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Updated: July 8, 2025
He shook from head to foot, and whispered to Gwynplaine, "It's the wapentake." Gwynplaine recollected. An exclamation of surprise was about to escape him, but he restrained it. The iron staff, with the crown at each end, was called the iron weapon.
"He is the bailiff of the hundred." "What is the bailiff of the hundred?" "He is the proepositus hundredi." "And what is the proepositus hundredi?" "He is a terrible officer." "What has he got in his hand?" "The iron weapon." "What is the iron weapon?" "A thing made of iron." "What does he do with that?" "First of all, he swears upon it. It is for that reason that he is called the wapentake."
I call you to your own aid. Have pity on yourself. Do what is asked of you. Give way to justice. Open your eyes, and see if you recognize this man!" The prisoner neither turned his head nor lifted his eyelids. The sheriff cast a glance first at the justice of the quorum and then at the wapentake.
Gwynplaine heard close to him a noise of which only a Chinese gong could give an idea; something like a blow struck against the diaphragm of the abyss. It was the wapentake striking his wand against a sheet of iron. That sheet of iron was a door. Not a door on hinges, but a door which was raised and let down. Something like a portcullis.
Opposite the prison, in the low wall which ran along the other side of the street, another opening was illuminated by a torch passing beneath it. This gate, over which a death's-head was placed, was that of the cemetery. The wapentake passed through it, then the men, then the second torch. The procession decreased therein, like a reptile entering his retreat.
Gwynplaine was in the centre, the wapentake and his baton of iron being now behind him. The justice of the quorum raised the knocker, and struck the door three times. The loophole opened. The justice of the quorum said, "By order of her Majesty." The heavy door of oak and iron turned on its hinges, making a chilly opening, like the mouth of a cavern. A hideous depth yawned in the shadow.
A committee-man properly should be the governor's mattress to fit his truckle, and to new string him with sinews of war; for his chief use is to raise assessments in the neighbouring wapentake.
Ursus saw Gwynplaine disappear within it. The wapentake entered behind Gwynplaine. Then the justice of the quorum. Then the constables. The wicket was closed. The heavy door swung to, closing hermetically on the stone sills, without any one seeing who had opened or shut it. It seemed as if the bolts re-entered their sockets of their own act.
When Gwynplaine was seated, the justice of the quorum and the wapentake retired a few steps, and stood upright and motionless, behind the seat.
Gwynplaine had been carried off rather than arrested. The operation of the police had been executed so rapidly that the Fair field, generally little frequented at that hour of the morning, had scarcely taken cognizance of the circumstance. Scarcely any one in the caravans had any idea that the wapentake had come to take Gwynplaine. Hence the smallness of the crowd.
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