Faustus was about to reply, when he saw afar
off a village in a blaze. As every thing uncommon excited his curiosity, he spurred forward his horse, and the Devil followed at his heels. He was soon met by a confused rout of knights and attendants, who had been vanquished by another party, which, however, did not pursue them. When they came nearer to the village, they found the plain strewed with the bodies of men and horses. They saw among the dead a miserable wretch, who, with both his hands, was endeavouring to force back his entrails, which were hanging out of his mangled belly. He howled and cursed frightfully during this horrid operation. Faustus asked him the cause of all this bloodshed. The fellow screamed, “Get to the Devil, Mr. Curiosity; if you saw your inside outmost, as I see mine, you would have no wish to answer questions. If you want to know why they have served me thus, inquire of that noble gentleman, my master, who lies there dead, and whom I have to thank for this treatment.”
They left him, and approached a knight who was wounded in the shoulder, and Faustus put
the same question to him. The knight answered: “A boor belonging to yon burning village killed, some time ago, a stag, the property of the mighty Wildgrave. Thereupon the Wildgrave demanded the culprit of my master, in order that he might be tied upon the back of a stag and run to death, according to the German custom. My master refused to give up the boor; but in order to punish him, seized every thing he possessed, and confiscated it to his own use. The Wildgrave then sent a letter of defiance to my lord, in the name of Heaven, and with the permission of the emperor. We were worsted in the battle, and the Wildgrave has set fire to the village, which he has surrounded with his horsemen, so that the inhabitants cannot escape; for he intends to fulfil the oath which he swore, viz. to roast all the peasants, like Michaelmas geese, for his hounds and wild-boars.”
Faustus (furiously). Where is his castle?
Knight. On yonder eminence; it is the strongest and most magnificent castle in the whole country.
Faustus rode to the top of a hill, and looked down upon the burning village, which lay beneath him in the valley. Mothers with children in their arms, old men, youths, and maidens rushed out, cast themselves at the feet of the horsemen, and begged for mercy. The Wildgrave shouted till the valley reëchoed, “Drive the rabble back; they shall perish in the flames!” The peasants screamed out, again and again: “We are innocent! we are innocent! He who offended you has escaped. What have we and our children done? Ah, spare but them!” The horsemen whipped them up from the ground, and drove them into the fire. The poor mothers flung down their babes, in the hope that they would pity them; but the hoofs of the horses trampled them to death.
Faustus cried deliriously: “Fly, Devil, and return not till thou hast consumed the tyrant’s castle, and all that is therein. When he returns home, let him find retribution.”
The Devil laughed, shook his head, and flew away; whilst Faustus flung himself down beneath a tree, and gazed impatiently upon the castle.
When he beheld it in flames, the madman imagined that he had restored all things to their right order, and received the Devil on his return with the utmost joy. The latter came back in triumph, and boasted of the ruin he had caused; and, pointing to the Wildgrave and his myrmidon, who were scampering towards the castle, he exclaimed: “The vapours of the hellish pool will not, one day, strike him with such horror, O Faustus, as this thy deed: his young and beloved wife was a few days ago delivered of her firstborn.”