Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 18

"I thought as much!" muttered Gobel to himself; then aloud to his friend, "So that is where you are going is it? Ah, then I will save you the trouble. Being a matter of no importance, you need not be in a hurry. Listen to me; my master has lost certain valuables, and has given orders for the gates of the town to be closed until he has discovered the thief, and has strictly commanded me to arrest any person I might find leaving the town, until his valuables shall have been recovered. I should be sorry to suspect you, but as the law respects the person of no man, it is my painful duty to take you back to the town. Let us have no more cackling or resistance, but come at once."

"But, my dear friend Gobel!" pleaded the veteran, "you surely can't suspect--you will not for one moment imagine--nay, if you have any doubt of my honesty search me. I can a.s.sure it will be useless, I am innocent."

"If you are innocent, you will be proved so in due time, meanwhile I have orders----"

"But, friend Gobel, I a.s.sure you again and again upon my oath that I have taken nothing. There--look--search me all over, if you will, and let me go in peace. Is not my character enough? Am I not well known in ----dorf? Have I ever been known to touch my neighbour's goods? Pray satisfy yourself that I have taken nothing, and let me go. Why trouble yourself to bring back a man to the town to be searched whom you know to be innocent. Besides, it will upset my plan. I wouldn't miss my little gossip with young Leo for all the world just at this moment. Just consider, my friend----"

"Cease your cackling and come along with me!" shouted Gobel, seizing him by the collar and dragging him forcibly back towards the town.

"But--but----" stammered the astonished and terrified old man.

"But me no buts, but do my bidding instantly, Sir Driveller, or it will be the worse for you."

So saying, he dragged his old friend home again at a hurried pace, regardless of his tottering limbs and of his prayers and entreaties.

It was just mid day, and the sun shone hot, when Gobel returned to the township, perspiring at every pore, and deposited his charge, more dead than alive, within the walls of ----dorf. He then retraced his steps under the broiling sun, cursing and swearing as he went at his plan having been so nearly frustrated by the cackling gossip of an old dotard.

"_Potz--Himmel, Donnerwetter, Schock, Schwerer, Noth, noch mal!_" he muttered to himself. "A pretty obstacle in my path! _Tausend Teufel!_ I had a mind to dash his brains out on the spot, the old idiot, for his drivelling."

With these and such like elaborately strung together oaths the servant of the burgomaster beguiled the time, until at length he arrived at the door of the Scharfrichter's house, where he discovered young Leo at work in his garden. The young executioner looked up at the sound of stranger footsteps, and though he would rather the visitor had been anyone else than his rival, yet upon the whole he was not displeased to see a human face after so long. His manner even warmed towards his visitor when he saw him advance with a smile on his face and an extended hand.

"Leo," began Heinrich Gobel with feigned friendship, "we have long been enemies, but everything has an end. I have now come to offer you my hand in friendship, for henceforth we are no longer rivals, but friends.

Lieschen, think of her no more. Her father positively refuses to give her to either of us, so she has at length plighted her troth to another man."

"What! Lieschen? Impossible!" cried Leo, mopping his forehead.

"Ay, my friend, it is too true; nay, pray calm yourself. I, too, loved her as you did, but since the matter has turned out thus, I have made up my mind to console myself by paying my addresses to another as soon as possible."

"You never _could_ have loved her as I loved her," gasped out Leo, as he staggered for support against the garden wall.

"Well, well, my friend, I knew you would feel the blow, but calm yourself and dismiss these gloomy thoughts. I have better news than that in store for you."

"What care I for news now that _she_ has deserted me?" groaned Leo distractedly.

"Come, come now, let me comfort you a little," said Gobel. "What do you think? _The murderer of your father has been discovered!_"

"What do I hear? Caught? Safe?"

"Ay, the murder has been proved, and the murderer condemned to die by the sword. The execution has been fixed for the day after to-morrow. It will take place at daybreak as usual, and you will have the satisfaction of taking vengeance on your father's murderer with your own hands. You will wield your father's sword for the first time in your life before an admiring crowd. Think of that."

"Vengeance at last!" cried the young headsman, with flushed face and distorted features. "Vengeance at last! Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!"

"Bravo, old friend!" cried Gobel, slapping his heartily detested rival on the shoulder in the friendliest manner possible. "I knew you would take heart at this piece of news. Come, let us sit down together and console ourselves."

Leo, then entering the house, took from a cupboard a large bottle of schnaps and two gla.s.ses. The two companions, seating themselves, began to drink deeply and to chat incessantly, the subject of the discourse being the particulars of the murder according to the version of Gobel.

We need hardly say that the whole was a fabrication of Heinrich's own brain. At length the servant of the burgomaster rose to take his departure, and having enjoined his rival to be of good cheer, bent his steps again towards the township, chuckling by the way at his own devices. Arrived at the gates of the town, he showed his pa.s.s, and was permitted to enter without let or hindrance. Hurrying through the streets until he reached the burgomaster's house, he presented himself before that worthy, whom he found seated at a table before a plate of sausage, and in the act of draining to the dregs an enormous tankard of beer.

"Well, what news?" asked his master.

"Oh! the very best; he took the bait greedily. It was quite a pleasure to see how he enjoyed the news. No one had been before me, so I had him all to myself. The matter will now go off as smoothly as could be desired; but, by the saints! I had a narrow escape of failure."

"Indeed! How was that?"

"When I was nearly half way to the Scharfrichter's house, who should I see just ahead of me but that cursed old gossip, Gustav Meyer. I stopped him and asked him where he was going. _Potztausend!_ what a chatterbox!

I thought I should not get an answer out of him before nightfall, and when I did, where do you think he _was_ going? Why, straight to the house of the Henker to have a quiet chat with young Leo upon the subject of the murder, and reveal to him all that I had taken such pains to keep secret. He seemed delighted at the idea of being the first to deliver the news."

The burgomaster laughed heartily.

"Well, what did you do?" said he, at length.

"What did I do! I told him his presence was particularly wanted at the township, and seizing him by the collar, dragged him all the way back again, regardless of his cackling. I informed him that you had lost some valuables, and had given me orders to arrest anyone leaving the town on suspicion. He was indignant at the charge. Protested, declared his innocence, and spoke of the high character he had always borne in the town, etc., etc. He seemed in despair at being deprived of his little gossip with the Henker's son, and begged and entreated me to let him have it out quietly; but, deaf to all his chattering, I dragged him home again in spite of himself, and lodged him safely within the gates of the town. _Donner und Blitzen!_ but it was enough to raise the bile of a saint to listen to the wanderings of that antique driveller, to say nothing of having one's plan so nearly frustrated; by such a worm as that too!"

Here and again the burgomaster burst into a loud laugh, in which Gobel, in spite of himself, joined.

"Ah," said he, at length recovering himself, "there is one thing yet to be done. I must go to the jailor of the prison with private orders from you to prevent the prisoner having an interview with his son, should he ask for one. This accomplished, there will be no more difficulty."

"Ah, yes," said the burgomaster, "it would be as well. But what an interest you seem to take in this case, Heinrich! One would imagine that you had a private grudge against the prisoner."

"I like to see things well done," was the reply, and the servant shortly after left the presence of his master.

A great sensation was caused in ----dorf when it was given out that the execution had been hurried on a week, and much speculation arose as to what could have been the burgomaster's motive. Half the town already knew by the tongue of old Gustav of his having been arrested by the servant of the burgomaster on suspicion of having robbed his master of certain valuables just at the very time when he (Gustav) was contemplating the pleasure he would have in being the first to communicate the melancholy tidings of the murder to the young headsman.

They therefore concluded that Leo must still be in ignorance of the real state of the case. The other half of ----dorf, however, never gave a thought as to whether he knew it or not; enough for them that someone was going to be beheaded and that they should have a spectacle to vary the monotony of their humdrum lives.

At length the fatal day arrived. The gates of the town were thrown open (for the servant of the burgomaster gave out that the thief had been discovered and the valuables regained), and now all ----dorf was in an uproar, while crowds of peasants from all the surrounding villages flocked to witness the b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle.

The scaffold, or the mound of earth which was to serve as such, had been erected half way between the township and the house of the executioner, and was already surrounded by a file of soldiers, around which thronged the mob so closely that they were every now and then repulsed by the military. From the sea of human heads that inundated the place of execution resounded a hum of voices, in which salutations, sallies, bad language, coa.r.s.e jokes, and coa.r.s.er laughter, together with murmurs and imprecations, and an occasional scream from the women when the crowd pressed too closely, were confusedly mingled, and resembled at a little distance the bleating of an immense flock of sheep. Cla.s.ses of all sorts were jostled together, from the lowest grade of handwerksbursch to the university student. There were pretty peasant girls in their holiday costumes, and st.u.r.dy peasants from all parts of the country. There were Jew hawkers, sharpers, pickpockets, ruffianly bullies, cripples, and mendicants. There were mothers with young children in their arms, which latter contributed their feeble cries to the general buzz.

All had turned out to feast their eyes upon the death of a fellow mortal. Nor was this an ordinary execution like that described in an earlier part of this story. No; this was an exceptional case--something out of the common way, a sublimer spectacle.

In this case the condemned was no obscure handwerksbursch, of whose career the mult.i.tude knew nothing, and cared as little about. The criminal was no less a man than Franz Wenzel, the far-famed Scharfrichter, who had amputated the heads of "poor sinners" for the last thirty or forty years, and was now doomed to lose his own.

The interest in the case was considerably heightened when it was known that the veteran executioner was to be operated upon by the hands of his own son. Then the facts of the murder were so strange, so unnatural.

Fancy the cunning of that hardened old sinner, the ex-headsman, who, according to his own confession, made in prison the day before the execution, had waylaid, robbed, and murdered the innocent Count of Waffenburg, a scion of one of the most wealthy and respected n.o.ble families for miles round, disguised as a Capuchin friar, and in order to conceal the ident.i.ty of the murdered man, had dissevered the head of the corpse, which he had endeavoured to hide for ever from the eye of man by throwing it into the trunk of a hollow chestnut tree. Then having stripped the corpse of its clothes, and afterwards having stripped himself of his outer garments, he dressed up the corpse of his victim in his own well known crimson-coloured doublet and hose, thereby conveying the idea to the public mind that the corpse found was his own, after which, returning to his house close by, having again donned the friar's habit, he deposited the sword usually set apart for the beheading of criminals, and in this case used for amputating the head of the murdered count, and wiping it well, he lighted a fire on his hearth where he burned one by one the habiliments of his victim. He then left his house a second time, still disguised as a friar and laden with his ill-gotten treasure, pa.s.sed once more the scene of the murder and wandered all night in the direction of ----. How strange the evidence, too, that convicted him, the theft of the bottle of hair dye, the remarkable patch on his amice. Every particular of the murder had an indescribable interest in the minds of the populace of ----dorf and its surrounding villages. No wonder the adjacent townships vomited forth their sc.u.m of the curious, idle, and depraved! This was a sight not to be missed on any account, and would furnish them with gossip for the next six months at least. At length, when the long streaky rose-tipped clouds announced the approach of the fatal hour, the crowd burst out simultaneously into a cry of "He comes! he comes! the Henker comes!"

The crowd made room for a young man in a cart, who, having thrown the reins on the horse's neck, pa.s.sed through the file of soldiers and mounted the hillock of earth, armed with the two-handed weapon that he was about to use for the first time in his life.

"Look!" said one of the crowd; "it _is_ young Leo, after all. I thought they had found a subst.i.tute."

"What a hard-hearted young ruffian to consent to take the life of his father with his own hands!" said another.

"And he doesn't seem to feel it a bit," said a third; "why, he is actually smiling."

"Some folks say that he does not know who it is that he is going to behead," said a fourth.

"Not know that the criminal is his father?" exclaimed the former speaker. "Nonsense, I don't believe it."

The young headsman was attired in a buff leather jerkin slashed with red and hose of a dark green. He appeared about two-and-twenty, and was as yet beardless. He was considerably taller than his father, but his frame, though powerfully built, was devoid of that excessive and almost preternatural muscular development that characterised that of the old executioner. His hair was of a reddish brown, his complexion florid, his eyes light blue, and his features, though somewhat coa.r.s.e, had something in them not altogether disagreeable. He leaned firmly on his sword and gazed around calmly on the crowd, when suddenly the human sea became violently agitated and began to groan and hiss in its fury.