The fiend having learnt that the Parliament were about to decide upon a case unexampled and disgraceful to humanity, he thought it advisable that Faustus should hear it. The fact was this: a surgeon, returning late one night to Paris with his faithful servant, heard, not far from the highway, the groans and lamentations of a man. His heart led him to the spot, where he found a murderer broken alive upon the wheel, who conjured him, in the name of God, to put an end to his existence. The surgeon shuddered with horror and fright; but recovering himself, he thought whether it would not be possible for
him to reset the bones of this wretch, and preserve his life. He spoke a few words to his servant, took the murderer from the wheel, and laid him gently in the chaise. He then carried him to his house, where he undertook his cure, which he at last accomplished. He had been informed that the Parliament had offered a reward of one hundred louis-d’ors to any one who would discover the person who had taken the assassin from the wheel. He told the murderer of this when he sent him away, and, giving him money, he advised him not to stay in Paris. The very first thing which this monster did was to go to the Parliament and betray his benefactor, for the sake of the hundred louis-d’ors. The cheeks of the judges, which so seldom change colour, became pallid at this denunciation; for he informed them with the greatest effrontery that he was the very assassin, who, having been broken alive upon the place where he had committed the murder, had been saved by the compassion of the surgeon. The latter was sent for; and the Devil conducted Faustus into the hall of judgment exactly at the
moment he appeared. The attorney-general informed the surgeon of what he was accused; but the surgeon, being certain of his servant’s fidelity, stoutly denied the charge. He was advised to confess, because a most convincing witness could be brought against him. He bade them produce him. A side-door opened, and the murderer stepped coolly into the court, and, looking the surgeon full in the face, undauntedly repeated his accusation, without forgetting a single circumstance. The surgeon shrieked, “O monster! what can have urged thee to this horrible ingratitude?”
Murderer. The hundred louis-d’ors, which you told me of when you sent me away. Did you think that I was satisfied with merely recovering the use of my limbs? I was broken alive on the wheel for a murder which I committed for ten crowns, and I was not fool enough to lose gaining a hundred louis without running any risk.
Surgeon. Thou wretch! thy cries and groans touched my heart. I took thee down from the wheel, comforted thee, and bound up thy wounds. I fed thee with mine own hand, till thou couldst
use thy shattered joints. I gave thee money, which thou canst not yet have spent. I discovered to thee, from regard to thy own safety, the reward which had been offered by the Parliament; and I swear to thee, by Heaven above, that if thou hadst told me of thy devilish intention, I would have sold my last rag, and have furnished thee with the sum, in order that so horrible a piece of ingratitude might remain for ever unknown to the world. Gentlemen, judge between me and him; I confess myself guilty.
President. You have grievously offended justice by endeavouring to preserve the life of him whom the law, for the common safety, had condemned to die; but for this once strict justice shall be silent, and humanity only shall sit in judgment. The hundred louis-d’ors shall be yours, and the murderer shall be again broken upon the wheel.
Faustus, who during the whole of this strange trial had been snorting like a madman, gave now such a thundering huzza, that the whole gallery echoed. The Devil, who observed that the last
impression was about to destroy the first, soon led him to another scene.
Some surgeons, doctors of medicine, and naturalists had formed a secret society, for the purpose of inquiring into the mechanism of the human body, and the effect of the soul upon matter. In order to satisfy their curiosity, they inveigled, under all sorts of pretences, poor men and women into a house at some distance from the city, the upper part of which was constructed in such a manner that it was impossible to discover from without what was going forward within. Having tied their victims with strong cords down upon a long table, and having placed a gag in their mouths, they then removed their skin and their flesh, and laid bare their muscles, their nerves, their hearts, and their brains. In order to come at what they sought, they fed the wretches with strengthening broths, and caused them to die slowly under the slashing of their knives and lancets. The Devil knew that they intended this night to assemble, and said to Faustus, “Thou hast seen a surgeon, who, for the sake of humanity,