“He shall stay there until his contumacious spirit is broken. He must be punished until he confesseth.”
“Are you sure that you do not wish to tell where the Bible is?” Everett asked, kindly. But the simple one replied:
“They can keep me in the stocks until I die. I care not. I will not deliver the Sacred Book into their hands.” His lips were white, and the perspiration stood upon his forehead, over which his matted hair hung into his eyes. He tried to raise his hand to his head, but the pain made the effort futile. Everett took one of the simple one’s swollen hands in his and began to chafe the arms, which were numb.
The carpenters soon had their work done, and Karl Weisel ordered Hans Peter back to his place in the stocks.
“Isn’t there something I can do to prevent this outrage?” Everett spoke in a threatening tone. “How can you stoop to such persecution?”
Involuntarily he clinched his hands and drew himself up to his full height. Towering above the men of Zanah, he looked from one to the other, as if undecided which to knock down first.
Karl Weisel took the precaution to leave the platform, and when safe on the ground he answered, tauntingly:
“Thine interference will not be tolerated in Zanah. Thou shalt not defeat the ends of justice.”
“Nay, mind not Hans Peter; the village fool doth not fear those who are called wise in Zanah.” The simple one spoke calmly, and he moved past Everett to the beam upon which he had been sitting.
It occurred to Everett that any violent measures might only cause another method of torture to be devised, and he went into the inn to think about some means by which he could deliver Hans Peter. The day wore away, and late in the afternoon the simple one was still in the stocks. An attempt to discuss the matter with the Herr Doktor had proved fruitless. Everett went to the school-master, and Gerson Brandt told him that protest was useless.