Part 59 (1/2)

A SECOND. I and Brizal broke into a merchant's store, and have brought stuffs enough with us to serve fifty men.

A THIRD. I have filched two gold watches and a dozen silver spoons.

SCHWEITZER. Well done, well done! And we have lighted them a bonfire that will take a fortnight to put out again. And, to get rid of the fire, they must ruin the city with water. Do you know, Schufterle, how many lives have been lost?

SCHUF. Eighty-three, they say. The powder-magazine alone blew threescore to atoms.

CHARLES (very seriously). Roller, thou art dearly bought.

SCHUF. Bah! bah! What of that? If they had but been men it would have been another matter--but they were babes in swaddling clothes, and shrivelled old nurses that kept the flies from them, and dried-up stove-squatters who could not crawl to the door--patients whining for the doctor, who, with his stately gravity, was marching to the sport. All that had the use of their legs had gone forth in the sight, and nothing remained at home but the dregs of the city.

CHARLES. Alas for the poor creatures! Sick people, sayest thou, old men and infants?

SCHUF. Ay, the devil go with them! And lying-in-women into the bargain; and women far gone with child, who were afraid of miscarrying under the gibbet; and young mothers, who thought the sight might do them a mischief, and mark the gallows upon the foreheads of their unborn babes--poor poets, without a shoe, because their only pair had been sent to the cobbler to mend--and other such vermin, not worth the trouble of mentioning. As I chanced to pa.s.s by a cottage I heard a great squalling inside. I looked in; and, when I came to examine, what do you think it was? Why, an infant--a plump and ruddy urchin--lying on the floor under a table which was just beginning to burn. Poor little wretch! said I, you will be cold there, and with that I threw it into the flames!

CHARLES. Indeed, Schufterle? Then may those flames burn in thy bosom to all eternity! Avaunt, monster! Never let me see thee again in my troop! What! Do you murmur? Do you hesitate? Who dares hesitate when I command? Away with him, I say! And there are others among you ripe for my vengeance. I know thee, Spiegelberg. But I will step in among you ere long, and hold a fearful muster-roll.

[Exeunt, trembling.]

CHARLES (alone, walking up and down in great agitation). Hear them not, thou avenger in heaven! How can I avert it? Art thou to blame, great G.o.d, if thy engines, pestilence, and famine, and floods, overwhelm the just with the unjust? Who can stay the flame, which is kindled to destroy the hornet's nest, from extending to the blessed harvest? Oh!

fie on the slaughter of women, and children, and the sick! How this deed weighs me down! It has poisoned my fairest achievements! There he stands, poor fool, abashed and disgraced in the sight of heaven; the boy that presumed to wield Jove's thunder, and overthrew pigmies when he should have crushed t.i.tans. Go, go! 'tis not for thee, puny son of clay, to wield the avenging sword of sovereign justice! Thou didst fail at thy first essay. Here, then, I renounce the audacious scheme. I go to hide myself in some deep cleft of the earth, where no daylight will be witness of my shame. (He is about to fly.)

Enter a ROBBER hurriedly.

ROBBER. Look out, captain! There is mischief in the wind! Whole detachments of Bohemian cavalry are scouring the forests. That infernal bailiff must have betrayed us.

Enter more ROBBERS.

2D ROBBER. Captain! captain! they have tracked us! Some thousands of them are forming a cordon round the middle forest.

Enter more ROBBERS again.

3D ROBBER. Woe, woe, woe! we are all taken, hanged drawn, and quartered. Thousands of hussars, dragoons, and cha.s.seurs are mustering on the heights, and guard all the pa.s.ses.

[Exit CHARLES VON MOOR.]

Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHWARZ, SCHUFTERLE, SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, and the whole troop.

SCHWEITZER. Ha! Have we routed them out of their feather-beds at last?

Come, be jolly, Roller! I have long wished to have a bout with those knights of the bread-basket. Where is the captain? Is the whole troop a.s.sembled? I hope we have powder enough?

RAZ. Powder, I believe you; but we are only eighty in all and therefore scarcely one to twenty.

SCHWEITZER. So much the better! And though there were fifty against my great toe-nail--fellows who have waited till we lit the straw under their very seats. Brother, brother, there is nothing to fear. They sell their lives for tenpence; and are we not fighting for our necks?

We will pour into them like a deluge, and fire volleys upon their heads like crashes of thunder. But where the devil is the captain.

SPIEGEL. He forsakes us in this extremity. Is there no hope of escape?

SCHWEITZER. Escape?