A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.
So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian—so little his confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of darkness in the shape which now approached them—that they seemed disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.
“It is Claus Schwartz!” said Hans, taking breath.
“Or the devil in his form,” pursued his fellow-sentinel with more caution. “Stand back!” he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few yards, “and declare who thou art.”
“Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?” cried Black Claus; “or has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is not so dark but good men may know each other.”
“What wouldst thou here?” said Master Hans, completely recovered from his spiritual alarm.
“I cannot rest,” replied the witchfinder with bitterness. “Until her last ashes shall have mingled with the wind, I shall take no repose, body or mind. I cannot sleep; or, if I close my eyes, visions of the hideous hags, who have already perished there, float before my distracted eyes. It is she that murders my rest, as she has tormented my poor limbs—curses on her! But a short hour, a short hour more, and she too shall feel all the tortures of hell—tortures worse than those she has inflicted on the poor cripple. The flames shall rise, and lap her body round—the bright red flames. Her members shall writhe upon the stake. The screams of death shall issue from her blackened lips; until the lurid smoke shall have wrapped her it its dark winding-sheet, and stifled the last cry of her parting soul, as it flies to meet its infernal master in the realms of darkness. Oh, it will be a glorious sight!” And the cripple laughed, with an insane laugh of malice and revenge, which made the soldiers shudder in every limb, and draw back from him with horror.
It seemed as if the fever of his excitement had pressed so powerfully on his brain as to have driven him completely into madness. After a moment, however, he pulled his rosary from his bosom, and kissed it, adding, in a calmer tone, “Yes, it will be a glorious sight—for it will be for the cause of the Lord, and of his holy church.”
Little as they comprehended the witchfinder’s raving, the soldiers again crossed themselves, and looked upon him with a sort of awe.
“What wouldst thou?” said one of them, as Claus advanced towards the prison door.