Chapter XXXV

Things in this world do not always exactly turn out as men devise beforehand.

The Zwirinas had won a complete triumph over the Kalondais. They were amply revenged for the humiliation in the cathedral, for the defeat in the duel. Their wounded pride was satisfied.

The sentence pronounced by the town council was that both the guilty parties should be beheaded, the woman first. Moreover, the headless bodies were not to be buried in the churchyard, but in the churchyard ditch where all the asses of the town browsed on the abundant thistles.

This was an aggravation of the original sentence. But it was a case where a memorable example had to be made. A vile transgressor had intruded himself into the highest office of the town; an infamous woman, living in adultery, had dared to appropriate the foremost pew in the cathedral, thus defiling the most respectable society in the town with her presence, and shamelessly laying claim to honors which did not belong to her. Public opinion was shocked and outraged by such a scandal. It was an offense which death alone could not atone for. It must be pursued even beyond the grave.

Yet the judges had at least so much humanity--they would not let Henry Catsrider execute his own wife. It was enough that the seducer should be made over to him.

And again the felon's bell rang, again the gates of the townhall were thrown open, and in the midst of the sad procession came the unhappy pair, supporting one another; Michal in a snow-white garment, her beautiful face bound round with a white fillet, but Valentine in his court dress, in his jacket with the foxskin collar, and with his long hair flowing down his shoulders.

The members of the council took their places on the dais beneath the baldachin, and in the midst of them sat Augustus Zwirina.

When they reached the scaffold, Valentine would have supported Michal as she ascended the steps, but she needed no assistance. It was with an easy heart and a light step that she mounted up.

In the distance could be heard the shrieks of a woman, whom the halberdiers had to keep back by main force lest she should make a disturbance. It was Dame Sarah.

When they had got to the top of the scaffold, which was hung with black cloth, Valentine kissed the hands and the cheeks of his Michal.

"Do you forgive me?"

"I have nothing to forgive."

"For your horrible death?"

"It unites me eternally with you."

"Do you expect that we shall meet again?"

"I'll wait at the gates of heaven till you come."

"And if for my sin's sake I go to hell?"

"I'll pray to God till he releases you."

"Would you like to pray again now?"

"No, my heart is at peace."

"Amen!"

Then she sat her down on the little stool, and bound up her hair with the white fillet.

An iron coffin was there to hold them both.

The headsman's henchman stood close by the little stool, leaning on his sword.

Michal recognized and spoke to him.

"Tell me now, Master Matthias! was I not always a good mistress to you?"

"Would to God you had never been!" murmured the rough fellow.

"Deal gently with me now, and God reward you for it."

A flash, a whiz, and human justice was satisfied. But there above the angels were awaiting their sister, and asked her which was the better of the two--death, or what they call life on earth?

Henry Catsrider sprang from the other end of the scaffold to pick up the corpse.

"Touch her not!" cried Valentine, with the voice of an angry lion, "or I'll give you a blow which will send you to the other world before me."

With that he threw off his jacket, and called to the crowd around:

"Whoever will come and help me, shall have my foxskin jacket!"

"Here I am!" cried a well-known voice, and the faithful Simplex ascended to the scaffold.

"Help me to lay her in the coffin!" said Valentine; "and then don't forget what I asked you to do." And with the help of his friend he laid his pretty Michal in that sad bed from which no one ever rises again till the last trump.

Then he embraced his faithful comrade and sent him away.

"Now it is our turn, Henry Catsrider!" said he, turning to his mortal foe.

The dean, who had accompanied him so far to give him the consolations of religion, exhorted him to turn to God in this the last moment of his life and to pray. Valentine beckoned him away.

"I believe in a God, but not in the bloodthirsty God in whom you believe."

"Do not die without the blessing of the Church," said the clergyman appealingly.

"Can I require a greater blessing from the Church than to have for my confessor the executioner who cuts off my head?"

The crowd below took great pleasure in this passage of arms.

Valentine, in fact, was seized by that desperate merriment which is known as gallows humor. The spirits of those who had preceded him in this dreadful stage swept around him and suggested bitter jibes and taunts.

"Well, my good friend," said Valentine jocosely, to Henry, "is it to-day with you or to-morrow? Your eyes look as crooked as if you had not slept all night. I fear me you will not strike where you aim."

Henry had indeed been drinking hard all night to keep up his spirits.

"Well! How shall I do up my hair?" asked Valentine, sitting down on the little stool, and tying up his locks with the self-same white fillet (it was red now) which Michal had wound round her tresses.

"Will it do so?"

"A little higher!" said Catsrider.

"What! higher still? Well! how will that do for you?"

This nonchalance made the headsman perfectly furious. He had no opportunity of reveling in the mental agony of his foe, for, even on the very threshold of death, Valentine only bantered him. In ordinary times it was not in Valentine's nature to behave thus, but now a feeling of mad disdain had come over him, whereby he expressed the utter scorn he felt for all his enemies.

"Now, master headsman, pray don't keep me waiting."

Rage filled Henry's heart, and rage is a bad marksman. He raised his sword, and the blow fell just where the hair on Valentine's head was coiled in its thickest folds. The false blow made Catsrider lose his balance. He stumbled, fell sprawling, and struck his head so hard against the corner of the coffin intended for Valentine that he remained lying there senseless.

The mob raised a fearful howl when, after the blow had descended, they saw the delinquent spring up while the executioner lay prone on the ground.

"Let him go free!" cried some; "when the headsman misses his blow the delinquent should be reprieved." Others, however, were for the headsman's apprentices taking up the sword and completing the sentence.

During this uproar Valentine looked down from the lofty scaffold. He saw the excitement of his enemies on the dais, and heard them cry:

"Down with him!"

He saw a desperate woman attempting to force her way through the crowd, and recognized in her his mother. He threw a glance at his slain beloved, and then an idea suddenly flashed through his brain.

"Hither, Valentine, hither!" It was the voice of Simplex.

Valentine sprang down from the scaffold among the crowd.

"After him, seize him!" cried the members of the town council to the drabants surrounding the scaffold.

The throng was very dense. Each man pressed hard upon his neighbor. But when Valentine broke through, a path was made for him which closed immediately on his pursuers. Not one of the crowd laid hands on him. Simplex and his comrades covered his flight.

He escaped from the crowd, and ran along the street with his pursuers hot upon his heels, headed by the superrector with his gold-headed stick of office raised aloft, the headsman (who had in the meantime recovered) with his drawn sword, and the drabants with their halberts.

At the end of the street Valentine found an open door, through which he darted. This door closed behind him, and when the pursuers came up and loudly demanded admission, it suddenly reopened and out stepped the Prior of the Jesuits, Father Hieronymus, with the charter in his hand. They could tell it by the long pendant seals.

"Be off!" cried he, "this house is an asylum!"

It was the cloister of the Jesuits. The secular authorities were debarred from crossing the threshold by their own charter.

So wondrously fulfilled was the prophecy of the prior, that the seed which Valentine had sown when he subscribed this document would one day turn out to his advantage.

When, however, they brought the news to Dame Sarah that her son had fled to the cloister of the Jesuits, and now remained beneath their protection, the poor lady was quite overcome and said:

"Would that he had rather died by the side of his Michal!"