Then at last she remembered that she was in the power of her enemies, she sat down, and lay with her face between her hands, and wept passionately.

“Witch,” I said between my closed teeth, “will you come, or must we carry you down to the great hall?”

Neither would she come, but sat there, clutching at her dress and tearing her hair.

Then I said, “Bind her, and carry her down.”  And they did so.

I watched Arnald as we came in, there was no triumph on his stern white face, but resolution enough, he had made up his mind.

They placed her on a seat in the midst of the hall over against the dais.  He said, “Unbind her, Florian.”  They did so, she raised her face, and glared defiance at us all, as though she would die queenly after all.

Then rose up Arnald and said, “Queen Swanhilda, we judge you guilty of death, and because you are a queen and of a noble house, you shall be slain by my knightly sword, and I will even take the reproach of slaying a woman, for no other hand than mine shall deal the blow.”

Then she said, “0 false knight, show your warrant from God, man, or devil.”

“This warrant from God, Swanhilda,” he said, holding up his sword, “listen!  Fifteen years ago, when I was just winning my spurs, you struck me, disgracing me before all the people; you cursed me, and mean that curse well enough.  Men of the house of the Lilies, what sentence for that?”

“Death!” they said.

“Listen!  Afterwards you slew my cousin, your husband, treacherously, in the most cursed way, stabbing him in the throat, as the stars in the canopy above him looked down on the shut eyes of him.  Men of the house of Lily, what sentence for that?”

“Death!” they said.

“Do you hear them.  Queen?  There is warrant from man; for the devil, I do not reverence him enough to take warrant from him, but, as I look at that face of yours, I think that even he has left you.”

And indeed just then all her pride seemed to leave her, she fell from the chair, and wallowed on the ground moaning, she wept like a child, so that the tears lay on the oak floor; she prayed for another month of life; she came to me and kneeled, and kissed my feet, and prayed piteously, so that water ran out of her mouth.

But I shuddered, and drew away; it was like hav ing an adder about one; I cou’d have pitied her had she died bravely, but for one like her to whine and whine!  Pah!

Then from the dais rang Amald’s voice terrible, much changed.  “Let there be an end of all this.”  And he took his sword and strode through the hall towards her; she rose from the ground and stood up, stooping a little, her head sunk between her shoulders, her black eyes turned up and gloaming, like a tigress about to spring.  When he came within some six paces of her something in his eye daunted her, or perhaps the flashing of his terrible sword in the torch-light; she threw her arms up with a great shriek, and dashed screaming about the hall.  Amald’s lip never once curled with any scorn, no line in his face changed:  he said, “Bring her here and bind her.”