“A woman!  I am no woman; my womanhood died with my husband and my son.  Girl, I tell you that I am no woman; I am a Sword of God myself appointed to the sword.  And so to the end I kill, and kill and kill till the hour when I am killed.  Go, look in the church yonder, and see who hangs to the high arm of the Rood—­the fat Abbe Dominic.  Well, I sent him there to-night; to-morrow you will hear how I turned parson and preached a sermon—­aye, and Ramiro and Adrian called van Goorl, and Simon the spy, should have joined him there, only I could not find them because their hour has not come.  But the idols are down and the paintings burnt, and the gold and silver and jewels are cast upon the dung-heap.  Swept and garnished is the temple, made clean and fit for the Lord to dwell in.”

“Made clean with the blood of murdered priests, and fit by the smoke of sacrilege?” broke in Elsa.  “Oh! woman, how can you do such wicked things and not be afraid?”

“Afraid?” she answered.  “Those who have passed through hell have no more fear; death I seek, and when judgment comes I will say to the Lord:  What have I done that the Voice which speaks to me at night did not tell me to do?  Look down, the blood of my husband and my son still smokes upon the ground.  Hearken, Lord God, it cries to Thee for vengeance!” and as she spoke she lifted her blackened hands and shook them.  Then she went on.

“They murdered your father, why do you not kill them also?  You are small and weak and timid, and could not run by night and use the knife as I do, but there is poison.  I can brew it and bring it to you, made from marsh herbs, white as water and deadly as Death itself.  What!  You shrink from such things?  Well, girl, once I was beautiful as you and as loving and beloved, and I can do them for my love’s sake—­for my love’s sake.  Nay, I do not do them, they are done through me.  The Sword am I, the Sword!  And you too are a sword, though you know it not, though you see it not, you, maiden, so soft and white and sweet, are a Sword of Vengeance working the death of men; I, in my way, you in yours, paying back, back, back, full measure pressed down and running over to those appointed to die.  The treasure of Hendrik Brant, your treasure, it is red with blood, every piece of it.  I tell you that the deaths that I have done are but as a grain of sand to a bowlful compared to those which your treasure shall do.  There, maid, I fright you.  Have no fear, it is but Mad Martha, who, when she sees, must speak, and through the flames in the kirk to-night I saw visions such as I have not seen for years.”

“Tell me more of Foy and Martin,” said Elsa, who was frightened and bewildered.

At her words a change seemed to come over this woman, at once an object of pity and of terror, for the scream went out of her voice and she answered quietly,

“They reached me safe enough five days ago, Red Martin carrying Foy upon his back.  From afar I saw him, a naked man with a named sword, and knew him by his size and beard.  And oh! when I heard his tale I laughed as I have not laughed since I was young.”