ausdorf together with my brother that they might quarrel, but it was
not so evilly intended as it turned out."

"The woman seduced you?" exclaimed the mask. "It was so our
grandfather, Adam, excused himself, and the seducer laid it all upon
the serpent; but the angel with the fiery sword drove them all out of
Paradise, to which they no more belonged, as you no more belong to
life. Therefore pray a short farewell prayer, for we are Christians."

"Mercy!" groaned Christopher piteously. "I cannot pray. Take half my
wealth as an atonement, but do not kill me."

"Ay!" retorted the mask, with cold sternness. "You and your whole race,
with all your gold, would not outweigh the single head of the noble
Tausdorf, whom your iniquity has slaughtered. There can be no talk
between us of mercy or atonement, but of well-earned retribution:
therefore, away with you, scoundrel! away to death!"

And he flung a noose about Christopher's neck, and dragged him from the
bed.

"Heaven be thanked!" said the other mask, pulling strongly at the rope.
"At last we come from words to deeds."

Like vultures upon a lamb, they pounced upon the unhappy Christopher
with murderous hands, and dragged him out of the door in spite of his
impotent strugglings;--fainter and fainter sounded his half-stifled
cries--at last there was a heavy fall in the distance, and a sound as
of the splash of water from a depth: then another short, low groan; and
the old silence of night resumed her reign, and the clock of the
Sessions-house struck the third hour.

* * * * *

The next morning when the old Erasmus entered the Sessions-chamber, he
found the assembled provosts standing with gloomy faces about the
butcher, George Heymann, master of the shambles, who was showing a
bloody wound in his neck, and took on most piteously.

"Things cannot go on in this way any longer, Mr. Burgomaster," cried
the Alderman Kaspar Franz, in a tone that the old man had not been
accustomed to hear in Schweidnitz. "It is inconceivable what our good
city suffers from your violence and blunders. It is not enough that we
must frequently submit to a scarcity of provisions, because the vassals
of the nobles no longer dare to come to market here, but our citizens
are no more secure of their lives if they venture beyond the walls. As
this poor man was driving sheep to town, Hans Ecke of Viehau, and Hans
Hund of Ingersdorf, fell upon him with naked weapons,