nts had been pushed back in their sliding grooves, and strange
faces, with sleepy eyes, had peered out, in night attire, to forestall
impatient curiosity. Already indistinct noises, a vague rumbling, an
uncertain sound from here or there had broken up the utter silence of
the night, and told that the drowsy town was waking from its sleep, and
stirring with the faint movement of new life. The day _was_ come! The
sentinels paced up and down more quickly, to dissipate that feeling of
shivering cold which runs through the night-watcher during the first
hour of the morn. During the colloquy between the cripple and the
prisoner, they had been more than once disturbed by the loud tones of
passionate exclamation that had burst from the former; but Hans had
contrived to dispel his comrade's scruples as to what was going forward
at the prison door, by making light of the matter.

"Let them alone. They are only having a tuzzle together--the witchfinder
and the witch! And if the man, as the weaker vessel in matters of
witchcraft, do come off minus a nose or so, it will never spoil Black
Claus's beauty, that's certain. Hark! hark! they are at it again! To it,
devil! To it, devil-hunter! Let them fight it out between them, man. Let
them fight it out. It's fine sport, and it will never spoil the show."
And Hans stamped with his feet, and hooted at a distance, and hissed
between his teeth, with all the zest of a modern cockfighter in the
sport, rather to the scandal and shame of his more cautious and
scrupulous companion. But when the cripple, in his despair, shook, in
his nervous grasp, the bars of the grating in the door, as if he would
wrench it from its staples, and flung himself in desperation against the
strongly-ironed wooden mass, with a violence that threatened, in spite
of its great strength, to burst it open, the matter seemed to become
more serious in their eyes.

"Hollo, man! witchfinder! Black Claus! What art thou doing?" cried the
sentinels, hurrying to the spot. "Does the devil possess thee? Art thou
bewitched? Wait! wait! they'll let her out quick enough to make her
mount the pile. Have patience, man!"

"She is innocent!" cried the cripple, still grappling with the bars in
his despair. "She is innocent! Let her go free!"

"He is bewitched," said the one soldier. "See what comes of letting them
be together."

"He has had the worst of it, sure enough," said Hans.

"I am not bewitched, fools!" cried the frantic man.