Chair: "Decimo octavo, hæresis schisma."
Prisoner: "I have been a quack doctor."
Chair: "Decimo nono, veneficus."
Prisoner: "I betrayed a fortress intrusted to my guardianship."
Chair: "Vigesimo, crimen traditorum."
Prisoner: "I have eaten human flesh."
Chair: "Vigesimo primo, anthropophagia. Cannibalismus!" cried the mayor in a loud tone, bringing his fist with considerable force down on the pandects lying before him on the table. The perspiration was rolling in great beads over his forehead.
The prisoner on the rack laughed heartily; but this time no one laughed with him. The executioner had mistaken the chief's wink for a signal to turn the wheel, which he did, and the sound which came from the victim's throat was a strange mixture of merriment and agony—as if he were being tickled and strangled at the same moment.
What the chief's dictation was really intended to signify was that the proceedings were concluded for the day; that the accused should be released from the rack and taken back to his dungeon.
It was a most unusual case—unique in the annals of the criminal court. Never before had a prisoner acknowledged himself guilty of, or accessory to, so many crimes. It was the first time such a combination of misdemeanors had come before the tribunal. The accused would certainly have to be tried without mercy; no extenuating circumstances would be allowed to interfere with justice.