On the ground on the straw lay the powerless man in chains, but he looked like a piece of flint shaped in human form. Zygfried commanded Diedrich to throw the light directly upon Jurand’s face, then he gazed at it for a while in silence. Then he turned to Diedrich and said:
“Observe, he has only one eye—destroy it.”
There was something in his voice like sickness and decrepitude, and for that very reason, the horrible order sounded more terrible, so that the torch began somewhat to tremble in the hand of the executioner. Yet he inclined it toward Jurand’s face, and in a moment big drops of burning tar began to fall upon the eye of Jurand, covering it entirely from the brow down to the projecting cheek bone.
Jurand’s face twitched, his grey mustachios moved, but he did not utter a single
