"Is it not true now, my dear son, that a gentleman gave you this letter?" asked the rector, giving the question another turn.
Mekipiros made no reply.
"I'll make you speak!" yelled his chief persecutor with gnashing teeth, and seizing his head between his muscular fists he shook it violently backwards and forwards. "I'll bring you to reason!"
The monster kept on howling so long as his hair was being tugged; his eyes vanished completely, his head seemed to have grown broader than it was long; but when they let his head go again he only grinned derisively and said nothing.
"My son, bethink you that we do not want to do you any harm if you confess everything, but, on the other hand, we shall have to chastise you unmercifully, as you well deserve, if you stubbornly remain silent—who gave you this letter?"
"Speak, you wretched dog! What were you told to say? Who gave you this letter?" hissed the headsman's apprentice in his ear.
"You gave it to me!" cried the wretch defiantly.
"Scoundrel!" thundered the other furiously, at the same time giving the prisoner a kick; "so you want to palm it off upon me, eh? Hie, there!—a rope!" The fellow's face was as white as the wall, perhaps with fear, perhaps with anger. The rector also grew pale for a moment.
"Yes, you put it into my hand and told me that I was to——"
"Hold your tongue, you wretched creature! Here we have a peasant cub just as ragged as anyone of us, and yet he takes it upon himself to ruin his own kith and kin; I caught him in the act of sprinkling a white powder in a well, and the water of that well is still bubbling and boiling from the virulence of the poison, and yet, as you see, he has the face to deny it all."