Now the
Westphalian was gone, there was not a man among them to doubt that a
navigation, so accompanied, would be cursed. Baptiste stammered, muttered
many incoherent sentences, and finally, in his impotency, he permitted the
dangerous secret to escape him.
The intelligence that Balthazar was among them produced a solemn and deep
silence. The fact, however, furnished as conclusive evidence of the cause
of their peril to the minds of these untutored beings, as a mathematician
could have received from the happiest of his demonstrations. New light
broke in upon them, and the ominous stillness was followed by a general
demand for the patron to point out the man. Obeying this order, partly
under the influence of a terror that was allied to his moral weakness, and
partly in bodily fear, he shoved the headsman forward, substituting the
person of the proscribed man for his own, and, profiting by the occasion,
he stole out of the crowd.
When the Herr Mueller, or as he was now known and called, Balthazar, was
rudely pushed into the hands of these ferocious agents of superstition,
the apparent magnitude of the discovery induced a general and breathless
pause.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177