hought the
cantor to himself.)

"And I have already eaten bread made of that very corn, God help me!"
cried another; "it is as blue as a toadstool when you break it in two."

("Lout! Tares and other rubbish were mixed up with it, and that made it
look blue!")

"And after I had eaten it I felt like to bursting."

("Naturally, for your wife did not bake it sufficiently, and you stuffed
it into your greedy jaws while it was still hot.")

"Yes, not a doubt of it, we have all been poisoned, we have eaten of
Death."

"My friends, allow me to put in a word," said the benign rector. "You
know that I have always desired your welfare; but look now! this mortal
danger has appeared in other districts also, possibly it may be a Divine
visitation. There are villages in which two or three deaths have
occurred in every house, there are other places in which whole families
down to the very last poor member thereof have followed one another to
the grave. I know of a man who a short time ago had nine sons, now he
has nine corpses with him in the house."

"The gentry have killed them also I'll be bound."

"It is so! What would God want with so many dead men?"

"Have patience for a moment, my friends. I don't want to defend the
gentry, but I would not condemn anyone unjustly. If there be any truth
in this fearful accusation, it will see the light of day sooner or
later, and then the arm of God will not be straitened."

"Thanks for nothing, by that time the whole lot of us will be under the
sod."

"Produce the fellow who brought this letter!"

Two stalwart rustics thereupon brought forward upon their shoulders a
young fellow, bound and pinioned like a trapped wolf, and put him down
in the midst of the mob.

"This is the bird who was carrying about the message of death!" cried
the rebels, surrounding the poor wretch. And then one pulled his hair,
and another tugged at his ears, and a third tweaked his nose, and
everyone of them was delighted to have found a fresh object on which to
wreak their furious cruelty.

And all the time the fellow ground his teeth together and said nothing.

It was poor Mekipiros. It was his mauled and bruised shape, his
half-bestial face that they were torturing and tormenting. There is no
sight more terrible than that of a tortured beast that cannot speak.

One of those who had brought him thither was the headsman's apprentice.

This fellow whispered some words in the ear of the rector, and then