Thereafter they would decide how they should deal with the peasants when they had fulfilled this cleanly task, So presently they went to work; but the peasants were so obstinate that neither by promise of their lives nor by any torture could they be compelled thereto. Then one took the fifth peasant, who had not maltreated the trooper, a little aside, and says he: "If thou wilt deny God and all His saints, I will let thee go whither thou wilt." Thereupon the peasant made reply, "he had in all his life taken little count of saints, and had had but little traffic with God," and added thereto with a solemn oath, "he knew not God and had no art nor part in His kingdom." So then the soldier sent a ball at his head: which worked as little harm as if it had been shot at a mountain of steel. Then he drew out his hanger and "Beest thou still here?" says he. "I promised to let thee go whither thou wouldst: see now, I send thee to the kingdom of hell, since thou wilt not to heaven": and so he split his head down to the teeth. And as he fell, "So," said the soldier, "must a man avenge himself and punish these loose rogues both in this world and the next." Meanwhile the other soldiers had the remaining four peasants to deal with. These they bound, hands and feet together, over a fallen tree in such wise that their back-sides (saving your presence) were uppermost. Then they stript off their breeches, and took some yards of their match-string and made knots in it, and fiddled them therewith so mercilessly that the blood ran. So they cried out lamentably, but 'twas but sport for the soldiers, who ceased not to saw away till skin and flesh were clean sawn off the bones. Me they let go to my hut, for the last-arrived party knew the way well. And so I know not how they finished with the peasants. _Chap. xv._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS PLUNDERED, AND HOW HE DREAMED OF THE PEASANTS AND HOW THEY FARED IN TIMES OF WAR