It was a grewsome sight.
Straightway there was an ear-splitting explosion of thunder, and
the bottom of heaven fell out; the rain poured down in a deluge.
No matter, we must try to cut this man down, on the chance that
there might be life in him yet, mustn't we? The lightning came
quick and sharp now, and the place was alternately noonday and
midnight. One moment the man would be hanging before me in an
intense light, and the next he was blotted out again in the darkness.
I told the king we must cut him down. The king at once objected.
"If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose him property to
his lord; so let him be. If others hanged him, belike they had
the right--let him hang."
"But--"
"But me no buts, but even leave him as he is. And for yet another
reason. When the lightning cometh again--there, look abroad."
Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!
"It is not weather meet for doing useless courtesies unto dead folk.
They are past thanking you. Come--it is unprofitable to tarry here."
There was reason in what he said, so we moved on. Within the next
mile we counted six more hanging forms by the blaze of the lightning,
and altogether it was a grisly excursion. That murmur was a murmur
no longer, it was a roar; a roar of men's voices. A man came flying
by now, dimly through the darkness, and other men chasing him.
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