till rang ceaselessly their merry, joyous,
fete-like peal.

And now with difficulty the soldiers forced a way through the throng for
the approaching officer of justice; the great officiating dignitary of
the town, who was to preside over the ceremony. He neared the town-hall,
to order the unlocking of the prison-door, when the wretched witchfinder
again sprang forward, crying, "Mercy! mercy! she is innocent. Hear me,
noble Ober-Amtmann!" But he again started back with a cry of despair--it
was not the Ober-Amtmann. He had been obliged, by indisposition, to give
up the office of superintending the execution, and the chief _schreiber_
had been deputed to take his place.

"Where is the Ober-Amtmann?" cried Claus in agony. "I must see him--I
must speak with him! She is innocent--I swear she is! He will save her,
villain as he has been, when he hears all."

The general cry that Black Claus had been bewitched by the sorceress,
was a sufficient explanation to the chief _schreiber_ of his seemingly
frantic words.

"Poor man!" was his only reply. "She has worked her last spell upon him.
Her death alone can save his reason."

In spite of the struggles and cries of the infuriated cripple, the door
was opened, and the unhappy Magdalena was forced to come forwards by the
guards. She looked wretchedly haggard and careworn in her sackcloth
robe, with her short-cut grey hairs left bare. A chain was already bound
around her waist, and clanked as she advanced. As her eyes fell upon her
miserable son she gave one convulsive shudder of despair; and then,
clasping her hands towards him with a look of pity and forgiveness, she
murmured with a tone of resignation--"It is too late. Farewell!
farewell! until we meet again, where there shall be no sorrow, no care,
no pain--only mercy and forgiveness!"

"No, no--thou shalt not die!" screamed the cripple, whom several
bystanders, as well as guards, now held back with force, in awe as well
as pity at his distracted state.--"Thou shalt not die! She is my
mother!" he cried like a maniac to the crowd around. "My mother--do ye
hear? She is innocent. What I said yesterday was false--utterly false--a
damning lie! She is not guilty--you would murder her! Fools! wretches,
assassins! You believed me when I witnessed against her; why will ye not
believe me now? She is innocent, I tell you. Ye shall not kill her!"

"He is bewitched! he is bewitched! To the stake with the sorceress!--to
the stake!" was