-whole.--Where do you
think I come from?

SCHWARZ. It would puzzle a witch to tell! The staff was already broken
over you.

ROLLER. Ay, that it was, and more than that! I come straightway from
the gallows. Only let me get my breath. Schweitzer will tell you all.
Give me a glass of brandy! You there too, Spiegelberg! I thought we
should have met again in another place. But give me a glass of brandy!
my bones are tumbling to pieces. Oh, my captain! Where is my captain?

SCHWARZ. Have patience, man, have patience. Just tell me--say--come,
let's hear--how did you escape? In the name of wonder how came we to
get you back again? My brain is bewildered. From the gallows, you say?

ROLLER (swallows a flask of brandy). Ah, that is capital! that warms
the inside! Straight from the gallows, I tell you. You stand there
amid stare as if that was impossible. I can assure you, I was not more
than three paces from that blessed ladder, on which I was to mount to
Abraham's bosom--so near, so very near, that I was sold, skin and all,
to the dissecting-room! The fee-simple of my life was not worth a pinch
of snuff. To the captain I am indebted for breath, and liberty, and
life.

SCHWEITZER. It was a trick worth the telling. We had heard the day
before, through our spies, that Roller was in the devil's own pickle;
and unless the vault of heaven fell in suddenly he would, on the morrow
--that is, to-day--go the way of all flesh. Up! says the captain, and
follow me--what is not a friend worth? Whether we save him or not, we
will at least light him up a funeral pile such as never yet honored
royalty; one which shall burn them black and blue. The whole troop was
summoned. We sent Roller a trusty messenger, who conveyed the notice to
him in a little billet, which he slipped into his porridge.

ROLLER. I had but small hope of success.

SCHWEITZER. We waited till the thoroughfares were clear. The whole
town was out after the sight; equestrians, pedestrians, carriages, all
pell-mell; the noise and the gibbet-psalm sounded far and wide. Now,
says the captain, light up, light up! We all flew like darts; they set
fire to the city in three-and-thirty places at once; threw burning
firebrands on the powder-magazine, and into the churches and granaries.
Morbleu! in less than a quarter of an hour a northeaster, which, like
us, must have owed a grudge to the city, came seasonably to our aid, and
helped to lift the flames up to the highest gables. Me