The crowd had grown more curious than ever. Every one stood on the tip-toe of expectation with his eyes and mouth wide open. An intense silence reigned around, during which the man in the mask bound the criminal firmly to his seat with a strong cord, then seizing the handkerchief that was tied round the head of the condemned, he gave the signal for the blow. The two priests who had hitherto been whispering consolation in the ear of the criminal now retreated a few paces to the rear, while young Leo advanced, flushed and triumphant, his whole countenance distorted with an expression of malice and revenge. Before brandishing his sword to give the final blow he lowered his head close to the ear of the victim and hissed out in accents sufficiently audible to be overheard by that part of the crowd that had assembled nearest to the scaffold: "Wretch! thine hour has come at last. Learn now the vengeance of a wronged son. Thou shalt see if I am the son of my father or no, and whether it is for nothing that I have been bred a Scharfrichter. Prepare now, for thou art soon to learn how I have profited by my lessons--whether I am an apt pupil. My sword is sharpened well on purpose for thee, and when thou feelest the cold steel close to thy neck, then, then, to h----l with thee, and bear throughout eternity the curses of a ruined son!" During this speech of the young headsman the criminal was observed to tremble convulsively, as if struggling to speak, but the assistant executioner grasped the handkerchief still tighter round his head and repeated the signals impatiently. "Did you hear?" said one of the foremost in the crowd. "Did you hear how he cursed his father? He actually reproached him in his last moments for having brought him up a Scharfrichter! Oh! the unfeeling young villain! What a heart he must have." "Ah! neighbour," answered another, "these executioners are not like other mortals; they do not know what it is to feel. They are brought up to kill their fellow creatures as butchers are to kill cattle, and they think nothing of it. Bless you, there is nothing these men would not do for money." "'Tis strange, too," said another close by. "I always thought young Leo loved his father. I never thought so bad of him as to think that he would curse him in his dying moments, wretch though he may have been." "Take my word for it, neighbour," said a sturdy inhabitant of ----dorf, "that young Leo does not know yet that it is his father." At this moment everyone suddenly broke short his discourse, and the crowd again was silent for a moment. The two-handed weapon was raised high in the air, glittered for a moment in the rays of the rising sun, then descended with the rapidity of lightning, while the head of the murderer having slipped out of the handkerchief with the force of the blow, fell with a crash on the platform.