Tales From Jókai

by Mór Jókai

[14] Gradually compressing the skull between three sharp stakes till it burst.

None feared lest his Honour Master Dóronczius should not prove just such a Sheriff as the town desired, for he was a man with no visible flaw, and known to be a righteous, God-fearing man, of whom nobody could say an ill word.

Wherefore, after performing the usual time-honoured ceremony in the churchyard, with great rejoicing and in solemn procession they brought back his Honour into the council chamber of the town hall, where, having set him down in a large velvet easy-chair, four aldermen, seizing the four legs of the said easy-chair, raised it aloft, to the triumphant musical accompaniment of the town trumpeters and the militia drums, while the people present shouted a threefold hurrah. Whereupon the whole town council went in solemn procession to the churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and everywhere sang a Te Deum with great enthusiasm, and after listening to a sermon in Hungarian and a sermon in German, returned to the Sheriff's house to sit down to a great banquet, during which the united choirs, conducted by the precentor, sang all manner of delightful melodies, and towards evening platters of pitch were ignited on the angles of the bastions, and the howitzers also were fired off.

And the city of Caschau felt fully justified on the day of the election of its Sheriff in drinking so many barrels of wine and ditto beer with great rejoicing, because his Honour, Master Dóronczius, was quite capable of so ordering every manner of business and difficulty that nobody had the least cause for anxiety.

Nevertheless, it so happened, late in the evening of the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul (next evening), that a couple of watchmen, Wurmdrucker and Kebluska by name, to whom had been assigned the patrolling of the streets, while strolling round the large building known as the Turkish lock-up house, perceived a figure enwrapped in a black cloak come hastily out of a house, which figure, on perceiving them, suddenly crouched down under the gate as if with the intent of hiding from them.

Now, as they had had strict orders to arrest and lock up for the night in the nearest ward-house every living soul, good or bad, who should be found in the streets without a lamp after the hour for closing the gates, which was proclaimed by a blast of horns from the top of the great tower—every such soul, if a gentleman, to be fined a thaler next morning, or if a poor man, then half a thaler, or if he had nothing, then to be well trounced—the two watchmen determined to seize and stop the night wanderer thus confronting them. Wurmdrucker having a lamp made of some paper-like, compressible membrane, thereupon held it in front of him that he might see the face of the unknown person, while Kebluska stretched his halberd out against him, and cried with a loud voice, "Who's there?" in Hungarian, German, and Slavonic, that he might be able to answer in one at least of the three languages of the town.

But the person so addressed replied in no language at all, but, having a long stick in his hand, knocked the paper lamp out of Wurmdrucker's hand, so that it collapsed altogether, and would have run off then and there had not Kebluska so thrust at him with his halberd that the point thereof went right through his cloak, pinning to the door of the house the would-be fugitive, whom the two watchmen then seized, and tying his hands behind his back, urged him on before them to the ward-house hard by the Turkish prison, and there locked him up in the dark room, where they were wont to keep the ashes.

The imprisoned vagabond would not tell his name, and the watchmen, not having a lamp, could not see his face, but all along he begged and prayed them to let him go free; he would give them ever so much money for his freedom, he said.

At this the watchmen were even more afraid. They fancied they had got hold of some evil spy, and not for any amount of treasure would they have let him out of their hands till morning, hoping to get a still greater reward when they handed him over to the Sheriff. When he promised them a hundred ducats they felt sure that the Sheriff would reward them with two hundred, so in the morning they let out the prisoner in order to take him to the Sheriff, and lo! the prisoner was—the Sheriff himself.

So much for their two hundred ducats. The two watchmen were speechless with terror, they did not know what to say in their sudden amazement. Master Dóronczius said nothing to them, but hastened home, and the same day, under some plausible pretext or other, perchance on a trumped-up charge of brawling or blaspheming, seized and thrust both of them into the prison called after Pontius Pilate, where so long as Master Dóronczius remained Sheriff they might be quite certain they would remain.