"May Tuesday evening carry him off!" And then they moved off with the bagpiper at their head singing as they went to the village.
It was a small straggling Wallachian village into which the Lieutenant rode with his comrade. One house was just like another; mud huts with high roofs, projecting rafters, and enclosed within quick set hedges. The doors were so low that one must stoop to enter. Every house consisted of a single room in which the entire family lived, together with hens and goats.
At the entrance to the village was a large triumphal arch of stone, and over the main gate was the torso of a Minerva. In front were figures of a battle finely cut, and underneath an inscription in large letters in Latin: "This town the invincible Trojan had built in memory of his triumph." Behind this were miserable mud huts.
Before a house of mourning on the capital of a fallen Corinthian column sat Prefika, the oldest of the old women of the village, weeping paid tears over the corpse of the young woman on the bier within.
In front of a grass-grown hill was a grand stone building. In former times it might have been a temple erected to the memory of some Roman hero, but now the Wallachian villagers had made it their church, covering the temple with a pointed roof and spoiling the interior with dreadful paintings. For lack of any other public place the Lieutenant called the people together in this church. The setting sun through the round panes, lighted up strangely the interior of this old building with its walls covered from top to bottom with hideous pictures of saints, whom the monstrous fancies of peasant artists had clad in red cloaks and spurred boots. Among the many pictures was the well-known allegory which represents Death dragging off a king, a beggar and a priest. And scattered among the pictures of the saints were those representing devils with tongues outstretched, holding sinners by the hair of the head. Behind the altar stood the village priest and the Lieutenant.
When Clement had read aloud to the people his warrant of authority he called up the village magnate and asked him these questions:
"Are there any wizards or sorcerers among you who can call on the devil for help?"
At this question there was a timid whispering throughout the company, and after a long pause the priest answered:
"In former years, great and good lord, there was a godless reprobate in our midst who had liver spots on his neck and body; since these are sent by the devil, they did not pain him, even if they were burned with hot coals. We sent him before the Council at Weissenburg, and as he could not stand the test of water he was burned to death."