half-measures. And, besides, coming from the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg,
their precious Society of the White Wolf, with its mummery and flummery,
filled me with a hot contempt.

"Kneel down!" cried the judge; "lay your head on the block! It has often
been wet with the blood of traitors, never with that of a blacker traitor
than Hugo Gottfried!"

So with that those about me thrust me forward and forced my head down. I
was obliged to clasp the block with both my hands. As I did so I felt it
well all over. Then I laughed aloud, with a laugh that must have appeared
strange and mad to them.

For this their mock tribunal could not deceive one who had been brought
up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as
his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their
precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch
from side to side, could not take in Hugo Gottfried, who had made a
playmate and a printed book of the worn blocks of a hundred
executions--to whom each separate chip made by the Red Axe had been a
text for Gottfried Gottfried to expatiate upon concerning his own prowess
and that of his fathers.

Nevertheless, it certainly gave me a strange turn when ice-cold steel was
laid across my neck-bone. It burned like fire, turning my very marrow to
water, and for the first time I wished myself well out of it. But only
for a moment.

For there came a loud rattling of arms without, a thunderous and
insistent knocking at the door, which disturbed the assembly.