"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