Immediately after the funeral the colonists gathered in the village square for the trial of Stephen Everett. The stocks still stood where they had been erected for the punishment of Hans Peter, and upon the high platform surrounding the culprit’s seat the elders met for the purpose of passing judgment. The prisoner was not brought from the inn until after all the villagers were assembled. He walked from the porch of the gasthaus with a step that showed he was glad to have a chance to make a plea for liberty. An expression of scorn and anger was plainly visible on his handsome face. He had been inclined to accept whatever happened in Zanah as rather an amusing experience, but the events since the morning of the Untersuchung had awakened him to a full sense of what he had at stake. He meant to have Walda at any hazard, but his patience had been exhausted in his tiresome ordeal of imprisonment. His old, careless manner asserted itself when he had ascended the steps to the stocks and had taken a seat upon the great beam in which the simple one’s feet had been fastened.
At the first sight of him some of the villagers gave vent to indignant murmurs, which were quickly quieted.
“This man is accused of being one whom Satan hath sent to Zanah,” announced Karl Weisel. “He hath stolen the affections of her who would have been our prophetess; he hath tempted the Lord’s chosen one with an earthly love. He hath broken his pledge to an elder of the colony. Through his wicked plottings the plans of Zanah are overthrown. He hath lost to the people who serve God the instrument that would have led the people in the paths of pleasantness.”
“He shall be punished!” shouted some of the people.
“Yea; he shall be punished,” agreed the head of the thirteen elders, puffing out his chest and knitting his brows. “He shall be punished; but is there a penalty severe enough for offences such as his?”
“He shall be made to pay a fine,” said Adolph Schneider. “Many thousand dollars would not wipe out the harm he hath done to the crops since we are deprived of the guidance of a prophetess.”
“Cast him out of Zanah!” clamored many voices.
At this point Gerson Brandt advanced from his place at the end of the row of elders.
“Who is fitted to determine the stranger’s punishment?” he asked.
No one answered. With arms folded upon his breast Gerson Brandt waited for a response.