely around with an air of savage exultation, and gleaming, as it were, with a pale phosphoric fire, from out of the dark ground of his swarthy face and lank black hair. He moved restlessly and uneasily upon his withered limbs, clenching by fits and starts his rosary from his bosom, and murmuring a hasty, and--to judge by the wildness of his eyes, that showed how his mind was fixed upon far other thoughts--a vain prayer. He rolled also his head and the upper part of his body continually backwards and forwards, like a wild beast fretting in his cage.

Among the more prominent of the crowd, whom the favour of the guards had allowed to push beyond the assigned limits, or whom reasons, connected with the trial, required to come forwards, stood "Gentle Gottlob." His brow was overclouded with sadness, for he felt in how fearful a pass this horrible denunciation had placed the woman whom he had so long regarded with attachment. His mild blue eye was more melancholy than of wont; and yet, in spite of the trouble of his mind, he was unable to withdraw his looks from that bright loadstone of his affections, whose sadness seemed to sympathize with his own. At least, his heart would fain persuade him that there was mysterious sympathy in their mutual dejection.

The principal personages concerned in the awful question at issue, occupied, thus, their respective positions in the old town-hall; when, after a long and troubled pause, during which silence was with difficulty obtained among the more tumultuous portion of the crowd at the lower end of the hall, one of the _schreibers_ rose, and read, from an interminable strip of parchment which he held in his hand, the act of accusation against the female known under the popular designation of "Mother Magdalena," as attainted of the foul crime of witchcraft, of the casting of spells and malefices to the annoyance and destruction of her fellow-creatures, of consorting with spirits of darkness, and of lascivious intercourse with the arch-fiend himself. For so ran, at that time, the tenor of the accusation directed against the unhappy women suspected of this imaginary crime.

The act of accusation was long, and richly interlarded with all those interminable complications of legal phraseology, which seem ever, at all times, and in all nations, to have been the necessary concomitants of all legal proceedings. The reading of the act, however, being at last terminated, the town-beggar, commonly known by the familiar name of Black Claus the witchfinder, Schwartzer-Claus, or Claus Schwartz, as he was usually designated among the people, was summoned to stand forward as the denouncer of the aforesaid Magdalena, and to substantiate his charge.

Thus called upon, the cripple gave a start forward, like a lion let loose upon the gladiator's arena, through the barred gates of which he has already sniffed the odour of blood; and then, raising one of his long arms towards the stool of penitence, on which the criminal had been placed, he again repeated, with an eagerness amounting to frenzy, his accusation against her.

As the witchfinder's hoarse voice was heard, a visible shudder passed through Magdalena's frame; but she raised not her head, moved not a limb, spoke not; and it was only when called upon by the chief _schreiber_ to declare what she had to say against this accusation, that she lowly murmured--"God's will be done!" but still with bowed head and downcast eyes.

In support of his denunciation, the cripple proceeded to state how he had watched the mysterious female called "Mother Magdalena," and had observed that she never would enter any consecrated building; how she would daily advance up the steps of the church, and then pause before the threshold, as if she feared to pass it, and then throw herself down upon the stones before the gate, where she would lie in strange convulsions, and at last return without having penetrated into the building--an evident proof that the devil she served had forbidden her to put her foot into any sacred dwelling, but had taught her, nevertheless, to approach near enough to treat the awful mysteries of the Christian religion, performed within, with mockery and contempt. To this accusation, which was confirmed by the acclamation of several persons present in the court, Magdalena, when called upon to speak, proffered no denial; she contented herself with the meek reply, that God alone knew the motives of the heart--that it was for him alone to judge. The words were still uttered in the same low despairing tone, and without the slightest movement of her head from its sunken posture.

The partially monastic dress, which was her habitual attire, was next brought forward against her as a proof of her desire to treat with contempt the dress of the religious orders: and to this absurd accusation, when asked why she had adopted a costume resembling that of the holy sisterhood of penitents, the old woman still refused any reply.

The events of the previous afternoon, when she had been openly seen to throw her staff at the Amtmann's unoffending daughter, and wound her on the neck, and then break into pieces the image of the Holy Cross, were then recapitulated, as facts known upon the positive evidence of a hundred witnesses.

These matters disposed of, the cripple proceeded to detail his own peculiar grievances, and attributed, as he had done in the cases of the seven unhappy women who had already fallen victims of his frantic delusion, the severe pains that had racked his poor distorted limbs to the malefic charms of the sorceress. He related how, on the last night on which he had met Mother Magdalena, he had found her sitting by the well in the market-place, casting a spell upon the spring, and turning the waters to poison and blood--as a proof of which, he swore to have himself tasted in the water of the bucket the taste of blood; how, in revenge for his warning to her to desist from her foul practices, she had pointed up her finger to the sky, and immediately brought down upon his head all the combined waters of heaven; how she had vanished from his sight in this storm, he knew not how; and how immediately intense pains began to torture his joints, until he became half frantic with agony, and had been compelled, by hideous visions, to quit the shelter he had sought, in order to be exposed to all the peltings of the storm. He had since suffered, he declared, the tortures of the damned in all his limbs, with occasional fits of shuddering, sometimes of hot fever, sometimes of the most freezing cold, which were evidently torments worked upon him by the powers of darkness. And as he spoke, the unhappy wretch was again seized by one of his fearful fits of ague, during the convulsions of which the clamours of the crowd grew terrible against the sorceress.

"What sayest thou to this accusation, woman?" said the chief _schreiber_. "Thou see'st how even now he suffers."

"I have never willed evil to any man--not even to him," was Magdalena's only reply.

When recovered from his fit, the cripple again raised his head--it was to cast a glance at the object of his denunciation, in which hatred and triumph were blended together, in one of those occasional flashes of wildness which showed that there was a vein of insanity running through all the frenzied zeal of the witchfinder. He had now arrived at a period of his narration, when the most damning proof of all was to overwhelm the accused woman.

It was not without an unaffected expression of horror, that he went on to relate how he had wandered around the building by the Watergate, in a lower cell of which he had discovered that she dwelt, seeking in vain to find an entrance or a peep-hole, that might enable him to penetrate into the interior; how he had, at last, dragged his crippled limbs up into a tree upon the river's bank, overlooking an upper chamber of the building; how he had, at first, seen Mother Magdalena in conversation with the young illuminator; how, upon his departure, she had flung herself down upon her knees, and after spitting upon one of the books of holy writ upon the table, had made wild gestures of conjuration, upon which the demon himself, attired in a dark robe, had suddenly appeared by supernatural means, for he had not entered by the door; how the foul hag had fallen down and worshipped the arch-fiend; and how, after a conference of short duration, during which the woman at his feet appeared to supplicate with earnestness, probably a prolongation of her wretched term of power to work ill, and afterwards kissed his hand in token of adoration and submission, the demon had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

A low murmur of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan. For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob's chamber with the stranger--for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then, clasping her hands before her face, she murmured--"O God! it cannot be! But this is terrible!"

Gottlob, who, during the whole accusation, had listened with much impatience, could now no longer restrain his generous feelings. He started forward with the words--"No, no, it is impossible! Speak, Magdalena--say how false is this man's tale."

"God knows that it is false!" said Magdalena.

"I knew it could not be. There could be no one with thee in my chamber, and he lies."

"No," replied Magdalena sadly, "thus far is true:--There was a stranger by me in your chamber."

"But who then?--speak, Magdalena," urged Gottlob. "Clear yourself of the foul stigma of his tale."

"I may not say!" replied the unhappy woman. "But God will prove my innocence in His own right time."

"Why hesitate," again cried the eager young man, "when with a word you could disprove him?"

"I have already said it cannot be," said the accused woman, sinking her head upon her breast.

Gottlob himself drew back with a shudder; for a moment he knew not what to think; the strange answers of Magdalena perplexed and troubled him. He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time overwhelmed.

"It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume," said the chief _schreiber_, turning to the Ober-Amtmann. "The wretched woman has already admitted a part of the truth;" and, with a sign to the denouncer, he bade him proceed.

The witchfinder paused for a moment, and gave one long look of tenderness and pity--as far, indeed, as his harsh, rudely-stamped features could express such feelings--at the pale face of Bertha. Then, fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame; and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called "Gentle Gottlob" to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.

Upon hearing the first part of this charge, Magdalena had raised her head to give, unconsciously as it were, a deprecating look at the fair girl--as if to assure her, with that one long concentrated look of deep feeling, that, far from desiring her evil, she contended only with the overpourings of kindness and love for her; and then, as though she had already expressed more than her conscience could approve, she bowed again her head, murmuring only--"O God! support me. Thou knowest how false is the raving of that wretched man." The second part of the charge excited other and very varied feelings among those present. Magdalena again started, but with evident surprise, and made a hasty gesture of denial. Gottlob sprang forward, horrified at being thus involved, even as an involuntary agent, in the hideous denunciation, and indignant at the supposition that he could work ill to the Amtmann's lovely daughter; and he protested, with all the vehemence which gentle natures, when roused into excitement, will display, against so unfounded and calumnious an accusation; whilst Bertha, joining together her small hands, as if in supplication, turned her face, with anxious expression, to her father, crying--"No, no--it cannot be!"

Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at first not to know what to think. He gazed alternately upon Gottlob and Bertha, as if to read upon their faces the secret of a connexion between them; and then, satisfied of the impossibility that the noble Ober-Amtmann's daughter could have the slightest affinity with the unknown youth before him, he drew a long breath, and passed his hand over his brow, as if to drive away ideas so absurd.

"Peace, youth--peace!" he cried to Gottlob; "we will hear thee anon. It is not thou who art accused. And thou, my child be calm. Cripple! what mean thy words? What proof bringest thou of their truth?"

"Ask of the suffering angel by thy side, my noble lord," replied the cripple with emotion. "Let her tell how, of late, her cheek has grown pale, her limbs have become weary, her very life's-blood languid and oppressed. I have watched her day by day, and I have seen these changes. I have watched her with a careful and a cunning eye; and I have felt--there, in my heart--that the spell was upon her: and this it was that urged me to denounce that wretched hag."

"Speak, my child," said the Ober-Amtmann, in trouble and anxiety. "What this man says, is it true? Hast thou suffered lately? Indeed, I do remember thy cheek has been paler than of wont--thy appetite has left thee--thou hast been no longer so cheerful or so active as of old. Speak, my child--hast thou really suffered?"

"Oh, no! my father, I have not suffered," replied the agitated girl in much confusion; "and yet I have not been as formerly I was. I have been sad, I knew not why, and wept in the silence of my chamber without cause; and I have found no pleasure in my embroidery, nor in my flowers, nor in my falcons. I have felt my foot fall weary. I have sought to rest, and yet, when reposing, I have felt unable to remain in quiet, and I have longed for exercise abroad. But yet I have not suffered; and sometimes I have even hugged with pleasure the trouble of my mind and body."

"These seem, indeed, the symptoms of a deadly spell upon thee, my poor child," exclaimed her father. "Such, they say, are the first evidences of the working of those charms that witches breathe over their victims."

"And let the Fraulein Bertha tell," cried the witchfinder, "how it has been yonder youth who has seemed to exercise this influence of ill upon her."

Again Gottlob sought to spring forward and speak; but a sign from the Ober-Amtmann to the guards caused them to place their pikes before him, and arrest him in his impulse.

"How and what is this, my child?" said the Ober-Amtmann. "Knowest thou that youth? and in what has he, consciously or unconsciously, done thee ill?"

"He has done me no ill," replied the innocent girl in still greater confusion, as her bosom heaved, and the blood suffused her cheeks. "I am sure he would not do me ill for all the treasures of the world!"

"Thou knowest him then?" said her father, somewhat more sternly.

"No, I know him not," replied Bertha in trouble; "but I have met him sometimes in my path, and I have seen him"--she hesitated for a moment, and then added, with downcast eyes, "at his window, which overlooks our garden."

"Why then this trouble, Bertha?" continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their own immediate circle.

"I cannot tell myself, my father. I feel troubled and sad, it is true; and yet I know not why. I have no cause"----

"And when thou hast met yonder youth, as thou sayest, hast thou felt this trouble before?"

"Alas! yes, my father. I remember now that at his aspect my heart would beat; my head grow giddy, and my ears would tingle; and then a faintness would come over me, as though it were a pain I felt, and yet it was a pleasant pain. There was nothing in him that could cause me ill; was there, father?"

The Ober-Amtmann's brow grew dark as Bertha proceeded; but, after a moment's reflection, he murmured to himself--"Love! oh, no! It is impossible! She and he! The noble's daughter and the low-born youngster. It could not be! There is no doubt! Witchcraft has been at work! How long has it been thus with thee, my child?" he added with solicitude.

"I cannot tell, my father. Some five or six months past it came upon me. I know not when or how!"

"Bears he no charm upon him?" exclaimed the Ober-Amtmann aloud.

"He bears a charm upon him!" cried the witchfinder in triumph. "And ask who bound it round his neck?"

"It is false! I bear no charm!" cried Gottlob eagerly. "She herself denied that it was such."

"Of what does he speak?" cried the Ober-Amtmann.

"It was but a gift of affection, and no charm. She gave me this ring," said Gottlob, pointing to the ring hung by a small riband round his neck; "and I have worn it, as she requested, in remembrance of some unworthy kindness I had shown her."

"And how long since was it," enquired the Ober-Amtmann, "that she bestowed this supposed gift upon you?"

"Some five or six months past," was Gottlob's unlucky answer; "not long after I first brought her to reside with me in my poor dwelling."

During this examination the agitation of Magdalena had become extreme; and when, upon the Ober-Amtmann's command that the ring should be handed up to him, Gottlob removed it from his neck, and gave it into the hands of one of the guards, she cried, in much excitement, "No, no; give it not, Gottlob!"

The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena, covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into her former crouching position.

The sight of the ring seemed indeed to have the power of a necromancer's charm upon the Ober-Amtmann. No sooner had his eyes fallen upon it, than his cheek grew pale--his usually severe and stern face was convulsed with agitation--and he sank back in his chair with the low cry, "That ring! O God! After so many years of dearly-sought oblivion!"

At the sight of the Ober-Amtmann's agitation and apparent swoon, a howl of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of "Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!" Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her father's side; but the Ober-Amtmann quickly rallied. He waved his daughter back with the remark, "It was nothing--it is past;" and raising himself in his chair, looked again upon the ring.

"There is no doubt," he murmured, "it is that same ring--that Arabic ring, brought me from the East, and which I gave--oh, no!--impossible!" he hurriedly exclaimed, as a horrible thought seemed to cross him. "She has been dead many years since. Did not my own brother assure me of her death? It cannot be!"

After a moment's pause to recover from his agitation, he gave orders to one of the guards to remove the hood from Magdalena's head, that he might see her features. With the crooked end of a pike's head, one of them tore back her hood; while another, with the staff of his pike, forced her hands asunder. Magdalena's careworn and prematurely withered face was exposed to the gaze of all, distorted with emotion.

"Less rudely, varlets!" cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the miserable Magdalena was already regarded.

For a moment the Ober-Amtmann considered Magdalena's careworn, withered, and agitated face with painful attention; and then, as if relieved from some terrible apprehension, he heaved a bitter sigh, and murmured to himself--"No, no, there is no trace of that once well-known face. I knew it could not be. She is no more. It was a wild and foolish thought! but this ring--'tis strange! Woman, dost thou know me?" he asked aloud, with some remaining agitation.

"I know you not," replied Magdalena with a low and choked voice; for she now trembled violently, and the tears gushed from her eyes.

"How camest thou then by this ring? Speak! I command thee," continued the Ober-Amtmann.

Magdalena bowed her head with a gesture of refusal to answer any further question.

"Wretched woman! Hast thou violated the repose of the dead? Hast thou torn it from the grave? How else came it in thy possession?"

The unhappy woman replied not. She had again covered her face with her hands, and the tears streamed through her meagre fingers.

"Speak, I tell thee! This ring has conjured up such recollections, that were there but one human link between thee and one who has long since rested from all sorrow in the grave, it might ensure thy safety."

No answer was returned by Magdalena; although, to judge by the convulsed movement of her body, the struggle within must have been bitter and heavy to bear.

"Die then in thy obstinacy, miserable woman," cried the Ober-Amtmann in a suppressed voice--"Let justice take its course!"

"Denouncer!" said the chief _schreiber_ to the witchfinder, "hast thou further evidence to offer?"

"Needs it more to convict a criminal of the foul and infernal practices of witchcraft?" cried Black Claus with bitterness.

The chief _schreiber_ turned to the Ober-Amtmann, as if to consult his will. For a moment the Ober-Amtmann passed one hand across his brow, as though to sweep away the dark visions that were hovering about it; and then, waving the other, as if he had come to a resolution which had cost him pain, said with stern solemnity--"Let the workers of the evil deeds of Satan perish, until the earth be purged of them all."

This customary formula implied the condemnation of the supposed sorceress.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd, upon hearing the delivery of this expected sentence.

After enjoining silence, which was with difficulty enforced, the chief _schreiber_ rose, and addressed to Magdalena the accustomed question, "Woman, dost thou demand the trial by water, and God's issue by that trial?"

"I demand but to die in peace," replied the miserable woman; "and God's will be done!"

"She refuses the trial by water," said the chief _schreiber_, in order to establish the fact, which was put down in writing by the adjuncts.

"To the stake! to the stake!" howled the crowd.

"And hast thou nothing to urge against the justice of thy sentence?" asked the official questioner.

"Justice!" cried Magdalena, with a start, which caused the chain around her waist to clank upon the wretched stool on which she sat. "Justice!" she cried in a tone of indignation. For a moment the earthly spirit revolted. But it gleamed only for an instant. "May God pardon my unjust judge the sins of his youth,"--she paused, and added, "as I forgive him my cruel death!" With these words, the last spark of angry feeling was extinguished for ever. "May God pardon him, as well as those who have thus cruelly witnessed against me; and may He bless him, and all those who are most near and dear to him," she continued--her voice, as she spoke, growing gradually more subdued, until it was lost and choked in convulsive sobbings.

Again a thrill of horror passed through the Ober-Amtmann; for the sound of the voice seemed to revive in his mind memories of the past, and recall a vision he had already striven to dispel from it. His frame shuddered, and again he fell back in his chair.

"It is a delusion of Satan!" he muttered, pressing his hands to his ears, and closing his eyes.

Bertha's eyes streamed with tears; her pitying heart was tortured by this scene of sadness.

"Blessings instead of curses upon those who have condemned her! Can that be guilt?" said gentle Gottlob to himself. "Can that be the spirit of the malicious and revengeful agent of the dark deeds of Satan? No--she is innocent; and I will still save her, if human means can save!"

After thus parleying with himself, Gottlob began to struggle to make his way from the court.

"The blessings of the servants of the fiend are bitter curses," said the infatuated witchfinder, on the other hand; "and she has blessed me. God stand by me!"

"To the stake!--to the stake!" still howled the pitiless, the bloodthirsty crowd.

The refusal of the unhappy Magdalena to abide by the issue of the well-known trial by water, had so much abridged the customary proceedings, that orders were given, and preparations made, for the execution of the ultimate punishment for the crime of witchcraft--burning at the stake--shortly after daybreak on the morrow.

It was yet night--a short hour before the breaking of the dawn. The pile had been already heaped in the market-place of Hammelburg--the stake fixed. All was in readiness for the hideous performance about to take place. The guards paced backwards and forwards before the grated doorway, which opened under the terrace of the old town-hall; for there, in that miserable hole, was confined the wretched victim of popular delusion. The soldiers kept watch, however, upon their prisoner at such a distance as to be as far as possible out of the reach of her malefic spells. The heavy clanking of their pikes, as they rested them from time to time upon the pavement, or paused to interchange a word, alone broke the silence of the still sleeping town--sleeping, to awake shortly like a tiger thirsty for blood. The light of a waning moon showed indistinctly the dark mass in the centre of the market-place--the stage upon which the frightful tragedy was about to be enacted--when one of the sentinels all at once turning his head in that direction, descried a dark form creeping around the pile, as if examining it on all sides.

"What's that?" he cried in alarm to his comrade, pointing to this dark object. "Is it the demon himself, whom she has conjured up, and who now comes to deliver her? All good spirits"--and he crossed himself with hurried zeal.

"Praise the Lord!" continued the other, completing the usual German form of exorcism, and crossing himself no less devoutly.

"Challenge him, Hans!" said the first; "at the sound of a Christian voice, mayhap, he may vanish away; and thou art ever boasting to Father Peter that thou are the most Christian man of thy company."

"Challenge him thyself," replied Hans, in a voice that did not say much for the firmness of his conscience as a Christian.

"Let's challenge him both at once," proposed the other soldier. "Perhaps, between us, we may muster up goodness enough to drive the foul fiend before us."

"Agreed!" replied Hans, with somewhat better courage; and upon this joint-stock company principle of piety, both the soldiers raised their voices at once, and cried, in a somewhat quavering duet, "Who goes there?"

A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.

So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian--so little his confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of darkness in the shape which now approached them--that they seemed disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.

"It is Claus Schwartz!" said Hans, taking breath.

"Or the devil in his form," pursued his fellow-sentinel with more caution. "Stand back!" he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few yards, "and declare who thou art."

"Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?" cried Black Claus; "or has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is not so dark but good men may know each other."

"What wouldst thou here?" said Master Hans, completely recovered from his spiritual alarm.

"I cannot rest," replied the witchfinder with bitterness. "Until her last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose, body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my poor limbs--curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she too shall feel all the tortures of hell--tortures worse than those she has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her body round--the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious sight!" And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back from him with horror.

It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment, however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in a calmer tone, "Yes, it will be a glorious sight--for it will be for the cause of the Lord, and of his holy church."

Little as they comprehended the witchfinder's raving, the soldiers again crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.

"What wouldst thou?" said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the prison door.

"I would look upon her, there--in her prison," said the cripple, with an expression that denoted a malicious eagerness to gloat upon his victim.

The soldiers interchanged glances with one another, as if they doubted whether such a permission ought to be allowed to the witchfinder.

"Ah, bah!" said Hans. "It is not he that will aid her to escape. Let him pass. They'll make a fine sport with one another, the witchfinder and the witch--dog and cat. Zist, zist!" continued the young soldier, laughing and making a movement and a sound as if setting on the two above-mentioned animals to worry each other.

"Take care," said his more scrupulous companion. "Jest not with such awful work. Who knows but it may be blasphemy; and what would Father Peter say?"

The two sentinels continued their pacing up and down, but still at some distance from the prison doorway, in order, as Hans's companion expressed it, "to keep as much as possible out of the devil's clutches;" while Black Claus approached the grating of the door.

As the witchfinder peered, with knitted brow, through the bars of the grating, it seemed to him at first, so complete was the darkness within, as though the cell was tenantless; and his first movement was to turn, in order to warn the guards of the escape of their prisoner. But as he again strained his eyes, he became at last aware of the existence of a dark form upon the floor of the cell; and as by degrees his sight became more able to penetrate the obscurity within, he began plainly to perceive the form of the miserable woman, crouched on her knees upon the damp slimy pavement of the wretched hole. She was already dressed in the sackcloth robe of the penitents condemned to the stake, and her poor grey hairs were without covering. So motionless was her form that for a moment the witchfinder thought she was dead, and had fallen together in the position in which she had knelt down; and the thought was like a knife in his revengeful heart, that she might thus have escaped the tortures prepared for her, and thwarted the gratification of his insane and hideous longings. A second thought suggested to him that she was sleeping. But this conjecture was scarcely less agonizing to him than the former. That she, the sorceress, should sleep and be at rest, whilst he, her victim, could find no sleep, no rest, no peace, body or mind, was more than his bitter spirit could bear. He shook the bars of the door with violence, and called aloud, "Magdalena!"

"Is my hour already come?" said the wretched woman, raising her head so immediately as to show how far sleep was from her eyelids.

"No, thou hast got an hour to enjoy the torments of thy own despair," laughed the witchfinder, with bitter irony.

"Let me, then, be left in peace, and my last prayers be undisturbed," said Magdalena.

"In order that thou mayst pray to the devil thou servest to deliver thee!" pursued Black Claus, with another mocking laugh. "Ay--pray--pray; but it will be in vain. He is an arch-deceiver, the fiend, thy master. He promises and fulfils not. He offers tempting wages to those who sell to him their souls, and then deserts his servants in the hour of trouble. So prayed all the filthy hags who sat there before thee, Magdalena; but they prayed in vain."

"Leave me, wretched man!" said Magdalena, who now became aware that it was the cripple who addressed her. "Hast thou not sufficiently sated thy thirst for evil, that thou shouldst come to torment me in my last moments? Go! tempt not the bitterness of my spirit in this supreme hour of penitence and prayer. Go! for I have forgiven thee; and I would not curse thee now."

"I defy thy curses, witch of hell!" cried the cripple with frantic energy. "Already the first pale streaks of dawn begin to flicker in the east. A little time, and thy power to curse will be no more; a little time, and nothing will remain of thee but a heap of noisome ashes; and a name, which will be mingled with that of the arch-enemy of mankind, in the execrations of thy victims--a name to be remembered with horror and disgust--as that of the foul serpent--in the thoughts of the tormented cripple, and of the pure angel of brightness, upon whom thou hast sought to work evil and death."

"O God! make not this hour of trial too hard for me to bear!" exclaimed the unhappy woman; and then, raising her clasped hands to Claus in bitter expostulation, she cried, "Man! what have I done to harm thee, that thou shouldst heap these coals of fire on my soul?"

"What thou hast done to harm me?" cried the witchfinder. "Hast thou not tormented my poor cripple limbs with thy infernal spells? Hast thou not caused me to suffer the tortures of the damned? But it is not vengeance that I seek. No--no. I have vowed a holy vow--I have sworn to spend my life in the good task of purging from the earth such workers of evil as thou, and those who served the fiend by their foul sorceries, were it even at the risk of exposing my body to pain and suffering, and even death, from the revengeful malice of their witchcrafts. And God knows I have suffered in the holy cause."

And the cripple clenched again within his right hand, the image attached to the rosary in his bosom, as if to satisfy himself by its contact of the truth and right of those deeds, which he strove to qualify as holy.

"What thou, or such as thou, have done to harm me!" he continued with bitter spite. "I will tell thee, hag! I was once a young and happy boy. I was strong and well-favoured then. I had a father--a passionate but a kind man; and I had a mother, whom I loved beyond all created things. She was the joy of my soul--the pride of my boyish dreams. I was happy then, I tell thee. I called myself by another name. No matter what it was. Black Claus is the avenger's name, and he will cleave to it. One day there came an aged beggar-woman to our cottage, and begged. My mother heeded her not. I know not why; for she was ever kind. My father drove her from the door; and, as she turned away, she cursed us all. I never can forget that moment, nor the terror of my youthful mind, as I heard that curse. And the curse clave to us; for she--_was a witch_; and it came upon us soon and bitterly. My mother was in the pride of her beauty still, when a gay noble saw her in her loveliness, and paid her court. Then came a horrible night, when the witch's curse was fearfully fulfilled. My father was jealous. He attacked the young noble as he came by the darkness of night; and it was he--my father--who was killed. I saw him die, weltering in his blood. My poor mother, too, was spirited away; the fell powers of witchcraft dragged her from that bloody hearth. Yes; witchcraft it was--it must have been; for she was too pure and good to listen to the voice of the seducer--to follow her husband's murderer. She died, probably, of grief--my poor wretched mother; for I never saw her more. For days and nights I sought her, but in vain; suffering cold and hunger, and sleeping oft-times in the cold woods and dank morasses. Then fell the witches curse on _me_ also; and I began to suffer these pains, which thy foul tribe have never ceased to inflict upon me since. The tortures of the body were added to the tortures of the mind. My limbs grew distorted and withered. I became the outcast of humanity I now am; and then it was I vowed a vow to pursue, even unto death, all those hideous lemans of Satan, who, like her who cursed us, sell their wretched souls but to work evil, and destruction, and death to their fellow-creatures. And I have kept my vow!"

In spite of herself, Magdalena had been obliged to listen to the witchfinder's tale, which, with his face pressed against the iron bars of the grating, he poured, with harsh voice, into her unwilling ear. As he proceeded, however, she appeared fascinated by the words he uttered, as the poor quivering bird is fascinated by the serpent's eye. Her eyeballs were distended--her arms still outstretched towards him, as she had first raised them to him in her cry of expostulation; but the hands were desperately clenched together--the arms stiffened with the extreme tension of the nerves.

"Oh no!" she murmured to herself as he yet spoke; "that were too horrible!" and when he paused, it was with a smothered scream of agony, still mixed with doubt, that she cried "Karl!"

"Karl!" repeated the witchfinder, clenching the bars with still firmer grasp, and raising himself with the effort to the full height of his stature, as though his limbs had on a sudden recovered all their strength--"Karl! Ay, that was my name! How dost thou know it, woman?"

"O God!" exclaimed the wretched tenant of the cell, "was my cup of bitterness not yet full? Hast thou reserved me this?" She wrung her hands in agony, and then, looking again at the cripple, cried in a tone of concentrated misery, "Karl! they told me that thou wast dead--that thou, too, hadst died after that night of horrors!"

"Who art thou, woman?" cried the cripple again, with an accent of horror, as if a frightful thought had for the first time forced itself upon his brain. "Who art thou, that thou speakest to me thus, and freezest the very marrow of my bones with fear? Who art thou that criest 'Karl' with such a voice--a voice that now comes back upon my ear, as if it were a damning memory of times gone by? Who art thou woman?--speak! Let not this dreadful thought, that blasts me like lightning, strike me utterly to the earth."

"Who I am?" sobbed the miserable woman. "Thy wretched and guilty mother, Karl!"

"Guilty!" shouted the cripple. "Then thou art not she! My mother was not guilty--she was all innocence and truth!"

"I am thy guilty mother, Karl," repeated the kneeling woman, "who has striven, by long years of penitence and prayer, to expiate the past. Alas, in vain! for Heaven refuses the expiation, since it has reserved the wretched penitent this last, most fearful blow of all!"

"Thou!--oh no!--say it not! Thou my mother!" cried the witchfinder.

"Thy mother--Margaret Weilheim!"

"Horrible!--most horrible!" repeated the agonized son, letting go the bars, and clasping his bony hands over his face. "Thou, my once beloved mother, the wretched being of misery and sin--the accomplice of the spirits of darkness--and _I_ thy denouncer! O God! This is some fearful delusion!"

"The delusion is in thy own heart, my poor, distracted, infatuated son," pursued the miserable mother. "Happy and blessed were I, were no greater guilt upon my soul than that of the crime for which I am this day condemned to die. Bitter it is to die; but I had accepted all as the will of Him above, and he knows my innocence of all dealings with the powers of hell."

"Innocent!" cried the witchfinder in frightful agitation. "Were it possible! And is it I, thy own child, who strikes the blow--I, who am thy murderer--I, who, to avenge the mother, have condemned the mother to the stake? Horrible! And yet those proofs--those fearful proofs!"

"Hear me, for my time is short now in this world," said the poor woman, known by the name of Magdalena. "I will not tell thee how I listened to the voice of the serpent, and how I fell. My pride in my fatal beauty was my pitfall. All that the honied words of passion and persuasion could effect was used to lure me on to my destruction--and at last I fled with my seducer. I knew not then, I swear to thee, Karl--God knows how bitterly it costs the mother to reveal her shame to her own son; but bitter if it be, she accepts is as an expiation, and she will not deceive him--I swear to thee, I knew not then that thy father had fallen in that unhappy night, and had fallen by the hand of him whom I madly followed. It was long after that the news reached me, and had nearly driven me distracted. The same tale told me, but falsely, the death of my first-born--my Karl. Remorse had long since tortured my heart. I was not happy with the lover of my choice--I never had been happy with him; but now the stings of my conscience became too strong to bear. Tormented by my bitter self-reproaches, I decided upon quitting my seducer, who had long proved cold and heartless. But I had borne him a child--a daughter; and to quit my offspring, the only child left to me, was agony; to take it with me, to bear it away to partake a life of poverty and wretchedness, was still greater agony to the mother's mind. The great man who was its father--for he was of noble rank, and highly placed--when he found me determined to leave him and the world for ever--and he saw me part from him, the heartless one, without regret--offered to adopt my darling infant as his legitimate child; to bring it up to all the honours, wealth, and consideration of the world; to ensure it that earthly happiness the mother's heart yearned to give it. But, as I have told thee, he was cold and worldly-minded, and he exacted from me an oath--a cruel oath--that I never should own my child again--that I never should address it as my offspring--that I never should utter the word 'daughter,' never hear the cry of 'mother' from its lips. He would not that his daughter, the noble Fraulein, should be brought to shame, by being acknowledged as the offspring of a peasant wife. All I desired was the welfare--the happiness--of my child.

"I stifled all the more selfish feelings of a mother's heart and I consented. I took that oath. I kissed my child for the last time, and tore myself away. I hoped to die; but God reserved me for a long and bitter expiation of my sin. I still found upon earth, however, one kind and pitying friend. He was the brother of my noble lover, and himself among the highest in the land. He was a priest; and, in his compassion, he found me refuge in a convent, where, though I deemed myself unworthy to receive the veil, I assumed the dress of the humblest penitent, and took the name of the repentant one--the name of Magdalen. I desired to cut myself off completely from the world; and I permitted the father of my child to believe a report that I was no more. In the humility of my bitter repentance, I vowed never to pass the gates of the holy house of God--never to put my foot upon the sacred ground--never to profane the sanctuary with my soul of sin--to worship only without, and at the threshold, until such time as it should seem to me that God had heard my repentance, and accepted my expiation. Now, thou knowest why I have never dared to enter the holy building."

The witchfinder groaned bitterly, clenching, in agony, the folds of his garment, and tearing his breast.

"My spiritual adviser was benevolent and kind; but he was also stern in his calling. He imposed upon me such penitence as, in his wisdom, he thought most fit to wash out my crime; and I obeyed with humble reverence. But there was one penance more cruel than the rest--the mortification of my only earthly affection--the driving out from my heart all thought of the child of my folly and sin--the vow never to seek, to look upon her more. But the love of the world was still too strong upon the wretched mother. At the risk of her soul's salvation, she fled the convent to see her child once again. It was in the frenzy of a fever-fit, when I thought to die. I forgot all--all but my oath--I never sought to speak to my darling child; but I followed her wherever I could--I watched for her as she passed--I gazed upon her with love--I prayed for blessings on her head."

"Alas! I see it all now. It is, as it were, a bandage fallen from my eyes. Fool--infatuated fool!--monster that I was!" cried the witchfinder. "Bertha was your daughter--my sister; and I have smitten the mother for the love she bore her child. And he--her father--he was that villain! Curses on him!"

"Peace! Peace! my son!" continued Magdalena, "and curse no more. Nor can I tell thee that it was so. I have sworn that oath never to divulge my daughter's birth; and cruel, heartless, as was the feeling that forced it on me, I must observe it ever. And thus I continued to live on--absorbed in the one thought of my child and her happiness--heedless of the present--forgetful of my duty; when suddenly, but two days ago, he who has been the kind guardian of my spiritual weal, appeared before me in the chamber where, alone and unobserved, I wept over the picture of my child. He came, I presume, by a passage seldom opened, from the monastery, whither his duties had called him. He chid me for my flight--recalled me to my task of expiation--and, bidding me return to the convent, left me, with an injunction not to say that I had seen him. Nor could I reveal the fact of my mysterious interview with him, or tell his name, without giving a clue to the truth of my own existence, and the discovery of all I had sworn so binding an oath ever to conceal. Thou sawest him also--but, alas! with other thoughts."

"Madman that I have been!" exclaimed the witchfinder. "Or is it now that I am mad? Am I not raving? Is not all this insane delusion? No--thou are there before me--closed from my embraces by these cruel bars that I have placed between us. Thou! my mother--my long-lost--my beloved--most wretched mother, in that dreadful garb!--condemned to die by thy own infatuated son! Would that I _were_ mad, and that I could close my brain to so much horror! But thou shalt not die, my mother--thou shalt not die! Thou are innocent! I will proclaim thy innocence to all! They will believe my word--will they not? For it was I who testified against thee. I, the matricide! I will tell them that I lied. Thou shalt not die, my mother! Already! already!--horror!--the day is come!"