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.