The executioner does not lift it up, but draws it toward him horizontally, so that the hook tears off long strips. If the executioner has not been bribed, the victim loses consciousness after the third stroke, and sometimes dies under the fifth.
The scaffold is an inclined plane, to which the man is tied with his back uncovered. The head and feet are firmly fastened, and the hands, which are knotted together,[Pg 53] go round below the plank, any movement of the body becoming impossible.
After receiving the prescribed number of strokes, the poor wretch is untied, and, on his knees, undergoes the cruel punishment of being marked. The letters “Vor”—meaning thief or malefactor—are printed in sharp, pointed letters on a stamp, which the executioner drives into the forehead, and into both cheeks, and, while the blood runs, a black mixture, of which gunpowder is an ingredient, is rubbed into the wounds; they heal, but the bluish scar remains for life.
QUICK THINKING.
An adventure is related by a sportsman which shows that a hunter’s life may depend upon his attention to small details. With one of his friends, he was out shooting, when a solitary bull buffalo appeared on the opposite side of a small stream. The bull was evidently in a state of great excitement, for, as the hunters drew near, he faced them, tore up the turf with his horns, and looked down the perpendicular bank, twelve feet high, as though meditating descent.
The sportsman’s friend, who carried a little rifle—a single barrel, which shot a small, spherical ball—had, by the other’s advice, doubled his charge of powder.
“Aim at the back of the neck if the buffalo lowers his head,” said the sportsman to his companion, throwing a hard clod of earth so that it fell into the water at the foot of the bank. The splash caused the animal to look down, exposing his neck. The friend fired. The bull convulsively turned round and fell upon his side. The two men waded across the stream at a shallow place, and ran to where the prostrate animal was lying, apparently dead. The marksman, standing in front of the bull’s head, reveled in the delight of his first buffalo.
“Never stand at the head of a buffalo, whether dead or alive,” exclaimed the other, whose experience had taught him to be cautious. “Stand upon the side, facing the back of the animal, well away from its legs, as I am standing now.”
Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the bull sprang to his feet, and blundered forward straight at his astonished friend, not three feet distant. He jumped forward to avoid the horns, but tripped and fell upon his back, right in the path of the savage bull.
As quick as lightning, the sportsman drew his long hunting knife, and plunged it behind the buffalo’s shoulder. The animal fell at the blow. He had received his death stroke.