The men-at-arms clattered roughly down the street, shifting their burden as if it had been so much kindling-wood, and quarrelling as to their turns. I heard their jests coming clear up the narrow street from far away.
I stood still as they approached a corner which they must turn.
I waved my hand to the coffin.
"Fare you well, true father; to-night and to-morrow may God help me also, like you, to meet my fate standing up!"
And the curve of the long street hid the ribald procession. My father was gone. I had made choice. The dead was burying his dead.
I went on towards the prison of the Wolfsberg; so it was nominated by a sort of grim superiority in that place which was all a prison—the castle which had lorded it so long over the red clustered roofs and stepped gables of Thorn, solely because it meant prisonment and death to the rebel or the refuser of the Duke's exactions.
Often had I seen the straggling procession of prisoners rise, head following head, up from that weary staircase, my father standing by, as they came up from the cells, counting his victims silently, like a shepherd who tells his flock as they pass through a gap in the sheepfold.
For me, alas! there was but one in that dread fold to-night. And she my one ewe lamb who ought to have lain in my bosom.
I clamored long at the gate ere I could make the drowsy jailer hear. As the minutes slipped away I grew more and more wild with fear and anger. At midnight I must face the Duke, and it was after ten—how long I knew not, but I feared every moment that I might hear the brazen clang as the hammer struck eleven.
For time seemed to make no impression on me at all that night.