The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1900-06-21

away and he lay motionless. After
pounding the body sor over half an
hour the fanatics paused and Sur
veyed their victim as a butcher might
the carcass of a hog" Seeing that
every bone was broken they concluded
that the devil was driven out, where
upon-it is almost blasphemous to re-
late-there were more prayers and
hymns.
After arranging to meet again the
following night and take the oldest OF
Scherf's children, a girl of 8, to the
nearby mountain for sacrifice, thu
murderous assemblage returned to
their homes.
Though Scherf's wife, who was as
mad as her husband on the question of
anabaptism, had agreed to let him
have the child, she repented after her
husband had gone to Battenburg to tell
his mother of the successful driving
out of the devil. Beside herself with
fear and contrition, she packed all her
children in a wagon and drove at top
speed to the town of Zuelphen, and IN
formed the authorities of the crime
committed and the more horrible one
planned.
Thinking her demented, the police
hrst refused to act, but the frightened
mother was so persistent that late in
the evening six mounted gendarmes
were dispatched to Scherf's farm. Three
OF them guarded the several entrances,
while the rest crept noiselessly into
the house. In the big guests chamber
a mar was talking excitedly, but in a
subdued vo.ce-Scherf, as it turned out,
who admonished the widow Zevenaer,
threatening her with death for refus-
ing to divulge the place where her
children were hid.
Frau Zevenaer had also weakened at
the last moment, it seemed, but was
now on the point of changing her mind
again. Swayed by fear of personal
violence or by religious frenzy, she
promised at the conclusion of the false
Messiah's speech to let the fanatics
have one child right way and was &C
tually preparing to fetch the little one
when the gendarmes broke in upon the
meeting.
A strange sight mel their eyes.1The
a~nabaptists were sitting around a
large table formed Of several smaller
mes placed together. They were din
lng-having a feast to judge by the
amount and quality of the food.
In the center of the table was the
mutilated body of Brinkman covered
with black crosses made by charcoal
to show that the devil was driven out,
while broken chairs and china, pools
of blood and rags told of the fight Of
the night before.
The gendarmes, pistol in one hand
and saber in the other, declared the
assemblage under arrest, and, ON
trary to expectation, the fanatics, TAX
en- completely by surprise, submitted
quietly.
Word was sent to the village for
wagons to bring the culprits to town,
and the news of the murder and of the
intended sacrifices spreading in Appel
tern and Maasbommel a great crowd
at once assembled. The populace, so
long kept in a state of terror, thought
their time for revenge had arrived,
and, Selling guns, sabers and all sorts
of farm implements, made for the
Scherf homestead to massacre the ana
baptists.
The gendarmes thereupon closed the
gates and declared that they would
defend the prisoners with their lives.
They held the fort several hours, dur
ing which time many shots were ex-
changed, until finally a squadron of
cavalry, requisitioned by telephone, ar
rived and made an end of the insur-
rection.