h half open eyes. Whenever the first riser
turns towards him he feigns to be asleep; but as soon as he takes his
eyes off him he opens his own eyes again and looks after him.

When the last sound has died away, he also arises from his sleepless
couch and looks through that crevice into the inner room through which
his comrade had looked before. It was easy to find, the ray of a lamp
pierced through the crevice in the beam, and that ray comes from the
hangman's bedroom.

Carefully he bends down and looks through this little peep-hole.

He sees before him a room furnished with the most rigorous simplicity.
Close to the wall stands a black chest, fastened with three locks; in
the middle of the room is a strong wooden table; further away are two
beds, a large one and a small one; there are also two armless
four-legged chairs; in the window recess are a few shabby books; above
the beds is a heavy blunderbuss. The pale light of the lamp falls upon
the table. Sitting beside it is a child reading out of the Bible. At the
feet of the child lies a man with his face pressed down to the ground.

The man is of mighty stature--a giant, and he lays down his head,
covered with a wildered shock of grey hair, at the feet of a child whose
beauty rivets the eye and makes the heart stand still.

It is a pretty little light-haired angel, twelve or thirteen years of
age, her hair is of a silvery lightness, like soft feather-grass or
moonbeams, her face is of a heavenly whiteness, she has the smile of an
angel. The smile of this white face is so unearthly, that neither joy
nor good-humour is reflected from it, but something of a higher order,
which the human heart is not pure enough to comprehend.

The old man lies there on the ground, with his fingers clutching his
grey locks, and the ground on which his face has rested is wet. But the
little girl, with hair like soft feather-grass, reads with a honey-sweet
voice verses full of mercy and pardon from the Holy Book. From time to
time her little fingers turn a leaf over, and whenever she comes to the
name of the Lord she raises gentle eyes full of devout reverence.

"Pray, pray, my angel, go on praying! God will hear thy words. Oh! thy
father is indeed a sinner, a great, great sinner!"

The child leant over him, kissed his grey head, and went on reading.

The old man fell a-weeping bitterly.

"Oh! thy father's hands are so bloody! Who can ever wash them clean? I
have killed so many men