The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

The streetward door of the Judgment Hall was open, and a great crowd of people stood about, silent, anxious, respectful. Some of them talked in low tones, and whenever there was a word passed out of the door, within which men looked ten deep, it scattered all about like a wave which comes into a sea-cave by a narrow entrance, and then widens out till it breaks gently in the wide inner hall.

"She is not to be tortured; only the Hereditary Executioner may do that.
They have threatened the old woman. She has confessed all!"

So ran the words about the crowd, and ever and anon, one would detach himself from the press, elbowing his way out, and then speed down the long street, crying the latest tidings of the trial.

It was manifestly impossible for us to obtain entrance by this door. So we looked about for another.

Then I minded me of the private passage which led from the inner court-yard which I knew so well. We skirted the crowd, with our attendant following, till we came to the side door, which led directly into the Hall of Judgment behind the judges' high seats.

It was the way by which many a time I had seen my father enter, either in his dress of black or in that of red. And I was always glad when I saw him put on the scarlet, because I knew that then the worst was over for some poor tortured soul.

But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked itself up in sheer terror.

"I cannot—I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture—of the engines—the strappado—the water-drop, the leg-crushers!"

And at this point the vision of what was contained within the fatal door became so appalling to him that he picked up his skirts and fled, looking over his shoulder all the while to make sure that the Red Axe was not after him full tilt.

So Dessauer and I were left standing. And if the matter had been less serious, it would have been comical to see us thus deserted upon mine own middenstead, as it were.