The bishop seated himself, deeply moved.
“Come, judges,” continued Hans of Iceland, “why this delay? If I were in your place and you in mine, I would not keep you waiting so long for your death sentence.”
The court withdrew. After a brief deliberation they returned, and the president read aloud the sentence, which declared that Hans of Iceland was to be “hung by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.”
“That’s good,” said the brigand. “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, I know enough about you to obtain a like sentence for you. But live, since you do naught but injure men. Oh, I am sure now that I shall not go to Nistheim!”[4]
The private secretary ordered the guards who led him away to place him in the Lion of Schleswig tower, until a dungeon could be prepared for him in the quarters of the Munkholm regiment, where he might await his execution.
“In the quarters of the Munkholm musketeers!” repeated the monster, with a growl of pleasure.
XLVI.
However, the corpse of Ponce de Leon, which had remained beside the fountain, having been disfigured by the sun, the Moors of Alpuxares took possession of it and bore it to Grenada.—É. H.: The Captive of Ochali.
BEFORE dawn of the day so many of whose events we have already traced, at the very hour when Ordener’s sentence was pronounced at Munkholm, the new keeper of the Throndhjem Spladgest, Benignus Spiagudry’s former assistant and present successor, Oglypiglap, was abruptly aroused from his mattress by a violent series of raps, which fairly shook the building. He rose reluctantly, took his copper lamp, whose dim light dazzled his drowsy eyes, and went, swearing at the dampness of the dead-house, to open to those who waked him so early from his sleep.
They were fishers from Sparbo, who carried upon a litter, strewed with reeds, rushes, and seaweed, a corpse which they had found in the waters of the lake.