“He is bewitched,” said the one soldier. “See what comes of letting them be together.”
“He has had the worst of it, sure enough,” said Hans.
“I am not bewitched, fools!” cried the frantic man. “There’s no witchcraft here! She is innocent, I tell ye! O God! these bells! they announce their coming! Bid them cease! bid them cease! they drive me mad!”
At that moment a merry chime from the church-bells burst out joyously upon the morning air, to announce that a fête was about to take place in the town; for such a gratifying show as the burning of a witch, was a fête for the inhabitants of Hammelburg.
“These bells! these bells!” again cried Claus in agony, as their merry chime came in gusts along the rising wind, as if to mock his misery and despair. “How often, during this long night, I have longed to hear their joyous sound; and now they ring in my ears like the howlings of fiends! But she shall not die! I will yet save her,” continued the distracted man; and he again shook the prison door with a force which his crippled limbs could scarcely have been supposed to possess.
With difficulty could the now alarmed sentinels, who shouted for help, cause the cripple to release his hold. Fresh guards rushed to the spot, and assisted to seize the desperate man. But in vain he protested the innocence of the supposed sorceress—in vain he cried to them to release her. He was treated as bewitched; and it was only when at last, overcome by the violence of his struggles, he ceased to resist with so much energy, that they allowed him to remain unbound, and let fall the cords with which they had already commenced to tie his arms.
“The Ober-Amtmann will come,” he said at last, with a sort of sullen resignation. “He must—he shall hear me. He shall know all—he will believe her innocent.”
In the meanwhile, the market-place had already begin to fill with an anxious crowd. In a short time, the press of spectators come to witness the bloody spectacle, began to be great. The throng flowed on through street and lane. There were persons of all ages, all ranks, of both sexes—all hurrying, crowding, squeezing to the fête of horror and death. Manifold and various were the hundreds of faces congregated in a dense mass, as near as the guards would admit them round the pile—all moved by one feeling of hideous curiosity. Little by little, all the windows of the surrounding houses were jammed with faces—each window a strange picture in its quaintly-carved wooden frame. The crowd was there—the living crowd eager for death—palpitating with excitement—each heart beating with one pitiless feeling of greedy cruelty. And the bells still rang ceaselessly their merry, joyous, fête-like peal.
And now with difficulty the soldiers forced a way through the throng for the approaching officer of justice; the great officiating dignitary of the town, who was to preside over the ceremony. He neared the town-hall, to order the unlocking of the prison-door, when the wretched witchfinder again sprang forward, crying, “Mercy! mercy! she is innocent. Hear me, noble Ober-Amtmann!” But he again started back with a cry of despair—it was not the Ober-Amtmann. He had been obliged, by indisposition, to give up the office of superintending the execution, and the chief schreiber had been deputed to take his place.
“Where is the Ober-Amtmann?” cried Claus in agony. “I must see him—I must speak with him! She is innocent—I swear she is! He will save her, villain as he has been, when he hears all.”