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. Meanwhile we ran up
and down the streets like furies, crying, fire! ho!