“A thousand pardons, great bailiff;” he answered.  “Naught, but a burning desire to do justice to your high honor, and to the reputation of the abbaye’s festival, could have led me so far, but—­”

“Speak thy mind at once, rogue, and have done with circumlocution.”

“I have little to say, Signore, except that the father of this illustrious bride, who is about to honor Vevey by making her nuptials an occasion for all in the city to witness and to favor, is the common headsman of Berne—­a wretch who lately came near to prove the destruction of more Christians than the law has condemned, and who is sufficiently out of favor with Heaven to bring the fate of Gomorrah upon your town!”

Pippo tottered to his station among the prisoners with the manner of one who had delivered himself of an important trust, and was instantly lost to view.  So rapid and unlooked for had been the interruption, and so vehement the utterance of the Italian while delivering his facts, that, though several present saw their tendency when it was too late, none had sufficient presence of mind to prevent the exposure.  A murmur arose in the crowd, which stirred like a vast sheet of fluid on which a passing gust had alighted, and then became fixed and calm.  Of all present, the bailiff manifested the least surprise or concern, for to him the last minister of the law was an object, if not precisely of respect, of politic good-will rather than of dishonor.

“What of this!” he answered, in the way of one who had expected a far more important revelation.  “What of this, should it be true!  Harkee, friend,—­art thou, in sooth, the noted Balthazar, he to whose family the canton is indebted for so much fair justice?”

Balthazar saw that his secret was betrayed, and that it were wiser simply to admit the facts, than to have recourse to subterfuge or denial.  Nature, moreover, had made him a man with strong and pure propensities for the truth, and he was never without the innate consciousness of the injustice of which he had been made the victim by the unfeeling ordinance of society.  Raising his head, he looked around him with firmness, for he too, unhappily, had been accustomed to act in the face of multitudes, and he answered the question of the bailiff, in his usual mild tone of voice, but with composure.

“Herr Bailiff, I am by inheritance the last avenger of the law.”

“By my office!  I like the title; it is a good one!  The last avenger of the law!  If rogues will offend, or dissatisfied spirits plot, there must be a hand to put the finishing blow to their evil works, and why not thou as well as another!  Harkee, officers, shut me up yonder Italian knave for a week on bread and water, for daring to trifle with the time and good-nature of the public in this impudent manner.  And this worthy dame is thy wife, honest Balthazar; and that fair maiden thy child—­Hast thou more of so goodly a race?”

“God has blessed me in my offspring, mein Herr.”