No More Learning

At last the count came in
sight, his carriage heavily laden, the lawyer, seated by his side, an
outrider in advance, and two horsemen riding behind. Then you should
have seen the man. With a pistol in each hand he ran before us to the
carriage,--and the voice with which he thundered, "Halt! " The coachman,
who would not halt, was soon toppled from his box; the count fired out
of the carriage and missed--the horseman fled. "Your money, rascal! "
cried Moor, with his stentorian voice. The count lay like a bullock
under the axe: "And are you the rogue who turns justice into a venal
prostitute? " The lawyer shook till his teeth chattered again; and a
dagger soon stuck in his body, like a stake in a vineyard. "I have done
my part," cried the captain, turning proudly away; "the plunder is your
affair. " And with this he vanished into the forest.

SPIEGEL. Hum! hum! Brother, what I told you just now remains between
ourselves; there is no occasion for his knowing it. You understand me?

RAZ. Yes, yes, I understand!

SPIEGEL. You know the man! He has his own notions! You understand me?

RAZ. Oh, I quite understand.

(Enter SCHWARZ at full speed).

Who's there? What is the matter? Any travellers in the forest?

SCHWARZ. Quick, quick! Where are the others? Zounds! there you stand
gossiping! Don't you know--do you know nothing of it? --that poor
Roller--

PAZ. What of him? What of him?

SCHWARZ. He's hanged, that's all, and four others with him--

RAz. Roller hanged? S'death! when? How do you know?

SCHWARZ. He has been in limbo more than three weeks, and we knew
nothing of it. He was brought up for examination three several days,
and still we heard nothing. They put him to the rack to make him tell
where the captain was to be found--but the brave fellow would not slip.
Yesterday he got his sentence, and this morning was dispatched express
to the devil!

RAZ. Confound it! Does the captain know?

SCHWARZ. He heard of it only yesterday. He foamed like a wild boar.
You know that Roller was always an especial favorite; and then the rack!
Ropes and scaling-ladders were conveyed to the prison, but in vain.
Moor himself got access to him disguised as a Capuchin monk, and
proposed to change clothes with him; but Roller absolutely refused;
whereupon the captain swore an oath that made our very flesh creep. He
vowed that he would light a funeral pile for him, such as had never yet
graced the bier of royalty, one that should burn them all to cinders. I
fear for the city. He has long owed it a grudge for its intolerable
bigotry; and you know, when he says, "I'll do it," the thing is as good
as done.

RAZ. That is true! I know the captain. If he had pledged his word to
the devil to go to hell he never would pray again, though half a
pater-noster would take him to heaven. Alas! poor Roller! --poor Roller!

SPIEGEL. _Memento mori_! But it does not concern me. (Hums a tune).

Should I happen to pass the gallows stone,
I shall just take a sight with one eye,
And think to myself, you may dangle alone,
Who now, sir, 's the fool, you or I?

RAZ. (Jumping up). Hark! a shot! (Firing and noise is heard behind the
scenes).

SPIEGEL. Another!

RAZ. And another! The captain!

(Voices behind the scenes are heard singing).

The Nurnbergers deem it the wisest plan,
Never to hang till they've caught their man.
_Da capo_.

SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (behind the scenes). Holla, ho! Holla, ho!

RAZ. Roller! by all the devils! Roller!

SCHWEITZER and ROLLER (still behind the scenes).
Razman! Schwarz! Spiegelberg! Razman!

RAZ. Roller! Schweitzer! Thunder and lightning!
Fire and fury! (They run towards him. )

Enter CHARLES VON MOOR (on horseback), SCHWEITZER, ROLLER, GRIMM,
SCHUFTERLE, and a troop of ROBBERS covered with dust and mud.

CHARLES (leaping from his horse) Liberty! Liberty! --Thou art on terra
firma, Roller! Take my horse, Schweitzer, and wash him with wine.
(Throws himself on the ground. ) That was hot work!

RAZ. (to ROLLER). Well, by the fires of Pluto! Art thou risen from
the wheel?

SCHWARZ. Art thou his ghost? or am I a fool? or art thou really the
man?

ROLLER (still breathless). The identical--alive--whole. --Where do you
think I come from?

SCHWARZ. It would puzzle a witch to tell! The staff was already broken
over you.

ROLLER. Ay, that it was, and more than that! I come straightway from
the gallows. Only let me get my breath. Schweitzer will tell you all.
Give me a glass of brandy! You there too, Spiegelberg! I thought we
should have met again in another place. But give me a glass of brandy!
my bones are tumbling to pieces. Oh, my captain! Where is my captain?

SCHWARZ. Have patience, man, have patience. Just tell me--say--come,
let's hear--how did you escape? In the name of wonder how came we to
get you back again? My brain is bewildered. From the gallows, you say?

ROLLER (swallows a flask of brandy). Ah, that is capital! that warms
the inside! Straight from the gallows, I tell you. You stand there
amid stare as if that was impossible. I can assure you, I was not more
than three paces from that blessed ladder, on which I was to mount to
Abraham's bosom--so near, so very near, that I was sold, skin and all,
to the dissecting-room! The fee-simple of my life was not worth a pinch
of snuff. To the captain I am indebted for breath, and liberty, and
life.

SCHWEITZER. It was a trick worth the telling. We had heard the day
before, through our spies, that Roller was in the devil's own pickle;
and unless the vault of heaven fell in suddenly he would, on the morrow
--that is, to-day--go the way of all flesh. Up! says the captain, and
follow me--what is not a friend worth? Whether we save him or not, we
will at least light him up a funeral pile such as never yet honored
royalty; one which shall burn them black and blue. The whole troop was
summoned. We sent Roller a trusty messenger, who conveyed the notice to
him in a little billet, which he slipped into his porridge.

ROLLER. I had but small hope of success.

SCHWEITZER. We waited till the thoroughfares were clear. The whole
town was out after the sight; equestrians, pedestrians, carriages, all
pell-mell; the noise and the gibbet-psalm sounded far and wide. Now,
says the captain, light up, light up! We all flew like darts; they set
fire to the city in three-and-thirty places at once; threw burning
firebrands on the powder-magazine, and into the churches and granaries.
Morbleu! in less than a quarter of an hour a northeaster, which, like
us, must have owed a grudge to the city, came seasonably to our aid, and
helped to lift the flames up to the highest gables. Meanwhile we ran up
and down the streets like furies, crying, fire! ho! fire! ho! in every
direction. There was such howling--screaming-tumult--fire-bells
tolling. And presently the powder-magazine blew up into the air with a
crash as if the earth were rent in twain, heaven burst to shivers, and
hell sunk ten thousand fathoms deeper.

ROLLER. Now my guards looked behind them--there lay the city, like
Sodom and Gomorrah--the whole horizon was one mass of fire, brimstone,
and smoke; and forty hills echoed and reflected the infernal prank far
and wide. A panic seized them all--I take advantage of the moment, and,
quick as lightning--my fetters had been taken off, so nearly was my time
come--while my guards were looking away petrified, like Lot's wife, I
shot off--tore through the crowd--and away! After running some sixty
paces I throw off my clothes, plunge into the river, and swim along
under water till I think they have lost sight of me. My captain stood
ready, with horses and clothes--and here I am. Moor! Moor! I only
wish that you may soon get into just such another scrape that I may
requite you in like manner.

RAZ. A brutal wish, for which you deserve to be hanged. It was a
glorious prank, though.

ROLLER. It was help in need; you cannot judge of it. You should have
marched, like me, with a rope round your neck, travelling to your grave
in the living body, and seen their horrid sacramental forms and
hangman's ceremonies--and then, at every reluctant step, as the
struggling feet were thrust forward, to see the infernal machine, on
which I was to be elevated, glaring more and more hideously in the blaze
of a noonday sun--and the hangman's rapscallions watching for their prey
--and the horrible psalm-singing--the cursed twang still rings in my
ears--and the screeching hungry ravens, a whole flight of them, who were
hovering over the half-rotten carcass of my predecessor. To see all
this--ay, more, to have a foretaste of the blessedness which was in
store for me! Brother, brother! And then, all of a sudden, the signal
of deliverance. It was an explosion as if the vault of heaven were rent
in twain. Hark ye, fellows! I tell you, if a man were to leap out of a
fiery furnace into a freezing lake he could not feel the contrast half
so strongly as I did when I gained the opposite shore.

SPIEGEL. (Laughs. ) Poor wretch! Well, you have got over it. (Pledges
him). Here's to a happy regeneration!

ROLLER (flings away his glass).
No, by all the treasures of Mammon, I
should not like to go through it a second time. Death is something more
than a harlequin's leap, and its terrors are even worse than death
itself.

SPIEGEL. And the powder-magazine leaping into the air! Don't you see
it now, Razman? That was the reason the air stunk so, for miles round,
of brimstone, as if the whole wardrobe of Moloch was being aired under
the open firmament. It was a master-stroke, captain! I envy you for
it.

SCHWEITZER. If the town makes it a holiday-treat to see our comrade
killed by a baited hog, why the devil should we scruple to sacrifice the
city for the rescue of our comrade? And, by the way, our fellows had
the extra treat of being able to plunder worse than the old emperor.
Tell me, what have you sacked?

ONE OF THE TROOP. I crept into St. Stephen's church during the hubbub,
and tore the gold lace from the altarcloth. The patron saint, thought I
to myself, can make gold lace out of packthread.

SCHWEITZER. 'Twas well done. What is the use of such rubbish in a
church? They offer it to the Creator, who despises such trumpery, while
they leave his creatures to die of hunger. And you, Sprazeler--where
did you throw your net?

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 pass 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
God, 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 Titans. 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 chasseurs are mustering
on the heights, and guard all the passes.
[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
assembled? 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?

SPIEGEL. Oh, that I had tarried in Jerusalem!

SCHWEITZER. I wish you were choked in a cesspool, you paltry coward!
With defenceless nuns you are a mighty man; but at sight of a pair of
fists a confirmed sneak! Now show your courage or you shall be sewn up
alive in an ass's hide and baited to death with dogs.

RAZ. The captain! the captain!

Enter CHARLES (speaking slowly to himself).

CHARLES. I have allowed them to be hemmed in on every side. Now they
must fight with the energy of despair. (Aloud. ) Now my boys! now for
it! We must fight like wounded boars, or we are utterly lost!

SCHWEITZER. Ha! I'll rip them open with my tusks, till their entrails
protrude by the yard! Lead on, captain! we will follow you into the
very jaws of death.

CHARLES. Charge all your arms! You've plenty of powder, I hope?

SCHWEITZER (with energy). Powder? ay, enough to blow the earth up to
the moon.

RAZ. Every one of us has five brace of pistols, ready loaded, and three
carbines to boot.

CHARLES. Good! good! Now some of you must climb up the trees, or
conceal yourselves in the thickets, and some fire upon them in ambush--

SCHWEITZER. That part will suit you, Spiegelberg.

CHARLES. The rest will follow me, and fall upon their flanks like
furies.

SCHWEITZER. There will I be!

CHARLES. At the same time let every man make his whistle ring through
the forest, and gallop about in every direction, so that our numbers may
appear the more formidable. And let all the dogs be unchained, and set
on upon their ranks, that they may be broken and dispersed and run in
the way of our fire. We three, Roller, Schweitzer, and myself, will
fight wherever the fray is hottest.

SCHWEITZER. Masterly! excellent! We will so bewilder them with balls
that they shall not know whence the salutes are coming. I have more
than once shot away a cherry from the mouth. Only let them come on
(SCHUFTERLE is pulling SCHWEITZER; the latter takes the captain aside,
and entreats him in a low voice. )

CHARLES. Silence!

SCHWEITZER. I entreat you--

CHARLES. Away! Let him have the benefit of his disgrace; it has saved
him. He shall not die on the same field with myself, my Schweitzer, and
my Roller. Let him change his apparel, and I will say he is a traveller
whom I have plundered. Make yourself easy, Schweitzer. Take my word
for it he will be hanged yet.

Enter FATHER DOMINIC.

FATHER DOM. (to himself, starts). Is this the dragon's nest? With your
leave, sirs! I am a servant of the church; and yonder are seventeen
hundred men who guard every hair of my head.

SCHWEITZER. Bravo! bravo! Well spoken to keep his courage warm.

CHARLES. Silence, comrade! Will you tell us briefly, good father, what
is your errand here?

FATHER Dom. I am delegated by the high justices, on whose sentence
hangs life or death--ye thieves--ye incendiaries--ye villains--ye
venomous generation of vipers, crawling about in the dark, and stinging
in secret--ye refuse of humanity--brood of hell--food for ravens and
worms--colonists for the gallows and the wheel--

SCHWEITZER. Dog! a truce with your foul tongue! or ------
(He holds the butt-end of his gun before FATHER DOMINIC'S face. )

CHARLES.