Pretty Michal Part 38

At last the superrector turned to him and asked him for his opinion.

"Well, if you want to know what I think," began Kalondai, "let me tell you that I do not agree with either opinion. Judging the case on its merits, I think the Theiss counties ought not to have been ceded to Ferdinand till he had fulfilled his obligation of a.s.sisting George Rakoczy against Poland, which he has not done. But on the other hand, neither has the Sultan any right to dispose of the free city of Ka.s.sa; such right belongs to the Estates of the Realm alone.

So again, Rakoczy can only be deposed by the Estates of Transylvania, and if they wish Baresai for their Prince they alone can elect him. My opinion, therefore, is that neither Walloon hors.e.m.e.n nor Turkish _Spahis_ be allowed to enter here, but we must close the city gates, and, if need be, oppose force to force as our fathers have done. If the council wish it so, I'll stake my head upon the issue, and G.o.d shall judge betwixt us."

But Mr. Zwirina was by no means enamored of so adventurous a policy, and he so dexterously strung together the evil consequences which would accrue to the town from such obstinacy--to wit, bombardments with red-hot bullets, loss of life, famine, plague, conflagrations, bankruptcy of the merchants, ruin of the guilds, storms, capitulations, wholesale blackmailing, nay, even the wresting of the churches from the hands of the Protestants--that when it came to voting, the majority of the council decided that the town ought rather to conform to the will of the Prince by submitting to the change, than come to loggerheads with the Kaiser and the Sultan at the same time; and that the Walloons should be allowed to enter, especially as they were, after all, the soldiers of the King of Hungary.

No sooner had this resolution been adopted than Count Hommonai took the golden key of the town from his neck and threw it on the table, saying that from henceforth he no longer regarded himself as commandant, and would discharge his troops forthwith. He would now, he said, retire to his estates to shoot stags and plant cabbages.

"If you go, I go too," said Valentine Kalondai. "I also lay down the sheriff's staff on the table; let a better man bear it!"

And so saying, he placed the gold-headed Spanish cane on the table, and rose from his seat. It must certainly have been his guardian angel that gave him the idea of resignation at that moment, for he thereby averted the point of the sword that was actually suspended over his head.

But now he was suddenly a.s.sailed on all sides. His friends, his enemies also (especially the latter), begged and prayed him to remain. Most earnestly of all Mr. Zwirina implored him not to forsake the town at such a crisis. Was he not so very much wiser than they all? Without him the concord of the town would become sheer anarchy; it was just at such times as these that they needed a strong hand like his to guide them, for where could they find such another? At last they attacked him on his weak point. It was cowardice, they said, to hide his head just as danger was approaching. They pestered him so long that at last the voice of ambition drowned the suggestion of his good angel; but it is only fair to say that his love for his native place, and his sense of duty, also, contributed not a little thereto. He allowed them to lead him back to his place, for which complacency he received a loud _vivat_. They even wished to lift him up in the air, chair and all, as upon the occasion of his election, but he motioned to them not to do so.

Then Count Hommonai withdrew from the council-chamber; he had no longer any business there.

Valentine Kalondai declared, however, that he would only hold office till the new order of things had been established; then they must elect them a new sheriff in his place.

After this weighty matter had thus been satisfactorily settled, the recorder and the fiscal procurator brought in sundry official doc.u.ments, which only needed the signature of the sheriff, the council having already pa.s.sed them; they were urgent criminal cases, in which every delay would be cruel. In all penal matters a swift execution is merciful. Not till all this business had been disposed of could Valentine quit the council-chamber.

The first doc.u.ment presented for his signature was a death-warrant.

It was the first sentence of death he had ever signed; his heart beat violently.

To kill a man in the battlefield, in the heat of the combat; to manfully grapple with a man who is already mowing his way through the ranks, sword in hand, first bidding him defend himself or surrender; to cut down with a strong hand and dash to pieces a man who breaks into the land as an enemy, and ravages it like a wild beast--all that he had often and cheerfully done, as became a soldier. But to sit in a soft armchair and kill a man in cold blood, a man in fetters who cannot fly, who cannot defend himself; a man of the same town as yourself, a fellow-citizen, perhaps an acquaintance, who, pale with mortal agony, begs you for mercy; to kill such a man by breaking the staff of office over him--in such a thing as that he was quite a novice.

He asked what crime this man had committed.

"He has killed his wife."

A terrible crime!

"He killed his wife, and she, too, big with child."

A horrible, unnatural crime. Such a wound as that none but the headsman can heal.

The headsman! He had not thought of that on the day of his triumph, when he had visited every church, and prayed before every altar, "G.o.d preserve this n.o.ble city from the misfortune of requiring the headsman to come hither to execute justice before the year is out!"

That will, indeed, be a painful meeting when Valentine Kalondai and Henry Catsrider meet each other in the narrow path leading to the scaffold, the one as the judge of wretched criminals, the other as the torturer, the executioner of the condemned felons!

How will he be able to look that man in the face?

He would not submit to the inevitable. He requested that the charge brought against the accused should be laid before him. A sheriff cannot sign a death-warrant before he has heard the defense of the accused.

The conrector, acting as secretary, then recited to him both the accusation and the defense. A militiaman--Valentine knew him very well, for he was a butcher's apprentice--came home drunk one night from patrolling. His wife began scolding him, and he furiously drew his sword and aimed a blow at her. He only meant to hit her with the flat of the blade, but the devil jogged his hand, and the point went right through her heart. She died. The murderer gave himself up immediately the deed was done. He repented of his crime, and himself demanded death as his punishment.

"Then he did this dreadful deed when he was in liquor and is now sorry for it?" said Valentine, by way of extenuation.

"Yes, and that is certainly a reason for mitigating the punishment,"

replied the superrector. "Just for that very reason he has only been condemned to be beheaded, otherwise he would have been quartered alive for his b.l.o.o.d.y deed."

"Has he any children?" asked the sheriff.

"Seven," replied the conrector.

"He leaves behind him seven orphans," sighed Valentine, "seven innocent orphans, who will be forever branded as the children of the man who died beneath the hand of the headsman!"

"So it is!" answered the cold and grim superrector; "seven will be branded with infamy for the crime of one. But if we were to pardon him, all the inhabitants of Ka.s.sa would be branded for all time."

"I don't ask you to pardon him. Lifelong imprisonment in the treadmill of the civic reservoir, with the sting of conscience in his heart, would be a still greater punishment for him than death."

"Pray don't let us have any mawkish sentiment, good Master Sheriff!

If we don't kill, people will kill us. If we pardon the evil-doers we shall leave the good defenseless. This hard-mouthed people requires an example which shall strike its eyes and so frighten it.

If we pardon one malefactor, a hundred others will spring up. It is a sad duty, no doubt, but it is a duty none the less, and must be done."

The cold sweat started out on Valentine's forehead like the morning dew on a flower-bed, as he dipped the pen into the inkhorn, and his large powerful hand trembled so much as he wrote his name under the warrant that his signature, ordinarily so bold and energetic, was now scarcely legible.

"Are there any more arrears?"

"One more sentence, only one, a 'harum palczarum.'"

We must linger a little on these words in order to find out what they mean. Both of the German chroniclers whom we here follow write "harum pallizarum," possibly a corrupt contraction with Latin terminations of the Hungarian expression "harom palczara," _i. e._, "with three staves." But what is the meaning of the expression? In the annals of the Debreczin town council we find this peculiar punishment (reserved for witches found guilty of pimping and seduction) very plainly described. The Debreczin chronicle says, "let them be crowned with three staves!" The German chronicler adds it was very seldom that anyone survived this punishment. The head of the condemned was pressed between three staves, and then the executioner slowly screwed them together, thereby causing the felons truly infernal torments. Very often they swooned away, and then they were beaten with bunches of thorn till they came to again.

This was the horrible sentence which Valentine Kalondai had now to sign.

When he read the name of the condemned, he fancied the whole house was sinking with him.

"Red Barbara!"

Sparks and rings of fire danced before his eyes.

That _she_ should have fallen into _his_ hands!

"Examine the doc.u.ments, Master Sheriff; the case will interest you!"

said the conrector.

Valentine Kalondai read.

It was indeed a h.e.l.lish message which these doc.u.ments conveyed.

The confessions of the imprisoned witch, the charge brought by Valentine's mother, the testimony of acquaintances and friends all showed that a detestable plot had been forged against his happiness and honor. The accused denied nothing. She confessed everything at the very first examination. The great and mighty Mr. Zurdoki had sent her to corrupt the wife of Valentine Kalondai. She had intended, by fair means or foul, to have carried Michal off and made her Zurdoki's mistress. She had been paid to do so, and had got everything ready for carrying out this diabolical plan.

But when they had asked by what means she had managed to approach the wife of Valentine Kalondai, and how she had got her to listen to her filthy insinuations, seeing that Michal had recoiled from them with horror, nay, at least, had even fainted away, the accused had simply replied: "I am a witch, I can do everything." Nay, even when they applied the question extraordinary, she stood them out that she had no other help but her own magic power. At last, however, under the extremest torture, she had declared herself the mother of Dame Valentine Kalondai. That was why the latter had allowed her free access to her person. Nay, so far did this woman's impudence go, that she actually maintained that when the sheriff came home, he would be the first to implore the town council to let the mother of his wife go free.

Valentine felt as if the whole world was falling to pieces over his head. And then it was that the maxim occurred to him, that it was just when the universe lies in ruins around him that a true man raises his head most defiantly.

His friends and foes at the green table were watching him with curiosity and concern to see what he would do. Would he quail beneath the blow, and justify the a.s.sertion of the witch by imploring them to do her no harm?

Valentine Kalondai took the pen, dipped it into the inkhorn, and wrote, no longer with a trembling hand, the date and his own name at the bottom of the warrant, underlining the words "with three staves"