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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Die then in thy obstinacy, miserable woman," cried the Ober-Amtmann in a suppressed voice "Let justice take its course!" "Denouncer!" said the chief schreiber to the witchfinder, "hast thou further evidence to offer?" "Needs it more to convict a criminal of the foul and infernal practices of witchcraft?" cried Black Claus with bitterness.
"No, I know him not," replied Bertha in trouble; "but I have met him sometimes in my path, and I have seen him" she hesitated for a moment, and then added, with downcast eyes, "at his window, which overlooks our garden." "Why then this trouble, Bertha?" continued the Ober-Amtmann, in a tone that rendered their conversation inaudible beyond their own immediate circle.
"Less rudely, varlets!" cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the miserable Magdalena was already regarded.
Again a thrill of horror passed through the Ober-Amtmann; for the sound of the voice seemed to revive in his mind memories of the past, and recall a vision he had already striven to dispel from it. His frame shuddered, and again he fell back in his chair. "It is a delusion of Satan!" he muttered, pressing his hands to his ears, and closing his eyes.
Again Gottlob sought to spring forward and speak; but a sign from the Ober-Amtmann to the guards caused them to place their pikes before him, and arrest him in his impulse. "How and what is this, my child?" said the Ober-Amtmann. "Knowest thou that youth? and in what has he, consciously or unconsciously, done thee ill?"
Behind her stood the stately form of the Ober-Amtmann every muscle of his usually stern face now struggling with emotion his hands clenched together his head bowed down; for he had learned from his brother the Prince, that the female lying before him the woman whom he had himself condemned to the stake, was really the mistress of his younger years the seduced wife of the man whom he had killed his victim, Margaret Weilheim.
"Speak, my child," said the Ober-Amtmann, in trouble and anxiety. "What this man says, is it true? Hast thou suffered lately? Indeed, I do remember thy cheek has been paler than of wont thy appetite has left thee thou hast been no longer so cheerful or so active as of old. Speak, my child hast thou really suffered?"
The fatigue and emotions of the past day were in themselves too much for a frame already shattered by macerations, and privations, and grief; this catastrophe has exhausted her last force of vitality. She cannot live long." The Ober-Amtmann wrung his hands with a still firmer gripe. The tears trembled upon the good old bishop's eyelids. "See!" said the leech; "she again opens her eyes.
The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena, covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into her former crouching position. The sight of the ring seemed indeed to have the power of a necromancer's charm upon the Ober-Amtmann.
"One last look! not a word shall tell her it is her unhappy mother who gives her a last blessing!" The Ober-Amtmann left the room. In a few minutes he returned, leading Bertha by the hand. But Magdalena was already speechless. The fair girl knelt by the side of the mattrass, sobbing bitterly she herself scarcely knew why.
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