tly
sort."

"Apparently the old chap is stark staring mad."

"He is possessed by devils, I fancy. Last week three of his 'prentices
bolted because they could not stand his sanctimoniousness any longer.
Before dinner he would insist on reading to them out of the Bible for
half an hour at a stretch, and if any of them dared to laugh he flung
him out of doors like a puppy dog; you may imagine what a pretty figure
a headsman cuts who is always preaching about the other world, and
proclaiming the word of the Lord with his clenched fists."

"I'll be bound to say he has even taught Mekipiros to go down on his
hams."

"Ho, ho, ho! Call him in! Come hither, Mekipiros, you bear's cub, you!"

Mekipiros came in.

"Come hither, I would box your chaps. There, take that! What, still
grinning, eh? There's another then! Weep immediately, sirrah! can't you!
Pull a wry mug! So! Put your hands together! Cast down your eyes! So!
And now fire away!"

And the monster did indeed begin to recite a prayer. One might perhaps
have expected him to mumble something altogether unintelligible. But no!
He recited it to the end with a solemn voice, and his eyes remained cast
down the whole time. His face even began to assume a more human
expression, and when he came to the words which announced remission of
sins to the truly penitent sinner, two heavy tear-drops welled forth and
ran down his rough wrinkled face.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the headsman's wife, and she smacked the forehead
of the suppliant repeatedly with the palm of her hand; "a lot of good
may it do you!"

Suddenly, like the rolling echo of a descending thunderbolt, a song of
praise uttered in an awe-inspiring voice from the adjoining room cut
short this inhuman mockery.

"Who thunders so loudly in the lurid heavens above?
What means this mighty quaking? Why doth the round earth move?"

At the same instant the boiling water overflowed from the caldron and
put the fire out, and they were all in darkness. There was a dead
silence, when suddenly a blast of wind caught the half-open door and
slammed it to violently, and in the dead silence that followed could be
heard something like the cry of a bird of ill-omen or the yell of a
maniac flying from the pursuit of his own soul: "Death!--a bloody
death--a death of horror!"

Gradually the last sounds of this voice died away in the distance. The
chained watch-dog sent a dismal howl after it.

And when the feeble light of th