occurrence of executions by command of those
invisible judges, the Red Land. Philipson had often heard that the
seat of a Free Count, or chief of the Secret Tribunal, was secretly
instituted even on the left bank of the Rhine, and that it maintained
itself in Alsace, with the usual tenacity of those secret societies,
though Duke Charles of Burgundy had expressed a desire to discover and
to discourage its influence so far as was possible, without exposing
himself to danger from the thousands of poniards which that mysterious
tribunal could put in activity against his own life;--an awful means
of defence, which for a long time rendered it extremely hazardous for
the sovereigns of Germany, and even the emperors themselves, to put
down by authority those singular associations.

* * * * *

He lay devising the best means of obviating the present danger, while
the persons whom he beheld glimmered before him, less like distinct
and individual forms, than like the phantoms of a fever, or the
phantasmagoria with which a disease of the optic nerves has been known
to people a sick man's chamber. At length they assembled in the centre
of the apartment where they had first appeared, and seemed to arrange
themselves into form and order. A great number of black torches were
successively lighted, and the scene became distinctly visible. In the
centre of the hall, Philipson could now perceive one of the altars
which are sometimes to be found in ancient subterranean chapels. But
we must pause, in order briefly to describe, not the appearance only,
but the nature and constitution, of this terrible court.

Behind the altar, which seemed to be the central point, on which all
eyes were bent, there were placed in parallel lines two benches
covered with black cloth. Each was occupied by a number of persons,
who seemed assembled as judges; but those who held the foremost bench
were fewer, and appeared of a rank superior to those who crowded the
seat most remote from the altar. The first seemed to be all men of
some consequence, priests high in their order, knights, or noblemen;
and notwithstanding an appearance of equality which seemed to pervade
this singular institution, much more weight was laid upon their
opinion, or testimonies. They were called Free Knights, Counts, or
whatever title they might bear, while the inferior class of the judges
were only termed Free and worthy Burghers. For it must be observed,