I will give two thousand crowns to any man who shall deliver over
to me Louis Perez, dead or alive.--CALDERON: _Louis Perez of
Galicia_.
“Baron Vœthaün, colonel of the Munkholm musketeers, which of the men who
fought under your command at Black Pillar Pass took Hans of Iceland
prisoner? Name him to the court, that he may receive the thousand crowns
reward offered for the capture.”
The president of the court thus addressed the colonel of musketeers. The
court was in session; for according to old Norwegian custom, a court
from whose sentence there is no appeal cannot adjourn until the sentence
has been carried out. Before the judges stood the giant, who had just
been led in again, with the rope round his neck from which he was soon
to hang.
The colonel, seated at the table with the private secretary, rose and
bowed to the court and to the bishop, who had reascended his throne.
“My lord judges, the soldier who captured Hans of Iceland is present.
His name is Toric-Belfast, second musketeer of my regiment.”
“Let him stand forth,” replied the president, “and receive the promised
reward.”
A young soldier in the Munkholm uniform stepped forward.
“You are Toric-Belfast?” asked the president.
“Yes, your worship.”
“It was you who took Hans of Iceland prisoner?”
“Yes, by the aid of Saint Beelzebub, I did, please your worship.”
A heavy bag of money was placed before the bench.
“Do you recognize this man as the famous Hans of Iceland?” added the
president, pointing to the fettered giant.
“I am better acquainted with my Kitty’s pretty face than with that of
Hans of Iceland; but I declare, by the halo of Saint Belphegor, that if
Hans of Iceland be anywhere, it is in the shape of that big devil.”
“Advance, Toric-Belfast,” said the president. “Here are the thousand
crowns offered by the lord mayor.”
The soldier hurried toward the bench, when a voice rose from the crowd:
“Munkholm musketeer, you never captured Hans of Iceland.”
“By all the blessed devils!” cried the soldier, turning around, “I own
nothing but my pipe and the moment of time in which I speak; but still
I promise to give ten thousand gold crowns to the man who says that, if
he can prove his words.”
And folding his arms, he cast an assured glance over the audience:
“Well! let the man who spoke, show himself.”
“It is I!” said a small man, elbowing his way through the crowd.
The new-comer was wrapped in sealskin, like a Greenlander, his
outlandish garb hanging stiffly about him. His beard was black; and
thick hair of the same color, falling over his red eyebrows, concealed a
hideous face. Neither his hands nor his arms were visible.
“Oh, it is you, is it?” said the soldier, with a loud laugh. “And who,
then, do you say it was, my fine gentleman, that had the honor of
capturing that infernal giant?”
The little man shook his head, and said with a malicious smile: “It was
I.”
At this instant Baron Vœthaün fancied that he recognized the mysterious
being who had warned him at Skongen of the arrival of the rebels;
Chancellor d’Ahlefeld thought he recognized his host at Arbar ruin; and
the private secretary, a certain peasant from Oëlmœ, who wore a similar
dress, and who had pointed out the lair of Hans of Iceland. But the
three being separated, they could not impart to one another this
fleeting impression, which the differences of feature and costume,
afterward observed, must have soon dissipated.
“Indeed! it was you, was it?” ironically observed the soldier. “If it
were not for your Greenland seal’s costume, by the look which you cast
at me, I should be tempted to take you for another ridiculous dwarf, who
tried to pick a quarrel with me at the Spladgest, a fortnight or so ago.
It was the very day that they brought in the body of Gill Stadt, the
miner.”
“Gill Stadt!” broke in the little man, with a shudder.
“Yes, Gill Stadt!” repeated the soldier, with an air of
indifference,--“the rejected lover of a girl who was sweetheart to a
comrade of mine, and for whose sake he died, like the fool that he was.”
The little man said in hollow tones: “Was there not also the body of an
officer of your regiment at the Spladgest?”
“Exactly; I shall remember that day as long as I live. I forgot that it
was the hour for the tattoo, and I was arrested when I got back to the
fort. That officer was Captain Dispolsen.”
At this name the private secretary rose.
“These two fellows abuse the patience of the court. We beg the president
to cut short this idle chatter.”
“By my Kitty’s good name! I ask nothing better,” said Toric-Belfast,
“provided your worships will give me the thousand crowns offered for the
head of Hans, for it was I who took him prisoner.”
“You lie!” cried the little man.
The soldier clapped his hand to his sword: “It is very lucky for you,
you rascal, that we are in the presence of the court, where a soldier,
even a Munkholm musketeer, must never resort to force.”
“The reward,” coldly observed the little man, “belongs to me; for if it
were not for me, you would never have won Hans of Iceland’s head.”
The indignant soldier swore that it was he who captured Hans of Iceland,
when, wounded on the field of battle, he was just beginning to revive.
“Well,” said his opponent, “you may have captured him, but it was I who
struck him down. If it had not been for me, you could never have taken
him prisoner; therefore the thousand crowns are mine.”
“It is false,” replied the soldier. “It was not you who struck him down;
it was an evil spirit, clad in the skins of wild beasts.”
“It was I!”
“No, no!”
The president ordered both parties to be silent; then, again asking
Colonel Vœthaün whether it was really Toric-Belfast who brought Hans of
Iceland into camp a prisoner, at his assent he declared that the prize
belonged to the soldier.
The small man gnashed his teeth, and the musketeer greedily stretched
out his hands for the sack.
“One moment!” cried the little man. “Mr. President, that money according
to the lord mayor’s proclamation, was to be given to him who took Hans
of Iceland.”
“Well?” said the judge.
The little man turned to the giant: “That man is not Hans of Iceland.”
A murmur of surprise ran through the room. The president and private
secretary moved uneasily in their chairs.
“No!” emphatically reiterated the small man, “the money does not belong
to the cursed musketeer of Munkholm, for that man is not Hans of
Iceland.”
“Halberdiers,” said the president, “remove this madman, he has lost his
senses.”
The bishop interposed: “Will you allow me, most worthy President, to
remark that you may, by refusing to hear this man, destroy the
prisoner’s last chance? I demand that he be confronted with the
stranger.”
“Reverend Bishop, the court will grant your request,” replied the
president; and addressing the giant: “You have declared yourself to be
Hans of Iceland; do you persist in that statement?”
The prisoner answered: “I do; I am Hans of Iceland.”
“You hear, Bishop?”
The little man shouted in the same breath with the president: “You lie,
mountaineer of Kiölen! you lie! Do not persist in bearing a name which
must crush you; remember that it has been fatal to you already.”
“I am Hans from Klipstadur, in Iceland,” repeated the giant, his eye
riveted on the private secretary.
The small man approached the Munkholm soldier, who, like the rest of the
audience, had watched this scene with eager curiosity.
“Mountaineer of Kiölen,” he cried, “they say that Hans of Iceland drinks
human blood. If you be he, drink. Here it is.”
And scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when, tossing his sealskin
mantle over his shoulder, he plunged a dagger into the soldier’s heart,
and flung his dead body at the giant’s feet.
A cry of fright and horror followed; the soldiers guarding the giant
started back. The small man, swift as lightning, rushed upon the
defenceless mountaineer, and with another blow of his dagger, laid him
upon the first corpse. Then flinging off his cloak, his false hair, and
black beard, he revealed his wiry limbs, hideously attired in the skins
of wild beasts, and a face which inspired the beholders with even
greater horror than did the bloody dagger which he brandished aloft,
reeking with a double murder.
“Ha! judges, where is Hans of Iceland now?”
“Guards, seize that monster!” cried the startled judge.
Hans hurled his dagger into the centre of the room.
“It is useless to me if there are no more Munkholm soldiers here.”
With these words, he yielded unresistingly to the halberdiers and bowmen
who surrounded him, prepared to lay siege to him, as to a city. They
chained the monster to the prisoner’s bench; and a litter bore away his
victims, one of whom, the mountaineer, still breathed.
It is impossible to describe the various emotions of terror,
astonishment, and indignation which, during this fearful scene, agitated
the people, the guards, and the judges. When the brigand had taken his
place, calm and unmoved, upon the fatal bench, a feeling of curiosity
overcame every other impression, and breathless attention restored
quiet.
The venerable bishop rose: “My lord judges--”
The bandit interrupted him: “Bishop of Throndhjem, I am Hans of Iceland;
do not take the trouble to plead for me.”
The private secretary rose: “Noble President--”
The monster cut him short: “Private Secretary, I am Hans of Iceland; do
not take the pains to accuse me.”
Then, his feet in a pool of blood, he ran his bold, fierce eye over the
court, the bowmen, and the crowd; and it seemed as if each of them
trembled with fear at the glance of that one man, unarmed, chained, and
alone.
“Listen, judges; expect no long speeches from me. I am the demon of
Klipstadur. My mother was old Iceland, the land of volcanoes. Once that
land was but one huge mountain; it was crushed by the hand of a giant,
who fell from heaven, and rested on its highest peak. I need not speak
of myself. I am a descendant of Ingulf the Destroyer, and I bear his
spirit within me. I have committed more murders and kindled more fires
than all of you put together ever uttered unjust sentences in your
lives. I have secrets in common with Chancellor d’Ahlefeld. I could
drink every drop of blood that flows in your veins with delight. It is
my nature to hate mankind, my mission to harm them. Colonel of the
Munkholm musketeers, it was I who warned you of the march of the miners
through Black Pillar Pass, sure that you would kill numbers of men in
those gorges; it was I who destroyed a whole battalion of your regiment
by hurling granite bowlders upon their heads. I did it to avenge my son.
Now, judges, my son is dead; I came here in search of death. The soul of
Ingulf oppresses me, because I must bear it alone, and can never
transmit it to an heir. I am tired of life, since it can no longer be an
example and a lesson to a successor. I have drunk enough blood; my
thirst is quenched. Now, here I am; you may drink mine.”
He was silent, and every voice repeated his awful words.
The bishop said: “My son, what was your object in committing so many
crimes?”
The brigand laughed: “I’ faith, I swear, reverend Bishop, it was not
like your brother, the bishop of Borglum, with a view to enrich
myself.[3] There was something in me which drove me to it.”
“God does not always dwell in his ministers,” meekly replied the saintly
old man. “You would insult me, but I only wish I could defend you.”
“Your reverence wastes his breath. Go ask your other brother, the bishop
of Scalholt, in Iceland, to defend me. By Ingulf! it is a strange thing
that two bishops should protect me,--one in my cradle, the other at my
tomb. Bishop, you are an old fool.”
“My son, do you believe in God?”
“Why not? There must be a God for us to blaspheme.”
“Cease, unhappy man! You are about to die, and you will not kiss the
feet of Christ--”
Hans of Iceland shrugged his shoulders.
“If I did so, it would be after the fashion of the constable of Roll,
who pulled the king over as he kissed his foot.”
The bishop seated himself, deeply moved.
“Come, judges,” continued Hans of Iceland, “why this delay? If I were in
your place and you in mine, I would not keep you waiting so long for
your death sentence.”
The court withdrew. After a brief deliberation they returned, and the
president read aloud the sentence, which declared that Hans of Iceland
was to be “hung by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead.”
“That’s good,” said the brigand. “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, I know enough
about you to obtain a like sentence for you. But live, since you do
naught but injure men. Oh, I am sure now that I shall not go to
Nistheim!”[4]
The private secretary ordered the guards who led him away to place him
in the Lion of Schleswig tower, until a dungeon could be prepared for
him in the quarters of the Munkholm regiment, where he might await his
execution.
“In the quarters of the Munkholm musketeers!” repeated the monster, with
a growl of pleasure.