whisper ran round the assemblage that these
were primed and loaded, and that the soldiers had orders to fire if any
group of sightseers indulged in undue hilarity.

The newly erected platform was draped in black, and in the middle of the
market-place stood a circle of stakes round a large centre pillar. This
circle contained a huge pile of tar-soaked wood.

A brooding stillness fell on the people. The market-place was densely
packed, each window of the surrounding houses held its complement of men
and women. The church bells still tolled the solemn death tones,
otherwise the silence was unbroken.

At length a flourish of trumpets sounded. The court was approaching.
First came the officers of State and the members of the nobility, then a
detachment of Silver Guards rode up, and formed into line before the
black-draped platform. Another fanfare of trumpets and the
Landhofmeisterin's gilded coach thundered into the market-place, the mob
crushing back to avoid the flying hoofs of the escort's horses. Several
coaches followed, containing the red-robed privy councillors and richly
bedizened courtiers. Serenissimus sprang from the Landhofmeisterin's
coach and assisted her Excellency to alight. She took her place beside
his Highness in the centre of the platform, and the privy council and the
court gathered round.

Then appeared a file of soldiers and officers, and in their midst was a
rigid figure lashed between two condemned criminals. One a murderer,
particularly odious to the Stuttgart burghers, for he had stabbed his
employer, a well-known lady, the much-esteemed widow of a popular town
councillor. The other a notorious horse-stealer, whom the law-abiding
Stuttgarters had stoned but a few months past.

The rigid figure was ridiculous enough: the great waxen head sculptured
to an unmistakable, though grotesque, likeness of the well-known features
of Baron Forstner; then the long, emaciated limbs and even the man's
noticeably narrow, flat feet had been reproduced, and they shuffled
stiffly along the frost-dried cobble stones. It was a masterpiece of
ridicule, yet there was something furiously cruel in the whole absurd
travesty of a human being, something terrible in this association in
ignominy, between the stiff, swaying waxen thing and the condemned
criminals. Slowly this strange procession passed through the crowd, and
the three figures--the two living, and the gruesome, inanimate parody of
life--were pushed into the