University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XX.

It was a curious coincidence in this passage of the
life of Wyndham, that Rossi was scarcely dead when
a message from Carl, his quondam domestic, earnestly
prayed his presence at the criminal prison, where,
confined after having been convicted of murder, he
was awaiting execution. Absorbed in other affairs,
and partly in consequence of the silence and privacy
with which such matters are conducted in Prussia,
Claude had received no intelligence of this till a note
from Carl made him acquainted with his dreadful situation.

He immediately complied with his request, and
was admitted to the convict's cell. It was with difficulty
that he recognised him, so much was he altered
by confinement and agony of mind. He was pale and
haggard. His manner had lost all its gayety, and he
seemed several years older than before.

“It is so good of monsieur to come,” said he, on
seeing Claude. “I want, before I quit the world, to
ask your pardon for the injury I have done you.”

“I grant it, most sincerely,” said Claude.

“I have been a bad fellow, monsieur; but I have

repented, and I die with a full faith in our blessed Redeemer.
I am content to die. I deserve it.”

“Can nothing be done to commute your punishment?”
asked Claude.

“No, monsieur. All has been done that was possible.
My father and mother are both here. They
have sought mercy of his majesty, but he has not
thought proper to accord it; and yet my crime was
not without provocation. You have doubtless heard
what goaded me on to kill this man for whose death I
am to be punished?”

“No, I have not heard it.”

“He was my master, and a very bad, brutal man.
He was not a good master as you were, but he was always
scolding me. One day he called me so many
names that I could not prevent myself replying, and I
told him no gentleman would use such terms to his
servant. He instantly struck me—and I have never
yet submitted to a blow with patience—I strove to
strike him back, but he was too strong for me. I
asked him if he dared to meet me in the field—for I
was born, sir, in a much higher station than a domestic—but
he only laughed at me. I went to complain
to the police. He declared I had offered to strike him
first, and the police dismissed my complaint. What
was I to do? Where was I to seek redress? I had
often sworn that no one should ever strike me without
my being revenged. I had heard many others swear
the same. A blow I could not bear; and finding all
other modes of righting myself in vain, I killed him
with an axe, set the house on fire, and fled. I was
pursued, overtaken, tried, condemned, and am now
waiting the day of my execution. They say nothing
can save me. But I have repented of my crime, and
am resigned to my fate.”

“Can I do anything for you?” said Claude, shocked
almost beyond the power of speech by this scene.

“Grant me your pardon. It is all I ask. Besides
the wickedness you detected me in, I have committed

many others. I have often robbed you of trifling
things, such as I thought you would never miss. I
often neglected your commands, and told you I had
obeyed you when I had not. Lord Elkington and
Lady Beverly are very bad people; and they paid me
to tell all I could find out about you. But I have partially
repaired my crime against you, as Madame Wharton
will tell you. I could communicate a great secret,
but she made me promise not to do so, and I shall not
die with a lie on my lips. You can do nothing else
for me, unless, indeed, to be present at the last moment.
Promise me you will be there. I shall feel a
consolation in thinking there is one person who regards
me with mercy and pity.”

“I promise,” said Claude; “and, in the mean time,
beg you will let me do all that is possible to alleviate
your situation.”

“No, no, I do not wish to see you again. I have
done with earthly things, and must prepare for—for—
hereafter.”

He turned pale, and added,

“Ah, Mr. Wyndham, had I but been an honest man,
and served you faithfully, how different would now be
my situation!”

A priest here came in; and, as Claude withdrew,
the poor fellow clasped his hand and kissed it earnestly.

“Adieu—for ever. May you be happy—and you
will be. Remember the words of a dying man.”

Claude left the prison much impressed in favour of
Carl, who seemed to have been unprincipled more from
the want of reflection than innate hardness of heart.

It was about one month after this interview that
the announcement of an execution caused a sensation
of lively horror throughout Berlin, where these frightful
spectacles were rarely seen. According to his
promise, Claude resolved to be present. It was on
a magnificent day in July that he went forth, at three
o'clock in the morning, to behold the unnatural ceremony

of depriving a human being of that life which
has been bestowed by the hand of God. The scene
of this bloody operation was just on the outside of one
of the city gates, on a wide, level sand-plain. The
morning was one of those when the earth, air, and
heaven wear a more than usually resplendent aspect.
The sky was without a cloud. The pale moon was
seen declining in the west, and the sun had just risen
with a brilliancy that promised great heat during the
day. The air was fresh and cool, and the breeze, here
and there wafted over a dewy garden, came full of
delicious odours. There was a stir perceptible over
the whole town as soon as he issued from his door,
and groups of persons might be seen stepping along,
with marks of haste in their air and countenance; as
he continued on his way the number increased, and carriages,
carts, wagons, and droskies occasionally rattled
by, till at length, turning into the long, narrow street
which led to the gate on the outside of which the execution
was to take place, he found a dense throng
walking with a rapid pace all in the same direction;
and the street was crowded with vehicles, of which
the occupants, as well as the thousands of pedestrians,
were, almost without exception, talking together with
loud, gay voices, some jesting and laughing, some
singing and shouting, and a few here and there brandishing
bottles or huge sausages, which furnished their
morning meal, and which was devoured with an hilarious
mirth strangely contrasted with the solemn spectacle
they were hastening to witness.

Half an hour's walk, through a multitude every instant
growing more dense, on the whole well behaved,
and composed in a considerable proportion of women
and children, brought Claude through the gate and
along one of the suburbs to a road leading into a vast,
open field of heavy sand, in a corner of which a black
mass of human beings—swarming like a cluster of
bees around three dark, massive columns of brick,
placed in the form of a triangle, immediately behind a

broad platform, also built of brick, and surrounded by
an iron balustrade—announced the fatal point of attraction.
On either side of the scaffold, at the distance of
fifty or sixty yards, were several small, natural elevations
of ground, on one of which, and fronting the dreadful
stage where the dire act was so soon to be performed,
Claude took his stand. He could perceive a few
paces from him, and at the foot of the scaffold, a newly-dug
grave. In a short time the increasing thousands
had surrounded him, and in another half hour his eye,
wherever it wandered, met nothing but the dense masses
of human beings, packed close as in a theatre. The
murmur of those thousands and thousands of voices, all
blended into one sound, all full of one thought, of one
expectation, could be heard rising into the air, like the
rush of the surf on the distant beach. In a few moments
several carriages—of the different functionaries
who, from curiosity or duty, attended the scene—drove
up a narrow passage kept open through the crowd by
the mounted gens d'armes. Then came a body of
cavalry, who were drawn up in a hollow square around
the scaffold. Several companies of infantry followed,
all silently and briefly disposed in the same solemn
array; and a group of officers gathered in the centre
at the foot of the scaffold, conversing together with
cheerful courtesy, and exchanging gayly the greetings
of the day. It seemed almost a mockery to Claude,
that all this formidable array of force—these stern
troops—these glittering and bristling arms—these
trampling horses—should be gathered together on account
of one helpless, trembling, feeble creature,
bound, and opposing against the appalling preparations
only his misery, his weakness, his humble prayer, his
ghastly and terror-stricken face.

As yet no one had appeared upon the scaffold—that
solitude to be presently filled by such unnatural actors.
At length a single form mounted upon it. He bore on
his arm a basket, and sprinkled from it many handfuls
of wet sand or sawdust. He descended, and another

mounted the next moment, bearing a heavy burden,
which he at length deposited. It was set with some
care to secure it a firm stand. It was the block. He
who placed it was smoking a segar. A broad leathern
strap hung from it on one side, and a cord was flung
down carelessly upon it. A hum of horror followed
each of these proceedings; and the attention of the
vast concourse, fixed with an intense interest upon
these ominous arrangements, hushed them to a profound
silence and motionlessness, except when some
trivial preparation gave a token more of the dire act
about to be perpetrated, and drew forth a new murmur
of horror.

The hour for the execution was fixed at six o'clock.
It now wanted five minutes. Every face in that vast
multitude was turned towards the narrow channel
which had been kept open through it by the gens
d'armes for the melancholy cortège about to appear.
At length a troop of horse rode up, and a half-suppressed
cry announced that he—the unhappy object of
this deep curiosity, of these appalling preparations—
had arrived. A heavy common wagon appeared. In
it were two priests. Seated on the floor of it, with his
back to the horses, without a hat, was Carl. He
caught Claude's eye as he passed, and kissed his hand
to him. He looked calm, but dreadfully pale.

At the foot of the scaffold there was a pause. They
stopped beside the grave; the unhappy being must
have looked into it as he passed. He alighted from the
wagon, and some moments were occupied in reading
the sentence and other customary forms.

In the mean time, six or eight persons had mounted
the scaffold. They were common-looking men, in
their ordinary dress. They walked backward and forward,
turned their eyes towards the vast, hushed multitude
on every side, or regarded the group of priests
and officers gathered about the prisoner. One of them,
also, was smoking a segar. They had a careless, rude
air, which jarred upon the feelings of many a gazer.

The preliminary ceremony being over, several persons
mounted the scaffold. Among them were two
who struck every eye, and drained the blood from
every cheek. One was the fine-looking, erect young
man about to yield his life to the society which thus
repulsed him. The other was a giant in stature and
strength—his hair sprinkled with gray—without his
coat—and holding in his hand an axe. They had no
sooner mounted than some one approached Carl and
spoke to him. He started slightly at first, but, instantly
complying, took off his coat, his waistcoat, his
cravat, and rolled down his shirt off his neck and shoulders
to the waist. He then stood erect over the block,
clasped his hands, and lifted his eyes towards heaven
in prayer. His face was turned towards Claude,
whose whole system thrilled with unspeakable horror
at the thoughts of his sensations in that tremendous
moment. The endless mass of heads on every side
was uncovered—motionless—hushed. Claude looked
around on the scene so fair and beautiful. The morning
sun mounting up the east, pouring gladness and
abundance on so many millions of human beings—
the bending sky—the waving trees—the distant city,
whose roar could be heard rising on the summer air,
and then at these vast crowds—those dark columns—
that gray-headed giant leaning on his axe—and this
young man, in the fullness of life, health, and strength,
about to be thrust by his fellow-beings into eternity.
Even as he stood thus a moment committing himself
to God, and taking his last look at the nature so bright,
so soft, so fair, so happy, the breeze, full of freshness,
and balm, and gladness, and perfume, came kissing the
murmuring tree-tops, and lifted the hair from that
doomed head; the birds were warbling in the groves;
the flowers were blooming in the gardens; the streams
were gurgling through the wood; and a flock of pigeons
came floating down to the very top of the scaffold,
and made a circle around it, their white breasts
shining in the light, and then—so near that the trembling

victim might have heard the whirring of their
wings, full of freedom and joy—swept off again, and
were lost in the sunshiny distance.

The next instant the wretched being knelt and laid
his neck on its last resting-place; the strap was instantly
fastened over his shoulders, and his arms were
tied to the block. The executioner advanced—lifted
the axe, to lay its edge lightly on the spot he would
strike. There was a blow, and an object fell heavily
and rolled upon the scaffold. Some hand raised it by
the hair—held the face, bloody, turbid, and convulsed,
one instant to the crowd—and then wrapped it in a
white napkin, which instantly assumed the same gory
hue. Hasty hands unloosed the cord and strap, and
a headless trunk was carelessly borne down and thrown
into the grave already dug.

It was to avoid the odium of bearing a blow that
the wretched youth had sought the fate of a felon.

There are readers who will shrink from this scene
—who will find it too revolting to be described. Yes,
it is revolting; but it should be painted in all its details,
till the most audacious outrage upon humanity
ever sanctioned by human laws shall be struck from
the code of civilized nations. That which it is not
permitted to describe should not be permitted to take
place in the open day—before the public eye—before
boys—women—children. Were all to witness the
frightful spectacle, this ancient and barbarous custom
would cease. If we have dared to hold the hideous
picture up, it is that people who never give their attention
to such things may know—may see what goes
on about them—what they are liable to meet in their
morning walk—openly perpetrated in the bright sunshine—in
the public streets.