"Judge, let them kill me outright, let me die!"
"Don't be afraid! I'll wake you up again," sneered the headsman, and he tore her gown from her shoulders, so as to give freer play to the lashes of his scourge.
It was just such another purple gown as that in which Michal had once so greatly excited Valentine's admiration, and the recollection of that dress occurred to Henry also.
"Is not this the dress you stole from my wife, you thief, you incendiary?" and again the lash hissed through the air.
"Do you strike me, you hangman? You knacker, you! I'll strike you back now! I'll brand your face so that you will bear the marks about with you to your dying day. You cuckold, you horned beast! You have crowned me, have you! I'll crown you still better. Your wife, your pretty Michal, still lives, and is the mistress of that sheriff yonder! You have two horns on your head, bear them as best you can!"
The headsman's apprentices began to laugh.
Furious with rage at this taunt, the headsman gave the gibbering witch such a blow on the head, with the leaden knob of his scourge, that she never spoke another word on this earth; then, rushing to the edge of the scaffold, he stretched out his arm and pointed his whip at Valentine.
The town-councilors sprang to their feet with a shudder.
Then Valentine said in a calm voice: "It is so—it is true!"
Augustus Zwirina immediately turned toward him and said: "Then, Mr. Valentine Kalondai, the time has come for you to lay down the sheriff's staff!"