the town, is he the same as the one who whispered sweet words to her?  Was it to meet him that she crept, when the night before she stole her father’s keys and opened the town-gate?  And when she found her goldsmith’s apprentice a knight with sword in hand and a steel clad host behind him, what did she think?  Did she go mad at the sight of that stream of steel surging in through the gate which she had opened?  Too late to bemoan, maiden!  Why did you love the enemy of your town?  Visby is fallen, its glory shall pass away.  Why did you not throw yourself down before the gate and let the steel-shod heels trample you to death?  Did you wish to live in order to see heaven’s thunder-bolts strike the transgressor?

Oh maiden, at his side stands Violence and protects him.  He has violated holier things than a trusting maiden.  He does not even spare God’s own temple.  He breaks away the shining carbuncles from the church walls to fill the last vat.

The bearing of all the figures in the picture changes.  Blind terror fills everything living.  The wildest soldier grows pale; the burghers turn their eyes towards heaven; all await God’s punishment; all tremble except Violence on the steps of the throne and the king who is his servant.

I wish that the artist had lived long enough to take me down to the harbor of Visby and let me see those same burghers, when they followed the departing fleet with their eyes.  They cry curses out over the waves.  “Destroy them!” they cry.  “Destroy them!  Oh sea, our friend, take back our treasures!  Open thy choking depths under the ungodly, under the faithless!”

And the sea murmurs a faint assent, and Violence, who stands on the royal ship, nods approvingly.  “That is right,” he says.  “To persecute and to be persecuted, that is my law.  May storm and sea destroy the pirate fleet and take to itself the treasures of my royal servant!  So much the sooner it will be our lot to set out on new devastating expeditions.”

The burghers on the shore turn and look up at their town.  Fire has raged there; plunder has passed through it; behind broken panes gape pillaged dwellings.  They see emptied streets, desecrated churches; bloody corpses are lying in the narrow courts, and women crazed by fright flee through the town.  Shall they stand impotent before such things?  Is there no one whom their vengeance can reach, no one whom they in their turn can torture and destroy?

God in Heaven, see!  The goldsmith’s house is not plundered nor burned.  What does it mean?  Was he in league with the enemy?  Had he not the key to one of the town gates in his keeping?  Oh, you daughter of Ung-Hanse, answer, what does it mean?

Far away on the royal ship Violence stands and watches his royal servant, smiling behind his vizor.  “Listen to the storm, Sire, listen to the storm!  The gold that you have ravished will soon lie on the bottom of the sea, inaccessible to you.  And look back at Visby, my noble lord!  The woman whom you deceived is being led between the clergy and the soldiers to the town-wall.  Can you hear the crowd following her, cursing, insulting?  Look, the masons come with mortar and trowel!  Look, the women come with stones!  They are all bringing stones, all, all!