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The chief schreiber turned to the Ober-Amtmann, as if to consult his will.
"It is I who seek for mercy, Margaret!" cried the Ober-Amtmann. "I who need thy forgiveness for all the wrong I have done thee!" "Mercy and forgiveness are with God," said the dying woman solemnly. "All the wrong thou hast done me I have long since forgiven, as far as such a sinner as myself can forgive. My time is short; my breath is fast leaving me.
At the sight of the Ober-Amtmann's agitation and apparent swoon, a howl of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of "Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!" Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her father's side; but the Ober-Amtmann quickly rallied.
Astounded at so unexpected a revelation, the Ober-Amtmann seemed at first not to know what to think.
For a moment the Ober-Amtmann passed one hand across his brow, as though to sweep away the dark visions that were hovering about it; and then, waving the other, as if he had come to a resolution which had cost him pain, said with stern solemnity "Let the workers of the evil deeds of Satan perish, until the earth be purged of them all."
At the upper end of the large Gothic room, forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg, which was formally prepared as a court of trial, sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state, the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed, at a velvet-behung table, his schreibers or secretaries; beside him sat, upon a low cushioned stool, his daughter, the fair Fraulein Bertha, surrounded by her tirewomen, who remained standing behind her.
"The Ober-Amtmann will come," he said at last, with a sort of sullen resignation. "He must he shall hear me. He shall know all he will believe her innocent." In the meanwhile, the market-place had already begin to fill with an anxious crowd. In a short time, the press of spectators come to witness the bloody spectacle, began to be great. The throng flowed on through street and lane.
He began himself to doubt of the woman, who, in return for his benevolence, had showed him the attachment of a mother. He pulled his cloak over his face with both his hands, and stood for a time overwhelmed. "It needs no further questions upon this point, I presume," said the chief schreiber, turning to the Ober-Amtmann.
Some five or six months past it came upon me. I know not when or how!" "Bears he no charm upon him?" exclaimed the Ober-Amtmann aloud. "He bears a charm upon him!" cried the witchfinder in triumph. "And ask who bound it round his neck?" "It is false! I bear no charm!" cried Gottlob eagerly. "She herself denied that it was such." "Of what does he speak?" cried the Ober-Amtmann.
Then, fixing his eye keenly upon the Ober-Amtmann, as if to fascinate his attention, he burst into a fresh accusation against the sorceress, as having, in the first place, cast her spells upon the noble Fraulein Bertha, for the purpose of sowing the seeds of death within her frame; and as having, in the second place, employed the young man called "Gentle Gottlob" to be an involuntary agent in her work of ill.
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