Volume 2 — XLIX.

THE remnant of the regiment of Munkholm musketeers had returned to their old quarters in the barracks, which stood in the centre of a vast, square courtyard within the fortress. At night-fall the doors of this building were barricaded, all the soldiers withdrawing into it, with the exception of the sentinels upon the various towers, and the handful of men on guard before the military prison adjoining the barracks. This, being the safest and best watched place of confinement in Munkholm, contained the two prisoners sentenced to be hanged on the following morning, Hans of Iceland and Musdœmon.

Hans of Iceland was alone in his cell. He was stretched upon the floor, chained, his head upon a stone; a feeble light filtered through a square grated opening, cut in the heavy oak door which divided his cell from the next room, where he heard his jailers laugh and swear, and heard the sound of the bottles which they drained, and the dice which they threw upon a drumhead. The monster silently writhed in the darkness, his limbs twitched convulsively, and he gnashed his teeth.

All at once he lifted his voice and called aloud. A turnkey appeared at the grating: “What do you want?” said he.

Hans of Iceland rose. “Mate, I am cold; my stone bed is hard and damp. Give me a bundle of straw to sleep on, and a little fire to warm myself.”

“It is only fair,” replied the turnkey, “to give a little comfort to a poor devil who is going to be hung, even if he be the Iceland Devil. I will bring you what you want. Have you any money?”

“No,” replied the brigand.

“What! you, the most famous robber in Norway, and you have not a few scurvy gold ducats in your pouch?”

“No,” repeated the brigand.

“A few little crowns?”

“I tell you, no!”

“Not even a few paltry escalins?”

“No, no, nothing; not enough to buy a rat’s skin or a man’s soul.”

The turnkey shook his head: “That’s a different matter; you have no right to complain. Your cell is not so cold as the one you will have to sleep in to-morrow, and yet I’ll be bound you won’t notice the hardness of that bed.”

So saying, the jailer withdrew, followed by the curses of the monster, who continued to rattle his chains, which gave forth a hollow clang as if they were breaking slowly under repeated and violent jerks and pulls.

The door opened. A tall man, dressed in red serge, carrying a dark lantern, entered the cell, accompanied by the jailer who had refused the prisoner’s request. The latter at once became perfectly quiet.

“Hans of Iceland,” said the man in red, “I am Nychol Orugix, executioner of the province of Throndhjem; to-morrow, at sunrise, I am to have the honor of hanging your Excellency upon a fine new gallows in Throndhjem market-place.”

“Are you very sure that you will hang me?” replied the brigand.

The executioner laughed. “I wish you were as sure to rise straight into heaven by Jacob’s ladder as you are to mount the scaffold by Nychol Orugix’s ladder.”

“Indeed?” said the monster, with a malicious grin.

“I tell you again, Sir Brigand, that I am hangman for the province.”

“If I were not myself I should like to be you,” replied the brigand.

“I can’t say the same for you,” rejoined the hangman; then rubbing his hands with a conceited and complacent smirk, he added: “My friend, you are right; ours is a fine trade. Ah! my hand knows the weight of a man’s head.”

“Have you often tasted blood?” asked the brigand.

“No; but I have often used the rack.”

“Have you ever devoured the entrails of a living child?”

“No; but I have crushed men’s bones in a vise; I have broken their limbs upon the wheel; I have dulled steel saws upon their skulls; I have torn their quivering flesh with red-hot pincers; I have burned the blood in their open veins by pouring in a stream of molten lead and boiling oil.”

“Yes,” said the brigand, with a thoughtful look, “you have your pleasures too.”

“In fact,” added the hangman, “Hans of Iceland though you be, I imagine that my hands have released more human souls than yours, to say nothing of your own, which you must render up to-morrow.”

“Always provided that I have one. Do you suppose, then, executioner of Throndhjem, that you can release the spirit of Ingulf from Hans of Iceland’s mortal frame without its carrying off your own?”

The executioner laughed heartily. “Indeed, we shall see to-morrow.”

“We shall see,” said the brigand.

“Well,” said the executioner, “I did not come here to talk of your spirit, but only of your body. Hearken! your body by law belongs to me after your death; but the law gives you the right to sell it to me. Tell me what you will take for it?”

“What I will take for my corpse?” said the brigand.

“Yes, and be reasonable.”

Hans of Iceland turned to his jailer: “Tell me, mate, how much do you ask for a bundle of straw and a handful of fire?”

The jailer reflected. “Two gold ducats.”

“Well,” said the brigand to the hangman, “you must give me two gold ducats for my corpse.”

“Two gold ducats!” cried the hangman. “It is horribly dear. Two gold ducats for a wretched corpse! No, indeed! I’ll give no such price.”

“Then,” quietly responded the monster, “you shall not have it.”

“Then you will be thrown into the common sewer, instead of adorning the Royal Museum at Copenhagen or the collection of curiosities at Bergen.”

“What do I care?”

“Long after your death, people will flock to look at your skeleton, saying, ‘Those are the remains of the famous Hans of Iceland!’ Your bones will be nicely polished, and strung on copper wire; you will be placed in a big glass case, and dusted carefully every day. Instead of these honors, consider what awaits you if you refuse to sell me your body; you will be left to rot in some charnel-house, where you will be the prey of worms and other vermin.”

“Well, I shall be like the living, who are perpetually preyed upon by their inferiors and devoured by their superiors.”

“Two gold ducats!” muttered the hangman; “what an exorbitant price! If you will not come down in your terms, my dear fellow, we can never make a trade.”

“It is my first and probably my last trade; I am bent on having it a good one.”

“Consider that I may make you repent of your obstinacy. To-morrow you will be in my power.”

“Do you think so?” These words were uttered with a look which escaped the hangman.

“Yes; and there is a certain way of tightening a slip-knot—but if you will only be reasonable, I will hang you in my best manner.”

“Little do I care what you do to my neck to-morrow,” replied the monster, with a mocking air.

“Come, won’t you be satisfied with two crowns? What can you do with the money?”

“Ask your comrade there,” said the brigand, pointing to the turnkey; “he charges me two gold ducats for a handful of straw and a fire.”

“Now by Saint Joseph’s saw,” said the hangman, angrily addressing the turnkey, “it is shocking to make a man pay its weight in gold for a fire and a little worthless straw.”

“Two ducats!” the turnkey replied sourly; “I’ve a good mind to make him pay four! It is you, Master Nychol, who act like a regular screw in refusing to give this poor prisoner two gold ducats for his corpse, when you can sell it for at least twenty to some learned old fogy or some doctor.”

“I never paid more than twenty escalins for a corpse in my life,” said the hangman.

“Yes,” replied the jailer, “for the body of some paltry thief, or some miserable Jew, that may be; but everybody knows that you can get whatever you choose to ask for Hans of Iceland’s body.”

Hans of Iceland shook his head.

“What business is it of yours?” said Orugix, curtly; “do I interfere with your plunder,—with the clothes and jewels that you steal from the prisoners, and the dirty water which you pour into their thin soup, and the torture to which you put them, to extort money from them? No, I never will give two gold ducats.”

“No straw and no fire for less than two gold ducats,” replied the obstinate jailer.

“No corpse for less than two gold ducats,” repeated the unmoved brigand.

The hangman, after a brief pause, stamped his foot angrily, saying: “Well, I’ve no time to waste with you. I am wanted elsewhere.” He drew from his waistcoat a leather bag, which he opened slowly and reluctantly. “There, cursed demon of Iceland, there are your two ducats. Satan would never give you as much for your soul as I do for your body, I am sure.”

The brigand accepted the gold. The turnkey instantly held out his hand to take it.

“One instant, mate; first give me what I asked for.”

The jailer went out, and soon returned with a bundle of dry straw and a pan of live coals, which he placed beside the prisoner.

“That’s it,” said the brigand, giving him the two ducats; “I’ll make a warm night of it. One word more,” he added in an ominous tone. “Does not this prison adjoin the barracks of the Munkholm musketeers?”

“It does,” said the jailer.

“And which way is the wind?”

“From the east, I think.”

“Good,” said the brigand.

“What are you aiming at, comrade?” asked the jailer.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the brigand.

“Farewell, comrade, until to-morrow morning early.”

“Yes, to-morrow,” repeated the brigand.

And the noise of the heavy door, as it closed, prevented the jailer and his companion from hearing the fierce, jeering laughter which accompanied these words.