Now, in an agony of mind, Lysbeth turned and looked at Montalvo.

The Count was a man of keen perceptions, and understood it all.  Leaning forward, his arm resting on the back of the sledge, as though to contemplate the prisoner, he whispered into Lysbeth’s ear, so low that no one else could hear his words.

“Senora,” he said, “I have no wishes in this matter.  I do not desire to drown that poor mad woman, but if you confirm the spy’s story, drown she must.  At present I am not satisfied, so everything turns upon your evidence.  I do not know what passed between you this afternoon, and personally I do not care, only, if you should chance to have no clear recollection of the matter alleged, I must make one or two little stipulations—­very little ones.  Let me see, they are—­that you will spend the rest of this evening’s fete in my company.  Further, that whenever I choose to call upon you, your door will be open to me, though I must remind you that, on three occasions already, when I have wished to pay my respects, it has been shut.”

Lysbeth heard and understood.  If she would save this woman’s life she must expose herself to the attentions of the Spaniard, which she desired least of anything in the world.  More, speaking upon her oath in the presence of God, she must utter a dreadful lie, she who as yet had never lied.  For thirty seconds or more she thought, staring round her with anguished eyes, while the scene they fell on sank into her soul in such fashion that never till her death’s day did she forget its aspect.

The Mare spoke no more, she only knelt searching her face with a stern and wondering glance.  A little to the right stood Black Meg, glaring at her sullenly, for the blood-money was in danger.  Behind the prisoner were two of the soldiers, one patting his hand to his face to hide a yawn, while the other beat his breast to warm himself.  The third soldier, who was placed somewhat in front, stirred the surface of the hole with the shaft of his halbert to break up the thin film of ice which was forming over it, while Montalvo himself, still leaning sideways and forwards, watched her eyes with an amused and cynical expression.  And over all, over the desolate snows and gabled roofs of the town behind; over the smooth blue ice, the martyr and the murderers; over the gay sledge and the fur-wrapped girl who sat within it, fell the calm light of the moon through a silence broken only by the beating of her heart, and now and again by the sigh of a frost-wind breathing among the rushes.

“Well, Senora,” asked Montalvo, “if you have sufficiently reflected shall I administer the oath in the form provided?”

“Administer it,” she said hoarsely.

So, descending from the sledge, he stood in front of Lysbeth, and, lifting his cap, repeated the oath to her, an oath strong enough to blast her soul if she swore to it with false intent.

“In the name of God the Son and of His Blessed Mother, you swear?” he asked.