“The Fiend take thy words—they burn my heart! Hold or by thy master, the devil, I’ll strike ye to the floor!
“Hark—hear you that hissing sound? His muscular chest is bared to the light, these talon-hands guide the red-hot iron over the warm flesh, with the blood blackening as it oozes from the veins. He writhes—but utters no groan. Now lay down the iron and the lead; seize the knotted club, aloft it whirls, it descends! D’ye see the broken arm bone, protruding from the flesh? Hurl it aloft again, nor heed the sudden struggle and the quick convulsive agony, never heed them—all writhe and struggle so. It grows exciting, Balvardo, it warms me, Hugo.”
Hugo muttered a half-forced syllable, but his parted lips and absent manner, attested his unwilling interest in the words of the Doomsman, while Balvardo, clutching his pike, strode hurriedly to and fro along the floor of stone.
“Again the Doomsman sweeps the club aloft! Crash—crash—crash, and then a sound, not a groan, not a groan, but a howl, a howl of agony!
“Look, Balvardo, look Hugo, you can count the bones as they stick out from each leg, from each arm, from the wrist and from the shoulder, from the ancle and the thigh, never mind the blood—it streams in a torrent from each limb, be sure, but the hot iron dries it up. Your melted lead is good for cautery—it heals—ha, ha, ha, let me laugh—it heals the wound, each blow the club had made. The picture grows—it deepens.”
“Now, by the Heaven above, I see it all—” muttered Balvardo with a dilating eye, as his manner suddenly changed, and he leaned forward with unwilling yet absorbing interest. “This is no man, but a devil’s body with a devil’s soul!”
“His face is yet unscarred—unmoved save by the wrinkling contortions of pain. The mob hoot, and hiss, and yell—the play must deepen. Hand me the iron—red-hot—and hissing—give me the bowl of melted lead, dipped from the boiling cauldron. The Doomsman’s step again!
“The victim’s body creeps, and writhes in every sinew, his veins seem crawling thro’ his carcass, his nerves, turned to things of incarnate pain, are drawn and stretched to the utmost.”
“Look well upon the blue heavens, Parricide, for the red-hot iron is pointed, and—ha, ha, how he howls—it nears your eyes, it glares before them in their last glance. It must be done, why howl you so? Does it burn your eyes, tho’ it touches them not? Ha, ha—I meant it thus.”
“Balvardo, strike him down. He is not human—see his flashing eyes, his arms thrown wildly aside, with the talon-fingers, grasping the air!”