awake shortly like
a tiger thirsty for blood. The light of a waning moon showed
indistinctly the dark mass in the centre of the market-place--the stage
upon which the frightful tragedy was about to be enacted--when one of
the sentinels all at once turning his head in that direction, descried a
dark form creeping around the pile, as if examining it on all sides.

"What's that?" he cried in alarm to his comrade, pointing to this dark
object. "Is it the demon himself, whom she has conjured up, and who now
comes to deliver her? All good spirits"--and he crossed himself with
hurried zeal.

"Praise the Lord!" continued the other, completing the usual German form
of exorcism, and crossing himself no less devoutly.

"Challenge him, Hans!" said the first; "at the sound of a Christian
voice, mayhap, he may vanish away; and thou art ever boasting to Father
Peter that thou are the most Christian man of thy company."

"Challenge him thyself," replied Hans, in a voice that did not say much
for the firmness of his conscience as a Christian.

"Let's challenge him both at once," proposed the other soldier.
"Perhaps, between us, we may muster up goodness enough to drive the foul
fiend before us."

"Agreed!" replied Hans, with somewhat better courage; and upon this
joint-stock company principle of piety, both the soldiers raised their
voices at once, and cried, in a somewhat quavering duet, "Who goes
there?"

A hoarse laugh was the only answer received to this challenge; and the
dark form seemed to advance towards them across the market-place.

So great appeared the modesty of each of the soldiers with regard to his
appreciation of his own merits as a good Christian--so little his
confidence in his own powers of holiness to wrestle with the fiend of
darkness in the shape which now approached them--that they seemed
disposed rather humbly to quit the field, than encounter Sir Apollyon in
so glorious a contest; when the dim light of the moon revealed the
figure, as it came forward, to be that of the witchfinder.

"It is Claus Schwartz!" said Hans, taking breath.

"Or the devil in his form," pursued his fellow-sentinel with more
caution. "Stand back!" he shouted, as the witchfinder came within a few
yards, "and declare who thou art."

"Has the foul hag within there bewitched thee?" cried Black Claus; "or
has she smitten thee with blindness? Canst thou not see? The night is
not so dark but good men may know each other."

"What