Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/376

 But Joseph, in his own impotence, began to pluck up a bolder spirit when he contemplated his servants, and no sooner had Bartos once more dropped him on to the ground than he shouted to them to force the doors of the charnel house without further hesitation and to drag out the aged Loyka.

“And, prythee, why not? Prythee, why not?” observed Bartos, in a voice again perfectly calm, as if a moment before he had not threatened to make a jelly of a human body. And he posted himself before the doors of the charnel house.

“Cleave the doors asunder!” commanded Joseph, seeing that his servants did not wish to have anything to do with the business. “A souterkin of beer to the man who cleaves them open.”

And when the servants made a rush in right earnest to get at the doors, Bartos, as though he had heard nothing of what Joseph had said, merely stretched out his two hands and said, “Cave!” and already two of the servants lay on the ground blubbering, as though they had come to order their own graves to be delved. The rest of the servants wavered in their charge, then suddenly turned and fled at full speed by the shortest road out of the cemetery.

Joseph began to jeer and threaten them.

“Everything is not to be had for a souterkin of beer,” said Bartos, and laughed or rather smiled tauntingly.