The waggish crowd pressed upon them from all sides, and while the funeral car with its canopy, its cortége, and its banners surrounded the door, one of the buxom wenches fell upon the neck of the drabant and kissed and hugged him, while a giant raven with a pointed beak forced his tankard on the headsman's assistant, and compelled him to drain it to the dregs, finally bonneting him with the empty tankard.
All this lasted for a single brief instant, but it was quite long enough for the cloister door to open and close again. What had happened in the meantime was known only to the initiated.
Then the fools' procession went on more noisily than ever.
When they arrived at the Miskolcz gate, the superrector Zwirina and his halberdiers barred the way.
"Whither are you going?" said he to the carnival horseman.
Simplex held a quill to his mouth, and squeaked through it in a thin, chirpy, birdlike voice:
"We are going to bury the dead carnival."
But Augustus Zwirina was a knowing man, and he had his suspicions.
"Let me see if this carnival is really dead," said he.
And with that he tore the cover from the face of the figure lying in the coffin.