Read Ebook: The Day of Wrath by J Kai M R Bain R Nisbet Robert Nisbet Translator

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Ebook has 2119 lines and 85077 words, and 43 pages

There they stood, then, in the courtyard of the headsman's house. The appearance of this courtyard formed an overwhelming contrast with the idea one generally pictures to one's self of such a place. A pretty green lawn covered the whole courtyard, clinging to the walls were creeping fig and apricot trees; in the background was a pretty vine; heart-shaped flower-beds had been cut out of the lawn, and they were full of fine wallflowers and the most fragrant sylvan flowers of every species; further away stood melon beds, sending their far-reaching shoots in every direction, red currant bushes, a weeping willow or two, yellow rose bushes, myriad hued full-blown poppies--and little white red-eyed rabbits were bounding all over the grass plot.

And yet this is the dwelling of the headsman.

"You can come in!" cried a strong, penetrating, sonorous woman's voice from within, and the same instant Mekipiros bounded through the door with his huge shaggy head projecting far in front of him. It was plain that he had not quitted the room voluntarily, but in consequence of a vigorous impulsion from behind.

The man in leather now shoved his melancholy comrade on in front of him, and the headsman's door closed behind them.

It was a kitchen into which they had entered, in no way different from the hearth and home of ordinary men. The plates and dishes shone with cleanliness, everything was in apple-pie order, the fire flickered merrily beneath the chimney, and yet--fancy was continually finding something in every object reminiscent of blood-curdling circumstances. That axe, for instance, stuck in a block in front of the fireplace? Two years ago the executioner had beheaded a parricide--perchance 'twas on that very block!

That rope, again, attached to that bucket, that curved piece of iron glowing red in the fire, that heavy chain dangling down from the chimney--who knows of what accursed horrible scenes they may not have been the witnesses at some time or other? Yet, perhaps, there may be nothing sinister at all about them; perhaps they are employed for quite simple, honest, culinary purposes. Still, this is the headsman's house, remember!

Here and there on the walls black spots are visible. What are they? Blood, perhaps. One's eye cannot tear itself away from them; again and again it goes back to them, and the mind cannot reconcile itself to the thought: perchance this may be the blood of some beast, the blood of some common fattened beast which man must kill that he may eat and live--for is not this the dwelling of the headsman?

A woman is roasting and frying over the hearth, a tall, muscularly built virago, to whose sinewy arms, dome-like breast, red shining cheeks, and burning eyes, the flickering flames gave a savage, uncanny look; her fine black locks are wound up in a large knot at the back of her head, her large eyebrows have grown together, and the upper surface of her red, swollen lips are amber-coloured with masculine down.

"Sit down!" she cries to the new arrivals with a rough growling voice. "You are hungry, eh? Well, soon you shall have something to eat. There's the table"--and she went on cooking and piling up the fire; as it roared up the chimney it gave her red face an infernal expression. This was the headsman's wife.

The melancholy youth sat down abstractedly at the table, the other strode up to the hearth and began whispering to the woman, whilst from time to time they cast glances at the stranger-guest.

The man's whispers were inaudible, but it was possible to catch every word the woman said, for, try as she might, she could not soften down her thunderous voice into a whisper.

"I know him," said she, "he will soon get used to this place.... Nobody will look for him here.... Get away from here? How can he?"

Presently she placed a dish of boiled flesh before her guests. The pale youth picked at his food slowly and sadly, the other attacked it with ravenous haste, throwing a word over his shoulder to the woman the while, or urging his comrade to eat, or flinging bones to the dog and kicking him viciously in the ribs when he snapped them up.

"Can one have a word with the old man?" he inquired of the woman.

"Let him bide, the old man is plagued with his devils again. Don't you hear how he sings? Why, he voices it as lustily as any Slovak student on St Lucia's day."

And indeed from some room far away now came this verse of a well-known hymn, sung in a deep vibrating voice full of a woeful, contrite tremulousness:

"Oh, Lord, the number of our sins And vileness, who shall purge? Withhold the fury of Thy wrath, Though we deserve its pouring forth, And stay Thy chastening scourge!"

Melancholy, heart-rending was the sense of penitence conveyed by this deep, vibrating, bell-like voice. A penitential hymn in the house of the headsman!

The sad-faced youth shivered at the sound of this voice and seemed to awake suddenly from out of a reverie. He passed his hand once or twice across his forehead as if to rally his wits and reduce the chaos within and around him to some sort of order, but gradually sank back again into his former lethargy.

A short time afterwards the same hymn was heard again; but the voice of the singer this time was not the sonorous, manly voice they had heard before, it was a heavenly, pure, childlike voice which now began to sing, full of the magic charm and sweetness of a crystal harmonica:

"Yet know we, Lord, whoso repents And turns his heart to Thee, Shall aye find favour in Thy sight; Nor wilt thou hide from him Thy light, Thy mercy he shall see."

Angels in Heaven could not have sung more sweetly than the voice that sang this verse. Who could it be? An angel proclaiming remission of sins in the house of the headsman!

"So the old cut-throat still keeps the girl under a glass case, eh?"

"He wants to bring her up as a saint on purpose to aggravate me, for he knows very well that I never could endure anything of the saintly sort."

"Apparently the old chap is stark staring mad."

"He is possessed by devils, I fancy. Last week three of his 'prentices bolted because they could not stand his sanctimoniousness any longer. Before dinner he would insist on reading to them out of the Bible for half an hour at a stretch, and if any of them dared to laugh he flung him out of doors like a puppy dog; you may imagine what a pretty figure a headsman cuts who is always preaching about the other world, and proclaiming the word of the Lord with his clenched fists."

"I'll be bound to say he has even taught Mekipiros to go down on his hams."

"Ho, ho, ho! Call him in! Come hither, Mekipiros, you bear's cub, you!"

Mekipiros came in.

"Come hither, I would box your chaps. There, take that! What, still grinning, eh? There's another then! Weep immediately, sirrah! can't you! Pull a wry mug! So! Put your hands together! Cast down your eyes! So! And now fire away!"

And the monster did indeed begin to recite a prayer. One might perhaps have expected him to mumble something altogether unintelligible. But no! He recited it to the end with a solemn voice, and his eyes remained cast down the whole time. His face even began to assume a more human expression, and when he came to the words which announced remission of sins to the truly penitent sinner, two heavy tear-drops welled forth and ran down his rough wrinkled face.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the headsman's wife, and she smacked the forehead of the suppliant repeatedly with the palm of her hand; "a lot of good may it do you!"

Suddenly, like the rolling echo of a descending thunderbolt, a song of praise uttered in an awe-inspiring voice from the adjoining room cut short this inhuman mockery.

"Who thunders so loudly in the lurid heavens above? What means this mighty quaking? Why doth the round earth move?"

At the same instant the boiling water overflowed from the caldron and put the fire out, and they were all in darkness. There was a dead silence, when suddenly a blast of wind caught the half-open door and slammed it to violently, and in the dead silence that followed could be heard something like the cry of a bird of ill-omen or the yell of a maniac flying from the pursuit of his own soul: "Death!--a bloody death--a death of horror!"

Gradually the last sounds of this voice died away in the distance. The chained watch-dog sent a dismal howl after it.

And when the feeble light of the tallow candles shone again through the darkness, it fell upon three shapes which had sunk upon their knees in terror, the two 'prentices of the headsman, and the monster. But the proud, defiant virago turned towards the elder of the 'prentices, and looked him up and down contemptuously.

"Then you, too, are one of them, eh?" cried she.

"Did you not hear the cry of the death-bird?" stammered he.

"What are you afraid of? Tis only my half-crazy old mother."

At night the headsman's apprentices sleep on the floor of the loft. The headsman himself has a room overlooking the courtyard; Mekipiros slept in the stable outside with the watch-dog.

All was silent. Outside, the wind had died away, not the leaf of a tree was stirring; one could distinguish the deep breathing of the sleepers.

At such times the lightest sound fills the sleepless watcher with fear. Sometimes he fancies that a man hidden beneath the bed is slowly raising his head, or that someone is lifting a latch, or the wind shakes the door as if someone were rattling it from the outside. There is a humming and a buzzing all around one. Night beetles have somehow or other lit upon a piece of paper, and they crinkle it so that it sounds as if someone were writing in the dark. Out in the street men seem to be running to and fro and muttering hoarsely in each other's ears. The church clocks strike one after another, thrice, four times--one cannot tell how often. The time is horribly long and the night is an abyss of blackness.

On a bed of straw, with a coarse coverlet thrown over them, the headsman's two apprentices sleep side by side. Are they really asleep? Can they sleep at all in such a place? Yet their eyes are closed. No, one of them is not asleep. When he perceives that his comrade does not move, he slowly pushes the coverlet from off him and creeps on all fours into the inner room; there he lies down flat on his stomach and peeps through a crevice in the rafters. Then he arises, creeps on tiptoe to the chimney and knocks at the partition wall three times, then he climbs down from his loft by means of a ladder, withdraws the ladder from the opening, and whistles to the watch-dog to come forth. One can hear how the chained beast scratches his neck, and growling and sniffing lies down before the door of the loft.

Meanwhile the other apprentice has been carefully observing every movement of his companion with half open eyes. Whenever the first riser turns towards him he feigns to be asleep; but as soon as he takes his eyes off him he opens his own eyes again and looks after him.

When the last sound has died away, he also arises from his sleepless couch and looks through that crevice into the inner room through which his comrade had looked before. It was easy to find, the ray of a lamp pierced through the crevice in the beam, and that ray comes from the hangman's bedroom.

Carefully he bends down and looks through this little peep-hole.

He sees before him a room furnished with the most rigorous simplicity. Close to the wall stands a black chest, fastened with three locks; in the middle of the room is a strong wooden table; further away are two beds, a large one and a small one; there are also two armless four-legged chairs; in the window recess are a few shabby books; above the beds is a heavy blunderbuss. The pale light of the lamp falls upon the table. Sitting beside it is a child reading out of the Bible. At the feet of the child lies a man with his face pressed down to the ground.

The man is of mighty stature--a giant, and he lays down his head, covered with a wildered shock of grey hair, at the feet of a child whose beauty rivets the eye and makes the heart stand still.

It is a pretty little light-haired angel, twelve or thirteen years of age, her hair is of a silvery lightness, like soft feather-grass or moonbeams, her face is of a heavenly whiteness, she has the smile of an angel. The smile of this white face is so unearthly, that neither joy nor good-humour is reflected from it, but something of a higher order, which the human heart is not pure enough to comprehend.

The old man lies there on the ground, with his fingers clutching his grey locks, and the ground on which his face has rested is wet. But the little girl, with hair like soft feather-grass, reads with a honey-sweet voice verses full of mercy and pardon from the Holy Book. From time to time her little fingers turn a leaf over, and whenever she comes to the name of the Lord she raises gentle eyes full of devout reverence.

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