the sun and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your
enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency. Odsbodikins,
it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent invention, but you should
have seen them seize it and swallow it, in the frenzy of their
fright, as it were salvation sent from heaven; and all the while
was I laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply
deceived, and glorifying God the next, that He was content to let
the meanest of His creatures be His instrument to the saving of
thy life. Ah how happy has the matter sped! You will not need
to do the sun a _real_ hurt--ah, forget not that, on your soul forget
it not! Only make a little darkness--only the littlest little
darkness, mind, and cease with that. It will be sufficient. They
will see that I spoke falsely,--being ignorant, as they will fancy
--and with the falling of the first shadow of that darkness you
shall see them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and
make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But remember--ah, good
friend, I implore thee remember my supplication, and do the blessed
sun no hurt. For _my_ sake, thy true friend."

I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as
to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back
with such deep and loving gratitude that I had not the heart
to tell him his good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me
to my death.

As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was
so profound that if I had been blindfold I should have supposed
I was in a solitude instead of walled in by four thousand people.
There was not a movement perceptible in those masses of humanity;
they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and dread sat
upon every countenance. This hush continued while I was being
chained to the stake; it still continued while the fagots were
carefully and tediously piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs,
my body. Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible,
and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude
strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats
without knowing it; the monk raised his hands above my head, and
his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in
this attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then stopped.
I waited two or three moments; then looked up; he was standing
there petrified. With a common impulse the multit