“Consider that I may make you repent of your obstinacy. To-morrow you will be in my power.”
“Do you think so?” These words were uttered with a look which escaped the hangman.
“Yes; and there is a certain way of tightening a slip-knot—but if you will only be reasonable, I will hang you in my best manner.”
“Little do I care what you do to my neck to-morrow,” replied the monster, with a mocking air.
“Come, won’t you be satisfied with two crowns? What can you do with the money?”
“Ask your comrade there,” said the brigand, pointing to the turnkey; “he charges me two gold ducats for a handful of straw and a fire.”
“Now by Saint Joseph’s saw,” said the hangman, angrily addressing the turnkey, “it is shocking to make a man pay its weight in gold for a fire and a little worthless straw.”
“Two ducats!” the turnkey replied sourly; “I’ve a good mind to make him pay four! It is you, Master Nychol, who act like a regular screw in refusing to give this poor prisoner two gold ducats for his corpse, when you can sell it for at least twenty to some learned old fogy or some doctor.”
“I never paid more than twenty escalins for a corpse in my life,” said the hangman.
“Yes,” replied the jailer, “for the body of some paltry thief, or some miserable Jew, that may be; but everybody knows that you can get whatever you choose to ask for Hans of Iceland’s body.”