Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

”In G.o.d's name!” cried Tausdorf angrily, ”how should I, who have been devoted to arms from my youth, teach you what you are to say for me before the tribunal? The little Latin which I learnt at Gitschin is of no use here. But you are a studied man, well informed in the law, and must best know what will conduce to my advantage.”

”It will all be of no use,” muttered the procurator; ”but relate the tale to me circ.u.mstantially, that I may thoroughly comprehend it.”

Again poor Tausdorf undertook the sad labour of narrating the tale of blood. The procurator listened to him, gaping, and then briefly repeated what he had heard to the tribunal, concluding with, ”You have now heard Tausdorf's statement of the affair, gentlemen, and I submit it to your decision.”

”Is that your whole defence?” cried the knight indignantly, while this statement was being protocolled. ”May our Saviour one day speak for your sins before the judgment-seat of G.o.d, as you have spoken for me in this hour before the tribunal of man!”

”Have you any thing else to advance?” said the judge to the accused and his defender; and as they were silent, he rang the bell, saying, ”The audit is closed.--Let the knight be conveyed back again to the Hildebrand,” he added to the serjeant, who then entered.

”Gentlemen,” said Tausdorf, with manly firmness, ”I do not believe that you have a right to p.r.o.nounce judgment on me; but if you do hold yourselves so empowered, I warn you honestly, when you give your votes, to keep your conscience and your dying hour before your eyes. It is an easy thing for you to slay me, for I am in your power; but innocent blood cries with a thousand voices to Heaven, and G.o.d is just.”

He went away with his guard, followed by his model of a defender, and the judges laid their heads together in anxious whisperings.

In the meantime the day had fully broken, and a bright July sun shone upon the overwatched faces of the council, who were still collected in the Sessions'-chamber, and had reclined themselves against the windows to prevent their going to sleep. The iron old Erasmus alone sat at the green table with bright wakeful eyes, and played with the golden medal appended to his chain of honour. By his side stood the vice-consul, Christopher Drescher, behind a chair, which he rocked to and fro impatiently.

”The judges must have come to a decision by this time,” said Erasmus, as if to himself.

”If they only come to a right one,” replied Drescher emphatically.

”No fear of that; although parties may at times run high amongst ourselves, yet against the outward enemy we all stand as one man; and if----Then we are at the goal, brother.”

”I only wish you had not forced poor Reimann to defend him. If he should happen to bring forward things which we can't answer?”

”Some defender Tausdorf could not but have; the forms of the law demanded so much, and to forms we must strictly adhere on this occasion. Between ourselves, too, could you in all Schweidnitz have hunted out a worse advocate than this Reimann?”

”You have seen farther than I have,” cried the vice-consul, after a pause: ”_Concedo_.”

A servant now brought in a letter to the burgomaster, which he opened and read--

”An _Intercessionale_ in favour of the prisoner by the Herr von Schindel, resident of this place, and now laid up with the gout,” said Erasmus to the council. ”The pet.i.tioner presumes to defend the accused, uncalled for, and to impugn the competency of our tribunal. _Ad acta!_”

”The Frau von Netz, too, waits below in great trouble,” added the servitor, ”and implores, in Heaven's name, a secret audience of your excellency.”

”The proud n.o.bles can now stoop themselves to entreaties,” exclaimed the burgomaster triumphantly; ”but it's all of no use.”

He went out. The poor Althea stood there, her face in a veil wet with tears, and she approached him with clasped and uplifted hands.

”Will it please you to walk in?” asked Erasmus with cold politeness, and opened the door of the little audience-chamber.

She tottered after him. He placed a chair f motioned to her to sit down, and placed himself opposite.

”What is your pleasure, n.o.ble lady?” he asked, after a short time, during which she was unable to speak from sobbing. ”Our time is peculiarly valuable to-day.”

”Mercy!” at length cried the poor pet.i.tioner in the most moving tones of anguish; ”Mercy for my intended husband!”

”That is with G.o.d!” replied Erasmus. ”In my weighty office I recognize but the duty of justice. If such a crime were to remain unpunished, I should have to account hereafter to the Highest for the innocent victims, which might in future be sacrificed to the arrogance of the n.o.bles.”

”I do not pray for the absolution of the unfortunate one; I only pray that the business may be brought before the bishop or the emperor, and I offer to be his security till then with my whole property.”