having his supper. Without more ado, I
accosted him.

"Sir, you will forgive a stranger's intrusion,
I hope. I am an Englishman just arrived in
Cologne. I understand that you were present,
in an official capacity, this day, at the execution
of two women. You will oblige me
greatly by giving me what information you
can, respecting them. The motive that
prompts me to ask this favour is something
beyond common curiosity, as you shall
presently learn."

"Be seated, sir," said the officer, politely,
pointing to the chair opposite. "I will tell you
all I know concerning the sisters Strauss. You
are acquainted with the nature of the crime of
which they were convicted? It was the murder
of one Hausmann, a young pedlar. Not for
the sake of his money, for he was poor enough,
but for his hair and teeth." (I shuddered, but
said nothing. He continued:) "This was
by no means their first crime. They were
discovered to have been driving their horrible
trade for two or three years past. It is
supposed that they murdered upwards of twenty
persons, men, women, and children. Numbers
who disappeared mysteriously are now said to
have been made away with by the sisters Strauss.
Their victims were all strangers or friendless,
to whom they offered hospitality, and touching
whose disappearance no inquiries were likely to
be made. Some few had money, perhaps; the
generality were poor; but several watches and
a considerable sum of money were found
secreted in the house."

"It had a garden," I said, as though I saw
it all again—"a garden walled round, with a
postern at the further end. In the house were
three rooms."

"Just so. All the world has been visiting
that house during the last few days. A great
number of skeletons have been found in the
garden. The popular execration was so great
that it was feared the women would be torn
in pieces on their way to the "galgen"
(gallows) to-day. Had it not been for the strong
guard which I commanded, and that their
terrible sentence—one rarely pronounced now—
would, it was known, be carried out to the very
letter, they would assuredly have fallen a prey
to the fury of the mob. As it was, the savage
satisfaction at the prospect of seeing them
broken on the wheel——"

"Broken on the wheel! Good Heaven,
sir, you surely don't mean that this sentence
was carried out?"

"Yes. It is, as I have said, very unusual,
now, for this punishment to be even recorded,
still less enforced. But in cases of very rare
atrocity, nothing short of it seems to satisfy the
public.* I saw even women, to-day, looking
on unmoved; though I, a soldier, who have seen
a good many bloody battle-fields in the great
war, would fain have ridden away when I heard
the first crush of the elder sister's arms. It, was
horrible to hear—and then her cries! You know
how it is done? The head is held down by two
men, by a rope tied round the neck. The limbs
are then broken, one after another, from above,
by a heavy wheel. At the end, the head is
severed from the body by a sword. The elder
sister's agony was prolonged to the very end.
I suspect the executioners were more merciful
to the younger sister. It is known that they
sometimes contrive to strangle the culprit while
holding the head down. The younger, after the
first sharp cry, never uttered another. She had
ceased to suffer, I hope and believe, long before
she was beheaded."

* The wheel was absolutely abolished in Prussia
about thirty years ago.

Some minutes elapsed before I could speak.
I opened my sketch-book, and turned over its
pages.

"Sir," I said at last, "I have one question
more to ask you. Do these heads at all resemble
the wretched women whose death you this day
witnessed?"

"Assuredly they do. They must have been
drawn from life," he replied.

I then told him my story, as I have now told
it you. I need hardly say he did not doubt but
that I had actually, in the flesh, encountered
the sisters Strauss, and had been in such
imminent peril as very few men have survived.
As to the hypothesis of a dream, which had
taken such firm root in my mind that I could
not lightly discard it, the officer laughed it to
scorn.

Yet even at this distance of time, when I
read and hear strange stories of second-sight,
of prophetic dreams, and warning visions, a
doubt crosses my mind, and I ask myself whether
my adventure with the two sisters of Cologne
was not, perhaps, of the nature of these? But
you now know as much as I do, and I leave you
to decide the point for yourself.

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        MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read on January 22nd, at
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                              Now ready,
               THE SIXTEENTH VOLUME.
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