"Well! How shall I do up my hair?" asked Valentine, sitting down on the little stool, and tying up his locks with the self-same white fillet (it was red now) which Michal had wound round her tresses.
"Will it do so?"
"A little higher!" said Catsrider.
"What! higher still? Well! how will that do for you?"
This nonchalance made the headsman perfectly furious. He had no opportunity of reveling in the mental agony of his foe, for, even on the very threshold of death, Valentine only bantered him. In ordinary times it was not in Valentine's nature to behave thus, but now a feeling of mad disdain had come over him, whereby he expressed the utter scorn he felt for all his enemies.
"Now, master headsman, pray don't keep me waiting."
Rage filled Henry's heart, and rage is a bad marksman. He raised his sword, and the blow fell just where the hair on Valentine's head was coiled in its thickest folds. The false blow made Catsrider lose his balance. He stumbled, fell sprawling, and struck his head so hard against the corner of the coffin intended for Valentine that he remained lying there senseless.
The mob raised a fearful howl when, after the blow had descended, they saw the delinquent spring up while the executioner lay prone on the ground.
"Let him go free!" cried some; "when the headsman misses his blow the delinquent should be reprieved." Others, however, were for the headsman's apprentices taking up the sword and completing the sentence.
During this uproar Valentine looked down from the lofty scaffold. He saw the excitement of his enemies on the dais, and heard them cry: