the fable quite clear to
you?"

A stifled moan was the sole reply.

"And then Heaven's lightning descended upon your house, misfortune was a
constant visitor upon you, you soon had a pair of corpses under your
roof, and there was no end to your affliction. Now I should say that
that looked very much like a curse upon you.

"Yes, a curse pursued your family. When you had securely fastened the
door behind you, you used to weep and wail like any beggar; yes, and no
beggar at your door would have thanked you for the chance of exchanging
his lot with yours."

To this there was no reply from behind the window.

The defiant features of the virago were illuminated by the candle which
the child now held again in her hand. She seemed to cast a dark shadow
upon the very night around her--the darkest of dark shadows.

And now she went right up to the window so that she could actually
whisper through it.

"Come, throw down your weapons, ye great and haughty gentlemen, for they
are no longer a defence to you. Something very evil is going to happen
to-night, for I have not come to you for nothing, I can tell you."

And with that she drew from beneath the kerchief covering her breast the
knife sharpened to a keen point, whose edge she had tested so carefully
a short time before.

"Do you see my key?" cried she. "This is the key to your hearts, this is
the key to the doors of your palaces. This knife will pare down your
pride and humble you to the dust beneath my feet. You could shoot me
dead as I stand here I know, though that would be no very great
master-stroke. But the same instant in which I fell, my mother, the old
witch, would stand behind my back and would shout to the infuriated mob
with all the force of her lungs, and tell them whose this child is, and
then do you know in whose heart this knife would be plunged first of
all?"

A sort of painful wail came from below the dark window, like the sounds
that are heard in a deserted, dilapidated old fortress where the whole
building is ever sighing and moaning, and none can tell whence the noise
comes.

During the virago's muttered discourse the bolder spirits among the mob
had gradually flitted back again into the courtyard. They perceived that
the headsman's wife was not afraid, and this of itself gave them
courage. Some of them even drew near to the threshold of the house,
where they pricked up their ears and did their best to catch something
of what the woman was t