Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/146

 And, being enraged at him, because he would neither speak to her nor turn Mahometan, she immediately changed her love into hatred, and said to him:—“Never wert thou worthy that I should love thee so with my whole heart. Dog! traitor! pagan! Jew! die, since thou desirest thus to die; only, O that I could be freed from this terrible death, which I shall suffer guiltless on thy account! Alas! comfort me some of you, dear people!” Having said this she swooned away.

The Turks, seeing that the young man would not be converted, angrily guashed their teeth at him, and cried out that he should be thrown on a hook. Two executioners then standing on the gallows raised him about half an ell above a hook, and threw him on to it. This having been done, all the women and men also surrounded the lady, and, had there not been so strong a guard, they would not have allowed her to be drowned, and, had the chiaous met them, he would have been torn to pieces, like the celebrated Orpheus, by the infuriated women, or stoned by the Turks, who vehemently reviled him. When the lady had ended her prayers, the women took leave of her with great shrieking and weeping, although she was already quite unconscious, and as pale as a white sheet. An executioner took her down from the mule, tied her hands with one cloth, passed another round her waist, and fastened a third round her feet. He then placed her with her mouth downwards in a small boat, and rowing about two fathoms from the shore, for the gallows was close to the sea-shore, fixed a long staff in the cloth round her waist, pushed her lightly out of the boat into the sea, and held her under water till she was drowned. Then