the ground like an
empty sack, while his captors crowded about in a broken ring, cackling,
and prodding him with their pikes. Some jeered, some snarled, others
called him by name, with laughing epithets that rang more friendly, or
at least more jocular; but all bent toward him eagerly, and flung down
question after question, like a little band of kobolds holding an
inquisition. At some sharper cry than the rest, the fellow rose to his
knees and faced them boldly. A haggard Christian, he was being fairly
given his last chance to recant.

"Open your mouth! Open your mouth!" they cried, in rage or entreaty.

The kneeling captive shook his head, and made some reply, very distinct
and simple.

"Open your mouth!" They struck at him with the torches. The same sword
that had slashed the curtain now pricked his naked chest. Rudolph,
clenching his fists in a helpless longing to rush out and scatter all
these men-at-arms, had a strange sense of being transported into the
past, to watch with ghostly impotence a mediaeval tragedy.

The kneeling man repeated his unknown declaration. His round, honest,
oily face was anything but heroic, and wore no legendary, transfiguring
light. He seemed rather stupid than calm; yet as he mechanically wound
his queue into place once more above the shaven forehead, his fingers
moved surely and deftly. Not once did they slip or tremble.

"Open your mouth!" snarled the pikemen and the torch-bearers, with the
fierce gestures of men who have wasted time and patience.

"The Lamp of Heaven!" bawled the swordsman, beside himself. "Give him
the Lamp of Heaven!"

To the others, this phrase acted as a spark to powder.

"Good! good!" they shrilled, nodding furiously. "The Lamp of Heaven!"
And several men began to rummage and overhaul the chaos of the go-down.
Rudolph had given orders, that afternoon, to remove all necessary stores
to the nunnery. But from somewhere in the darkness, one rioter brought a
sack of flour, while another flung down a tin case of petroleum. The
sword had no sooner cut the sack across and punctured the tin, than a
fat villain in a loin cloth, squatting on the earthen floor, kneaded
flour and oil into a grimy batch of dough.

"Will you speak out and live," cried the swordsman, "or will you die?"

For a second the Christian did not stir. Then, as though the option were
not in his power,--

"Die," he answered.

The fat baker sprang up, and clapped on the obstinate head a sha