SPIEGEL. You know the man! He has his own notions! You understand me?
RAZ. Oh, I quite understand.
(Enter SCHWARZ at full speed).
Who"s there? What is the matter? Any travellers in the forest?
SCHWARZ. Quick, quick! Where are the others? Zounds! there you stand gossiping! Don"t you know--do you know nothing of it?--that poor Roller--
PAZ. What of him? What of him?
SCHWARZ. He"s hanged, that"s all, and four others with him--
RAz. Roller hanged? S"death! when? How do you know?
SCHWARZ. He has been in limbo more than three weeks, and we knew nothing of it. He was brought up for examination three several days, and still we heard nothing. They put him to the rack to make him tell where the captain was to be found--but the brave fellow would not slip.
Yesterday he got his sentence, and this morning was dispatched express to the devil!
RAZ. Confound it! Does the captain know?
SCHWARZ. He heard of it only yesterday. He foamed like a wild boar.
You know that Roller was always an especial favorite; and then the rack!
Ropes and scaling-ladders were conveyed to the prison, but in vain.
Moor himself got access to him disguised as a Capuchin monk, and proposed to change clothes with him; but Roller absolutely refused; whereupon the captain swore an oath that made our very flesh creep. He vowed that he would light a funeral pile for him, such as had never yet graced the bier of royalty, one that should burn them all to cinders. I fear for the city. He has long owed it a grudge for its intolerable bigotry; and you know, when he says, "I"ll do it," the thing is as good as done.
RAZ. That is true! I know the captain. If he had pledged his word to the devil to go to h.e.l.l he never would pray again, though half a pater-noster would take him to heaven. Alas! poor Roller!--poor Roller!
SPIEGEL. _Memento mori_! But it does not concern me. (Hums a tune).
Should I happen to pa.s.s the gallows stone, I shall just take a sight with one eye, And think to myself, you may dangle alone, Who now, sir, "s the fool, you or I?
RAZ. (Jumping up). Hark! a shot! (Firing and noise is heard behind the scenes).
SPIEGEL. Another!
RAZ. And another! The captain!
(Voices behind the scenes are heard singing).
The Nurnbergers deem it the wisest plan, Never to hang till they"ve caught their man.
_Da capo_.
SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (behind the scenes). Holla, ho! Holla, ho!
RAZ. Roller! by all the devils! Roller!
SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (still behind the scenes).
Razman! Schwarz! Spiegelberg! Razman!
RAZ. Roller! Schweitzer! Thunder and lightning!
Fire and fury! (They run towards him.)
Enter CHARLES VON MOOR (on horseback), SCHWEITZER, ROLLER, GRIMM, SCHUFTERLE, and a troop of ROBBERS covered with dust and mud.
CHARLES (leaping from his horse) Liberty! Liberty!--Thou art on terra firma, Roller! Take my horse, Schweitzer, and wash him with wine.
(Throws himself on the ground.) That was hot work!
RAZ. (to ROLLER). Well, by the fires of Pluto! Art thou risen from the wheel?
SCHWARZ. Art thou his ghost? or am I a fool? or art thou really the man?
ROLLER (still breathless). The identical--alive--whole.--Where do you think I come from?
SCHWARZ. It would puzzle 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 gla.s.s of brandy! You there too, Spiegelberg! I thought we should have met again in another place. But give me a gla.s.s 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 a.s.sure 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! fire! ho! in every direction. There was such howling--screaming-tumult--fire-bells tolling. And presently the powder-magazine blew up into the air with a crash as if the earth were rent in twain, heaven burst to shivers, and h.e.l.l sunk ten thousand fathoms deeper.
ROLLER. Now my guards looked behind them--there lay the city, like Sodom and Gomorrah--the whole horizon was one ma.s.s of fire, brimstone, and smoke; and forty hills echoed and reflected the infernal prank far and wide. A panic seized them all--I take advantage of the moment, and, quick as lightning--my fetters had been taken off, so nearly was my time come--while my guards were looking away petrified, like Lot"s wife, I shot off--tore through the crowd--and away! After running some sixty paces I throw off my clothes, plunge into the river, and swim along under water till I think they have lost sight of me. My captain stood ready, with horses and clothes--and here I am. Moor! Moor! I only wish that you may soon get into just such another sc.r.a.pe that I may requite you in like manner.
RAZ. A brutal wish, for which you deserve to be hanged. It was a glorious prank, though.
ROLLER. It was help in need; you cannot judge of it. You should have marched, like me, with a rope round your neck, travelling to your grave in the living body, and seen their horrid sacramental forms and hangman"s ceremonies--and then, at every reluctant step, as the struggling feet were thrust forward, to see the infernal machine, on which I was to be elevated, glaring more and more hideously in the blaze of a noonday sun--and the hangman"s rapscallions watching for their prey --and the horrible psalm-singing--the cursed tw.a.n.g still rings in my ears--and the screeching hungry ravens, a whole flight of them, who were hovering over the half-rotten carca.s.s of my predecessor. To see all this--ay, more, to have a foretaste of the blessedness which was in store for me! Brother, brother! And then, all of a sudden, the signal of deliverance. It was an explosion as if the vault of heaven were rent in twain. Hark ye, fellows! I tell you, if a man were to leap out of a fiery furnace into a freezing lake he could not feel the contrast half so strongly as I did when I gained the opposite sh.o.r.e.
SPIEGEL. (Laughs.) Poor wretch! Well, you have got over it. (Pledges him). Here"s to a happy regeneration!
ROLLER (flings away his gla.s.s). No, by all the treasures of Mammon, I should not like to go through it a second time. Death is something more than a harlequin"s leap, and its terrors are even worse than death itself.
SPIEGEL. And the powder-magazine leaping into the air! Don"t you see it now, Razman? That was the reason the air stunk so, for miles round, of brimstone, as if the whole wardrobe of Moloch was being aired under the open firmament. It was a master-stroke, captain! I envy you for it.
SCHWEITZER. If the town makes it a holiday-treat to see our comrade killed by a baited hog, why the devil should we scruple to sacrifice the city for the rescue of our comrade? And, by the way, our fellows had the extra treat of being able to plunder worse than the old emperor.
Tell me, what have you sacked?
ONE OF THE TROOP. I crept into St. Stephen"s church during the hubbub, and tore the gold lace from the altarcloth. The patron saint, thought I to myself, can make gold lace out of packthread.
SCHWEITZER. "Twas well done. What is the use of such rubbish in a church? They offer it to the Creator, who despises such trumpery, while they leave his creatures to die of hunger. And you, Sprazeler--where did you throw your net?