And she would have gone on much longer with her curses, but the executioner gave her another blow with his fist, which made her hold her tongue. Then he and his fellows lifted her from the cart, and as she was unable to walk from shame, and despair, and wrath, they carried her up the winding stairs to the witches' tower; and she glowered into the little chamber which she had occupied fifty years before, at the time she murdered poor Clara von Dewitz, for they had to pass by it to reach the witches' tower, which lay two flights of stairs higher up.
And when Master Worger laid her down in the damp dark hole, and shook out some straw for her to lie on, the knave grinned and said—"What would she do now for company? The devil would scarcely come; still a companion would be pleasant."
The witch, however, made no answer, only looked down upon the ground, muttering to herself. Whereupon the knave laughed again and cried, "Eh, wait, I have got a companion for you!"
And opening a sack he had brought with him, took out a blackened human head, and then two long, black, half-burned bones; placed the bones crosswise on the ground, and set the head atop of them, then said, "So, now you have right merry company. That is Wolde's head, as you may perceive; and now ye may conjure the devil together as ye were wont." Then, grinning maliciously, he went out, locking the prison door upon the unfortunate wretch and the death's-head.
Meanwhile, my Jobst and his fair daughter are plunged in great perplexity and despair at the Duke's cruel order to have Sidonia sent to their castle of Saatzig. Therefore, the indignant knight sat down and wrote an earnest remonstrance to his Highness the Duke, and prayed his Grace, therefore, to remove this millstone from his neck, or he would resign the post of Governor of Saatzig, and withdraw to his own good castle of Pansin. This letter he despatched by a running courier to Old Stettin, and it produced a good effect upon the Duke; for, in three days, an order arrived for Sidonia's removal to Oderburg; and the crowds gathered round the cart, from all parts, to see her as she passed along—as thick as if it had been the time of the annual fair.
God be thanked, I have now got her as far as the Odenburg! For as concerning her long imprisonment there, her frequent examinations, and, finally, the question by torture, what need for me to relate them here, seeing that your Highness and your illustrious brothers were present during all behind the green screen? I, too, Doctor Theodore Plonnies, assisted at the trial as high-sheriff, Anton Petersdorf was protonotarius to the criminal court, and Johann Caude, the notarius, conducted the protocollum. Besides, when I look back and think of her shrieks, and how the dry withered limbs writhed and cracked upon the wheel, till the black blood poured forth from her nails and teeth, my head swims and the sight leaves my eyes—therefore, away with it! This only will I notice, that her advocate, Doctor Elias Pauli, preserved her in truth for a year and a day from the rack and a bitter death, by his keen and cunning devices, thinking that she would make away with herself some way or other, by mercury or else, to escape the stake. But no such thing: she was as afraid of death as a cat of hot broth; so at last he had to suffer justice to take its course. Whereupon this Satan's hag, on the 28th July 1620, at four o'clock in the afternoon, pursuant to a decree of the electoral-court of judges of Magdeburg in Saxony, was brought into the great hall at Oderburg. and there stretched upon the rack, as I have above mentioned, to force her to a confession upon seventeen artlculos inquisitionales, many of which I have noticed here and there through the preceding chapters.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Of the execution of Sidonia and the wedding of Diliana.
After the torture, the poor malicious old wretch became so weak that she thought herself like to die, and therefore bade my worthy godfather, Doctor Cramer, to be brought to her that she might make full confession at last. And her repentance, in truth, seemed earnest and real now; for after the communion she bade them bring her coffin—then sat up, and looking at it for a long while in silence, at last said—
"I shall soon rest there in peace; meantime, carry it out again till I am dead."