thee.

Therewith she rose up slowly, Birdalone helping her, and sat in her
big chair silent awhile, and then she spake: My servant, thou hast
for the more part served me well: but this time thou hast done ill,
whereas thou hast been spying on my ways; whereof may come heavy
trouble but if we look to it. Well is it for thee that thou hast
none unto whom thou mightest babble; for then must I needs have slain
thee here and now. But for this first time I pardon thee, and thou
hast escaped the wrath.

Her voice was soft and wheedling; but for Birdalone the terror had
entered into her soul, and yet abode with her.

The witch-wife sat a while, and then arose and went about the
chamber, and came to a certain aumbry and opened it, and drew forth a
little flasket of lead and a golden cup scored over with strange
signs, and laid them on the board beside her chair, wherein she now
sat down again, and spake once more, still in the same soft and
wheedling voice: Yet, my servant, thy guilt would be required of me,
if I let this pass as if to-day were the same as yesterday; yea, and
of thee also would it be required; therefore it is a part of the
pardon that thou be corrected: and the correction must be terrible
to thee, that thou mayst remember never again to thrust thyself into
the jaws of death. And what may I do to correct thee? It shall be
in a strange way, such as thou hast never dreamed of. Yet the
anguish thereof shall go to thine heart's root; but this must thou
needs bear, for my good and thine, so that both we may live and be
merry hereafter. Go now, fill this cup with water from the spring
and come back with it. Birdalone took the cup with a sinking heart,