Sidonia, the Sorceress Volume Ii Part 24

"Give her shoulder as good a wrench as ye gave mine, and she will soon confess, I warrant."

But behold, when the executioner, by desire of the upright Jobst, had bound her fast with wet cords, in order soon to make an end of her, and lit the pile up round about, the flames were still blown away from the stake by the wind, and would not touch the hag, so that many saw in it a miracle of Satan, and wondered, till an old peasant stepped forth from the crowd, and cried, "Ha, ha, I will soon settle her." Then seizing her crutch, which she had dropped at the foot of the pile, he stepped up the ladder, and pitched off her black cap with his stick, whereupon a black raven flew out, with loud croakings, and disappeared towards the north, and instantly after the flames blazed up around her, covering her all over like a yellow mantle, with such rapidity that the people only heard her shriek once.

CHAPTER XXIII.

_How Diliana Bork and George Putkammer are at length betrothed--Item, how Sidonia is degraded from her conventual dignities and carried to the witches' tower of Saatzig in chains._

When Jobst returned home to Saatzig from the execution, he seemed much disturbed in his mind, which was unusual to him, and sat by the stove plunged in deep thought. At length he calls his little daughter Diliana from the spinning wheel where she sat.

"Ah, the Prince had set his life in great peril, but more than the Prince himself did she, his little daughter, plague him by showing herself so cold to the brave young knight. She ought to leave off this prudery, else he feared by the next time the sun was in the propitious position, that his Highness would send for her again to question the devil--there was nothing such a fanatic would not do; but if she would only press her arm now, and bid the young knight come. Where could she meet with a braver husband?"

At this the young maiden blushed up to her very eyes, and asked earnestly--

"Father, think you the good knight stays away because I have not summoned him?"

_Ille_.--"Of course, my child. Thou forbadst him to approach thee until summoned; and now where could be a greater proof of his love than in having obeyed thee?"

_Haec_.--"Ah me, I have wondered so, father, why he never sought me. I never meant that; you surely misunderstood me. But, father, if you wish--shall I summon him by the magnetic sign?"

_Ille_ nods his head, laughing.

Whereupon Diliana, blushing yet more, pressed her arm, and feeling a pressure in return almost immediately, pushed up her sleeve, set the magic box thereon, and with her golden breastpin directed the magnetic needle to the letters--

C--O--M--E---D--E--A--R--E--S--T.

Whilst my Jobst looked over her shoulder, so that his long grey beard fell upon her neck, and when he read the letters he embraced and kissed her, telling her that a better kisser would soon come and save him the trouble--meaning the knight; and truly scarce half-an-hour had pa.s.sed, when the cloud of dust could be seen through the trees, which was raised as he rode along, and, panting and agitated, he sprang into the room, exclaiming to my Jobst--"Where is Diliana?" But she sits mute in the corner, red as a rose, and looks down upon the ground.

So my Jobst laughed, and pointed to the blushing rose in the corner, whereupon the young knight, George, in a moment is by her side, and had her hand in his, and asks--

"If his loved Rachel will not end his weary years of serving now, and be his for evermore?"

"Yes," she murmured through her soft tears. "I will be yours now for evermore;" and she extended her two arms towards him.

Marry, how soon my young knight took the trouble off the old father; so that Jobst danced for joy at the sight, and clapped his hands, and swore that such a wedding should be held at Saatzig, that people would talk about it for fifty years.

But, alas! the wedding must wait for a year and a day! for, in two days the young knight is laid upon a sick bed, and brought so low that at one time his life was despaired of. However, he comforted himself by pressing his wounded arm three times a day, and thus corresponding with his betrothed by means of the magnet. So they told their grief and their love to each other daily in these few words. And many think that his sickness was a devil's work of Sidonia, or of old Wolde's planning; but he himself rather judged it arose from the wild ride to his young bride on the morning she bade him come. This matter, therefore, I leave undecided.

Yet no one can surely fathom all the cunning wiles of Satan; for though many said Sidonia's power is now broken by Wolde's death, and indeed the poor sheriff was the only one who still played the hare, and kept the roaring ox safe up in the stall--still, so strange a thing happened at this time to the knight, Ewald von Mellenthin, that the criminal court thought proper to take cognisance of the matter, and so we find it noted down in the records of the trial. For, mark! This same knight, being summoned to give evidence, deposed to Sidonia having in his presence flung a hatchet at his dear bride, Ambrosia von Guntersberg, who had been now a long while his well-beloved spouse, which hatchet had wounded her in the foot. Then turning to the hag, he exclaimed wrathfully--

"Ha! thou devil's witch, hast thou found thy recompense at last?"

Whereupon Sidonia made a face at him after her fashion, and menaced him with the vengeance of her friends.

But what friend had she but Satan, who avenged her on this wise.

For, as some days after, the knight Ewald was driving with his cousin Detloff, between Schlotenitz and Sch.e.l.lin, such an awful roaring, and raging, and storming was heard in the air over their heads, that the two foremost horses took fright, broke their traces, threw the coachman, who was nearly killed, and dashed off across the field through thick and thin, and never stopped till they reached Stargard, trembling, panting, and exhausted, about evening time.

The knight laid all this evidence before the criminal commission, and my hare grew so frightened thereupon, that next day, while listening to the depositions of more witnesses, seeing a shadow hop along his paper, he started up in horror, screaming, "There are the toad-shadows again! O G.o.d, keep me! There are the toad-shadows again!" But the special commissioner, who had also observed the shadow, and got up to look out at the window, now called out, laughing heartily, "Marry, good Sparling, the shadow belongs to one of your worship's brothers--a poor little sparrow, who is hopping there on the house-top. Go out and see, if you don't believe me." Whereupon the whole court burst out into a loud fit of laughter, to the great annoyance of my hare.

Whilst Ludecke is drawing up his _articulus inquisitionalis_, Sidonia's advocate, Dr. Elias Pauli, was not idle. And first he stirred up the whole race of the Borks in her favour, letting it come to the Duke's ears through his grand chamberlain, Matzke Bork, that if Sidonia were treated with gentleness, and thereby brought to make confession, a.s.suredly there was great hope that for this grace and indulgence she would untie the magic knots of the girdle wherewith she had bewitched the whole princely race, and laid the spell of barrenness upon them. But if extreme measures were resorted to, never would she do this for his Highness.

So the Duke was half moved to consent, and bade his superintendent, Mag. Reutzius, come to him, and he should instantly repair to Marienfliess, visit the sorceress in her apartment, where she was _bis dato_, guarded a close prisoner. Let him read out the seventy-four articles of the indictment to her himself, admonish her to confess, and in his (the Duke's) name, offer her pardon if she would untie the knots of the girdle. Did she refuse, however, let her be brought the following Sunday to the convent-chapel, there, in the presence of the whole congregation, before the altar he was again to admonish her. If she still persisted in her lies and wickedness, then let him summon the executioner to strip her of her cloister habit before the eyes of all the people. When he had further p.r.o.nounced her degradation from all her conventual dignities, she was to be put in fetters and carried to the witches' tower at Saatzig.

My worthy father-in-law offered many objections against this public degradation, but his Highness was resolved, and would listen to no reasons, his wrath was so great against the hag.

Now it may be easily conjectured what crowds of people gathered in the chapel when the blessed Sabbath bell rang, and the news ran from mouth to mouth, that the witch was to be denounced and degraded that day before the altar. Never had so many folk been seen within the walls. And when the church was so full that not a soul more could squeeze in at the doors, the people broke in the windows, and setting ladders against them, clambered through, and swung themselves right and left on the bal.u.s.trades, and above and below, and on all sides, there was not a spot without a human face. Yea, four younkers crowded under the baldaquin of the pulpit, and another carl got on the altar behind the crucifix, and would have knocked it down, but my worthy father-in-law, seeing it shake, caught hold of the carl by the tail of his coat, and dragged him forth. _Item_, the whole criminal commission is present; _item_, all the nuns in their gallery, with the exception of the sub-prioress, Dorothea Stettin, who, along with two other women, had devoted themselves to a fearful act of vengeance (which I would hardly have believed of them), but it will be related presently.

As to Sidonia, she had been brought in already, and placed on the penitential stool before the altar, after which the organ struck up that terrible hymn,

"Eternity, thou thunder word!"

Yet, as it happened that the congregation had not got this hymn in their Psalm-books, seeing that it was quite a new one (which circ.u.mstance had been overlooked in the general agitation), they were obliged to sing that other, beginning,

"Now the awful hour has come."

Then the reverend priest, M. Reutzius, advanced to the altar, having first chanted the litany, and there, to obey the Duke's behests as nearly as possible, opened his sermon with some verses from the afore-mentioned hymn, which I shall set down here for the sake of the curious reader:--

"Eternity, thou thunder word!

Piercing the soul like sharpest sword, Beginning without ending!

Eternity! Time without Time, I know not in my grief and crime Whereto my soul is tending.

The fainting heart recoils in fear To see thy shadow drawing near.

In all the world there is no grief To which Time brings not some relief, Though sorrow wildest rages; But thou, Eternity, can bring No balm to lessen h.e.l.l's fierce sting, Through never-ending ages.

For even Christ Himself hath said, 'There's no repentance for the dead.'

So long as G.o.d in Heaven reigns, So long shall last the sinner's pains, In h.e.l.l's fierce tortures lying.

Eternal fires will plague the soul, Thirst, hunger, horror, fear, and dole, The soul itself undying.

For h.e.l.l's dark shades will never flee, Till G.o.d Himself hath ceased to be!"

After which he read out the words of his text to the criminal, telling her how his Serene Highness had selected the same himself out of paternal clemency and in all uprightness. Then he explained it, admonishing her yet once more to save her poor soul and not plunge it into eternal perdition. After this, he kneeled down along with the whole congregation, and prayed to the Holy Spirit for her conversion, so that every one in the church wept and trembled and sobbed. Then he rose up again and spake: "I ask you, for the last time, Sidonia von Bork, do you confess yourself guilty or not?"

And while every one held their breath suspended, the terrible sorceress rose up and spake out with bold defiance--

"I am innocent. Curse upon the bloodthirsty Prince, who has brought me to this shame; my blood be upon him and upon his race!"

"No!" cried the priest from the altar; "he hath saved his soul; thy blood be upon thyself, and thy perdition upon thine own head!"

Then he lifted his right hand as a signal to the executioner, whereupon Master Worger stepped forward in his red mantle with six a.s.sistants. And first he draws forth a pair of scissors from beneath his cloak, and cuts off her nun's veil (for by command of the criminal judge, she had only a simple veil on to-day), and he and his a.s.sistants trampled it beneath their feet. Then he cuts a slit in her black robe, just beneath the chin, and tore it down from head to foot, as a draper tears linen, and at this sight, and the harsh sound in the silence of the church, many amongst the nuns fainted. When all this had been done, and Sidonia now stood there in her white under-garment, Master Worger, by command of the court, put fetters on her, and riveted them tightly. So that at the terrible sound of the hammering and clanking, and the thundering reverberation through the vaulted church, so great a horror and fear fell upon every one present, that all the nuns who had not fainted rushed out of the gallery; _item_, a crowd of people from the nave, and even the priest holding his hands before his eyes, hastened after them.

She was soon lifted up by the executioner and his a.s.sistants, and thrown into the cart over which the red flag waved; then driven off without delay to Saatzig, a great crowd of people trotting along with her. And even in Saatzig the whole town ran together when the cart with the criminal was seen emerging from the wood, and the executioner blew his trumpet to give notice to the warder on the tower of their approach, as had been agreed upon.

Amongst the crowd, however, my Jobst is not to be seen; yet when the cart stops, the beautiful form of Diliana is seen pressing forward. She is dressed in a deep mourning mantle, and bears a golden beaker of wine in her hand--weeps, and says mildly--

"Here, dear cousin, drink! You shall have everything as good as I can make it for you, and eat what I and my father eat. Ah! cousin, cousin, wherefore did you not make full confession?"

Herewith she reached out the beaker to the cart, but the evil witch screamed out--