"I get small joy from all this," he answered. "Jeanne d'Arc was born to such affairs, but I was better off in my inn, serving my people. It is a bad business," and he was very melancholy.
"What is this you say?"
"I say that I think of my Bertha and my mother. I wish I were with them, while others were reforming Holland."
"But thy mother and thy sweetheart, since they got into the hands of Oberthal, are doubtless dead."
"Then there is little for me to fight for. I shall stop now; do you carry on your schemes as best you may. Who is that prisoner?" he asked, as Oberthal was brought back by the soldiers.
"It is a man who is about to be executed."
"Oh—he is? Who says so, since I say otherwise?" John replied, looking at Zacharia contemptuously. "I am thy Prophet," he declared with hardly less contempt in his tone than before. "I am thy Prophet and settle these matters of life and death. I settle this one. Yonder man shall not die. I am in a humane mood." He motioned the guard to bring Oberthal, whom he had not yet seen, before him. When face to face, John of Leyden lifted his eyes and looked again upon the man who had brought all his woes upon him; who had so persecuted him that he had in a mad moment left his peaceful inn, and undertaken to change the face of Germany. He had already wrought untold pain and suffering.
"Oberthal!" he said, hardly able to speak because of his emotion.
"Ah! thou wilt still treat him tenderly, I doubt not!" Zacharia cried, sneeringly. For a moment John of Leyden could not speak; then he said:
"Leave us!" His tone was awful, yet showed great self-repression.