“Oh, what a dog is this!” she said when it was finished.  “Know, Olaf, that of my free will I surrendered the throne to him, yes, and all my private treasure, he swearing upon the Gospels that I should live in peace and honour till my life’s end.  And now he sends me to you to be blinded and then done to death, for that is what he means.  Oh! may God avenge me upon him!  May he become a byword and a scorn, and may his own end be even worse than that which he has prepared for me.  May shame wrap his memory as in a garment, may his bones be dishonoured and his burying-place forgotten.  Aye, and so it shall be."[*]

     [*] The skull of this Nicephorus is said to have been used
     as a drinking cup by his victorious enemy, the King Krum.—­
     Editor.

She paused in her fearful curse, then said in a new voice, that voice in which she was wont to plead,

“You will not blind me, Olaf.  You’ll not take from me my last blessing, the light of day.  Think what it means——­”

“The General Olaf should know well enough,” interrupted Jodd, but I waved him to be silent, and answered,

“Tell me, Madam, how can I do otherwise?  It seems to me that my life and that of my wife and children hang upon this deed.  Moreover, why should I do otherwise now that by God’s justice the wheel has come round at last?” I added, pointing to the hollows beneath my brows where the eyes once had been.

“Oh!  Olaf,” she said, “if I harmed you, you know well it was because I loved you.”

“Then God send that no woman ever loves me in such a fashion,” broke in Jodd.

“Olaf,” she continued, taking no note of him, “once you went very near to loving me also, on that night when you would have eaten the poisoned figs to save my son, the Emperor.  At least, you kissed me.  If you forget, I cannot.  Olaf, can you blind a woman whom you have kissed?”

“Kissing takes two, and I know that you blinded him,” muttered Jodd, “for I crucified the brutes you commanded to do the deed to which they confessed.”

“Olaf, I admit that I treated you ill; I admit that I would have killed you; but, believe me, it was jealousy and naught but jealousy which drove me on.  Almost as soon would I have killed myself; indeed, I thought of it.”

“And there the matter ended,” said Jodd.  “It was Olaf who walked the Hall of the Pit, not you.  We found him on the brink of the hole.”

“Olaf, after I regained my power——­”

“By blinding your own son,” said Jodd, “for which you will have an account to settle one day.”

“——­I dealt well with you.  Knowing that you had married my rival, for I kept myself informed of all you did, still I lifted no hand against you——­”

“What good was a maimed man to you when you were courting the Emperor Charlemagne?” asked Jodd.

Now at last she turned on him, saying,

“Well is it for you, Barbarian, that if only for a while Fate has reft power from my hands.  Oh! this is the bitterest drop in all my cup, that I who for a score of years ruled the world must live to suffer the insults of such as you.”