"Then I appeal to God!" cried the mother, in her bitter agony.
"He's napping!" answered a deep, hollow voice, which seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. It was the headsman who had spoken.
But the dean there and then arose from his place at the green table, and gave the speaker such a buffet in the face that the blood flowed in streams from his mouth and nose.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Things in this world do not always exactly turn out as men devise beforehand.
The Zwirinas had won a complete triumph over the Kalondais. They were amply revenged for the humiliation in the cathedral, for the defeat in the duel. Their wounded pride was satisfied.
The sentence pronounced by the town council was that both the guilty parties should be beheaded, the woman first. Moreover, the headless bodies were not to be buried in the churchyard, but in the churchyard ditch where all the asses of the town browsed on the abundant thistles.
This was an aggravation of the original sentence. But it was a case where a memorable example had to be made. A vile transgressor had intruded himself into the highest office of the town; an infamous woman, living in adultery, had dared to appropriate the foremost pew in the cathedral, thus defiling the most respectable society in the town with her presence, and shamelessly laying claim to honors which did not belong to her. Public opinion was shocked and outraged by such a scandal. It was an offense which death alone could not atone for. It must be pursued even beyond the grave.
Yet the judges had at least so much humanity—they would not let Henry Catsrider execute his own wife. It was enough that the seducer should be made over to him.