"Well, here we stand, talking in the darkness still. Let us get out of it," Jonas cried, and they moved toward the light of the camp, taking Oberthal with them. Suddenly when in the bright light, Jonas recognized his old master who had sent him away and punished him for stealing. "Heaven! Well, I have you now!" he cried, wickedly. "Now I'll make short work of you!" and he called the guard. "Here! surround him. Lead him instantly to execution." "Without consulting the Prophet?" all cried in amazement. That was high-handed work, indeed. "Wait for nothing. Kill him," Jonas cried, going excitedly by one path, as John the Prophet came upon the scene by another. He was sad and cast down, and Zacharia spoke to him. "What is wrong with you?" "I get small joy from all this," he answered. "Jeanne d'Arc was born to such affairs, but I was better off in my inn, serving my people. It is a bad business," and he was very melancholy. "What is this you say?" "I say that I think of my Bertha and my mother. I wish I were with them, while others were reforming Holland." "But thy mother and thy sweetheart, since they got into the hands of Oberthal, are doubtless dead." "Then there is little for me to fight for. I shall stop now; do you carry on your schemes as best you may. Who is that prisoner?" he asked, as Oberthal was brought back by the soldiers. "It is a man who is about to be executed." "Oh--he is? Who says so, since I say otherwise?" John replied, looking at Zacharia contemptuously. "I am thy Prophet," he declared with hardly less contempt in his tone than before. "I am thy Prophet and settle these matters of life and death. I settle this one. Yonder man shall not die. I am in a humane mood." He motioned the guard to bring Oberthal, whom he had not yet seen, before him. When face to face, John of Leyden lifted his eyes and looked again upon the man who had brought all his woes upon him; who had so persecuted him that he had in a mad moment left his peaceful inn, and undertaken to change the face of Germany. He had already wrought untold pain and suffering. "Oberthal!" he said, hardly able to speak because of his emotion. "Ah! thou wilt still treat him tenderly, I doubt not!" Zacharia cried, sneeringly. For a moment John of Leyden could not speak; then he said: "Leave us!" His tone was awful, yet showed great self-repression. "So!" he said, after gazing at Oberthal a moment. "Heaven has delivered thee into my hands!" "It is just. My crime merits my punishment," Oberthal said in a low voice. "But I will tell thee one thing which is thy due and may save my soul from damnation: thy Bertha, to save herself from my hands, threw herself into the sea, and thus escaped me." "Dead, dead!" John of Leyden said, bowing his head a moment upon his hands. "No! there is more. Touched with remorse, I saved her." "And then,--speak!" "She fled to Muenster, and I was on my way there to find her and to try to restore her to thee, when I was arrested."