“Come, be rational. Stand aside; we do not wish to harm you.”
“Give me my husband.”
Perceiving the futility of arguing with her, the officer was about to give orders to remove her forcibly from the doomed man’s arms when Laurent, who until then had maintained an impassive silence, ventured to interfere.
“See here, Captain, I am the man who killed so many of your men; go ahead and shoot me—that will be all right, especially as I have neither chick nor child in all the world. But this gentleman’s case is different; he is a married man, don’t you see. Come, now, let him go; then you can settle my business as soon as you choose.”
Beside himself with anger, the captain screamed:
“What is all this lingo? Are you trying to make game of me? Come, step out here, some one of you fellows, and take away this woman!”
He had to repeat his order in German, whereon a soldier came forward from the ranks, a short stocky Bavarian, with an enormous head surrounded by a bristling forest of red hair and beard, beneath which all that was to be seen were a pair of big blue eyes and a massive nose. He was besmeared with blood, a hideous spectacle, like nothing so much as some fierce, hairy denizen of the woods, emerging from his cavern and licking his chops, still red with the gore of the victims whose bones he has been crunching.
With a heart-rending cry Henriette repeated:
“Give me my husband, or let me die with him.”
This seemed to cause the cup of the officer’s exasperation to overrun; he thumped himself violently on the chest, declaring that he was no executioner, that he would rather die than harm a hair of an innocent head. There was nothing against her; he would cut off his right hand rather than do her an injury. And then he repeated his order that she be taken away.