Told by the Death's Head Part 43

I had all the money I wanted. The regular doctors became impoverished; for, to me alone would the people apply for help--and I must say the remedies I sold accomplished wonders.

One day, however, a misfortune occurred to me. I was selling my miracle-cures in the market place in Madgeburg as fast as I and my a.s.sistant could hand them out, when some one--a wretch hired by the envious doctors, no doubt--thrust a piece of burning sponge into the ear of my horse. You may guess the result.

The horse ran away, the wagon was upset, and my medicaments scattered in all directions.

My neck was not broken, but what happened was almost as bad. When I came to replace the medicaments in the chest, I found that I could not remember just where each bottle, vial, and box properly belonged.

However, I made a guess of it, and put them back where I thought they ought to be. I made a good many mistakes, though, judging by some of the very peculiar effects the remedies produced after the accident.

The syndic, whose right leg was shorter than the left, sent for me to remedy the defect. I was a little fuddled from having emptied a bottle of good French wine just before I quitted my lodgings; and, instead of rubbing the elongating ointment on the shorter limb, I applied it to the longer one; the consequence of which was: the longer leg increased to such a length that the worthy syndic, when he wanted to sit down, had to perch himself on the buffet, and would b.u.mp his head against the ceiling every step he took. He threatened to shoot me.

A second mischance occurred when I was called to attend the president of the Board of Trade. He had the gout in both feet and could not move without crutches. I had a certain remedy for that fell disease, a remedy so powerful that only a very small portion, about the size of a pea, was required to embrocate an afflicted member. Thinking to hasten the cure, I applied half the contents of a box to each foot, which made the old gentleman so active and nimble, he was forced, for a time, to take the position of runner for the Elector of Brandenburg, because he could not keep his feet still; nor could he sit anywhere but at a loom, where he might stamp his feet continually; and at night, when he wanted to go to sleep he had to be bound to a tread-mill.

Two other wonderfully efficacious remedies were: a wash to force a luxuriant crop of curling hair to grow on a bald head; the other, if applied to toothless jaws, would cause new teeth to appear.

The result of getting these two remedies misplaced was: the tooth-wash was used on the bald head of a man; and the hair-restorative on the toothless jaws of a woman. Instead of hair, two beautiful horns appeared on the man's head; while the woman grew a mustache that would have roused the envy of a drum-major.

But these cases were nothing compared to what happened to the wife of the chief justice. She was afflicted with severe paroxysms of hiccoughing, and I was summoned to relieve her. There was in my chest a remedy for such an attack; but, having been misplaced, I got hold of the wrong box, and administered to the sufferer a dose of pills intended to force obstinate hens to produce eggs. In less than six weeks that unfortunate lady gave birth to seven living children--

"I don't believe it! I don't believe a single word of it!" interrupted the prince, who had almost burst his belt with laughing. "You are asking too much if you expect us to credit such outrageous fables."

Here the chair remarked with great seriousness: "Beg pardon, your highness: but there are authentic records of similar cases. In Hungary, the wife of a Count Miczba.n.u.s gave birth at one time to seven living sons, all of whom lived to grow up."

"She certainly took some of the prisoner's hen pills," laughingly responded his highness.

The prisoner continued:

Naturally mistakes of this sort roused the animosity of the patients; but, none were so enraged as was the burgomaster. His case, indeed, capped the climax! I had two miraculous cures: one would cause to disappear from the human nose pimples, warts and all other disfiguring excrescences; the other would transform silver into gold.

The burgomaster possessed a large silver snuff-box and an exceedingly prominent and highly-colored nose which was covered with unsightly pimples. He sent for me in secret and bade me test the efficacy of the two miracle-cures on his snuff-box and on his nose.

Like some of the other remedies, these two had also changed places, in consequence of which, the burgomaster's nose turned to gold, while the snuff-box vanished as if from the face of the earth.

This cure so amused the prince he could hardly gasp:

"Enough--enough!--no more today! We will hear the rest tomorrow--I am faint with laughing."

The court adjourned until the following day, when the prisoner resumed his confession:

As might be expected, this last mistake of mine caused a dispute to arise. The burgomaster, however, was not so angry because his nose had changed to gold; but nothing would console him for the loss of his snuff-box. He actually accused me of stealing it!

Had the worthy man been versed in the science of chemistry, he would have known that there are substances which absorb, and consume, each other. For instance: _argentum vivum_ will dissipate _aurum_; and _aqua fortis_ will consume silver as will a starving cow barley. This is called _occulta qualitas_.

The citizens of Madgeburg, however, are not clever enough to comprehend matters so transcendental in character. I was summoned to appear before the mayor, who, being father-in-law to a doctor, sentenced me, out of spite, to be flogged in public.

This did not suit me at all, so I said to myself: "Now, friend Behoric, I have been content to occupy your carca.s.s without murmuring, so long as nothing more was required of me than to stuff it with liver-pasties and oysters; but, when it comes to having the hide tickled with a cat-o'-nine tails, then you had better come back into it!"

I was already bound to the pillory and the executioner had bared my back, revealing the marks of former scourging--of which I could remember nothing as they were on Behoric's body.

When the executioner saw that the whip would not be new to my blood-comrade's hide, he sent for a heavier scourge, the ends of which terminated with barbed nails.

"Now, Behoric," I said, "you must take this flogging yourself."

My hands being bound together, I had no difficulty turning the ring on my little finger. I had given it but one turn, when, to my great joy, I found myself in my own body, in my casemate in Ehrenbreitstein fortress; and before me stood his honor, here, with an empty fire-ball in one hand; in the other, what he called the "proofs of my treason."

I guessed at once what my blood-comrade had been doing, what crime he had committed while occupying my body.

The Frenchmen, who are leagued with the Bocksritter, had sent Behoric to the fortress, to take my place, and inform them what was going on in here. When he found that his crime had been discovered by his honor, the mayor, he said to himself: "It is time for Belphegor to return to his body;" and, as it happened, he turned his ring at the same moment I turned the one on my finger.

I can imagine his consternation when he found himself in the pillory in Madgeburg, with his back bared for the scourge; and I have to laugh every time I think of the grimaces he must have made when the barbed nails cut into his scarred hide!

This, your highness, and honorable gentlemen of the court, is the strictly veracious history of my last capital crime.

PART XIV.

THE WHITE DOVE.

The decision of the court at the conclusion of the long trial was as follows:

"Whereas: After hearing all the evidence, it has been found impossible to establish fully the exact nature of twenty-one of the twenty-two crimes, for which the prisoner has been indicted, the court has decided to p.r.o.nounce him guilty of only the twenty-second and last on the register--'Treason.'

"But, as the prisoner avers that this transgression was committed by his blood-comrade, who occupied his, the prisoner's, body at the time the crime was committed; and that his, the prisoner's, _mind_ was not cognizant of the blood-comrade's intentions when the exchange of bodies was effected, the court has decided to acquit the prisoner's mind and commend it to the mercy of G.o.d; and, that it may serve as a lesson to all miscreants who contemplate a similar crime, to sentence the body to death by a merciful shot in the back of the head."

The prisoner thanked the court for its clemency and a.s.sured the honorable gentlemen that he had no desire to postpone the execution of the just sentence.

When he was brought to the place of execution he removed his coat and hat, then requested, as a last favor, that his hands might be left free, and not bound behind his back, as he wished to clasp them on his breast in prayer.

The request was granted. He knelt, and in an audible tone repeated the Lord's Prayer. Then he turned toward the musketeers, who were waiting matches in readiness above the priming-pans, and said earnestly:

"Comrades, I beg you, when you shoot me, try also to kill the raven which is fluttering on my shoulder"--he glanced furtively toward his shoulder and added joyfully: "No! No! it is not the raven--it is my white dove--my precious white dove! She has come to bear my soul to the land wherein she now dwells! My good angel!--My Madus--my only love!"

Twelve musket shots rang out on the silent air, and the white dove soared away with the released soul.

FINISH.