“There remains but little more to say, Herr Doge.  The fatal hour arrived, and the criminal was transported to the place where he was to give up his life.  While seated in the chair in which he received the fatal blow, his spirit underwent infernal torments.  I have reason to think that there were moments when he would gladly have made his peace with God.  But the demons prevailed; he died in his sins!  From the hour when he committed the little Gaetano to my keeping, I did not cease to entreat to be put in possession of the secret of the child’s birth, but the sole answer I received was an order to appropriate the gold to my own uses, and to adopt the boy as my own.  The sword was in my hand, and the signal to strike was given, when, for the last time, I asked the name of the infant’s family and country, as a duty I could not neglect.  ‘He is thine—­he is thine—­’ was the answer; ’tell me, Balthazar, is thy office hereditary, as is wont in these regions?’ I was compelled, as ye know, to say it was.  ’Then adopt the urchin; rear him to fatten on the blood of his fellows!’ It was mockery to trifle with such a spirit.  When his head fell, if still bad on its fierce features traces of the infernal triumph with which his spirit departed!”

“The monster was a just sacrifice to the laws of the canton!” exclaimed the single-minded bailiff.  “Thou seest, Herr Melchior, that we do well in arming the hand of the executioner, in spite of all the sentiment of the weak-minded.  Such a wretch was surely unworthy to live.”

This burst of official felicitation from Peterchen, who rarely neglected an occasion to draw a conclusion favorable to the existing order of things, like most of those who reap their exclusive advantage, and to the prejudice of innovation, produced little attention; all present were too much absorbed in the facts related by Balthazar, to turn aside; to speak, or think, of other matters.

“What became of the boy?” demanded the worthy clavier, who had taken as deep an interest as the rest, in the progress of the narrative.

“I could not desert him, father; nor did I wish to.  He came into my guardianship at a moment when God, to reprove our repinings at a lot that he had chosen to impose, had taken our own little Sigismund to heaven.  I filled the place of the dead infant with my living charge; I gave to him the name of my own son, and I can say confidently, that I transferred to him the love I had borne my own issue; though time, and use, and a knowledge of the child’s character, were perhaps necessary to complete the last.  Marguerite never knew the deception, though a mother’s instinct and tenderness took the alarm and raised suspicions.  We have never spoken freely on this together, and like you, she now heareth the truth for the first time.”

“’Twas a fearful mystery between God and my own heart!” murmured the woman; “I forbore to trouble it—­Sigismund, or Gaetano, or whatever you will have his name, filled my affections, and I strove to be satisfied.  The boy is dear to me, and ever will be, though you seat him on a throne; but Christine—­the poor stricken Christine—­is truly the child of my bosom!”