"And even if he should seek her," cried Valentine defiantly, "I would not give her up to him though heaven and earth commanded it. I would rather get together a band of robbers and wage war against all humanity, than allow my beloved to be ever torn from me again. Whoever would take my Michal away from me must tear her from my arms on the very scaffold."
And he smote the butt-end of his musket so violently on the ground, that both the witches leaped up to the very ceiling for joy.
But Michal fell upon Valentine's neck and stammered:
"With thee by my side, I'll go forth into the wild forest and face cold and tempest. With thee I'll brave death, yea, damnation itself. I crave no other death than the death by which thou diest. I desire no other eternity, be it bliss or woe, than the eternity which unites our soul in one, my angel, my king, my sun!"
And Simplex thrust his trumpet through the window and sounded a wedding march, which awoke the echoes in the neighboring hills.
CHAPTER XXV.
Man cannot fathom the wiles which witches imagine when they unite in wedlock lovers whom they have clandestinely brought together.
The kopanitschar's wife now brought in the supper, and all five of them straightway sat down and made merry in honor of the festive occasion. This done, the witches began to feel frisky, and called to Simplex to bring out his trumpet into the courtyard and play them a jig. He very complaisantly complied with this request, sat him down on the edge of the well and made music for the ladies, while they, taking each other by the hand, danced a dance which looked for all the world as if they were possessed. Their wooden shoes rattled and clattered, their disheveled tresses floated in the wind, and the terrified bats flitted over their heads. The flames of the headsman's house lit up this dance of witches, and the wild figures, leaping in the blood-red glare, cast long, spasmodic shadows on the whitewashed walls of the inn, just as if Beelzebub himself were leading the frolic.
"Blow, blow, trumpeter!" they cried, and Simplex blew and blew till his breast was nigh to bursting, and yet he was so bewitched that he could not take the trumpet from his mouth, nay! he even felt constrained to drum all the time with both his heels on the sides of the well. If a good, honest Christian had come upon this spectacle unawares, he would have been rooted to the ground with terror.