w my husband, the prince of our people, and thy
son. That was not told me. But had I known it, still would I have set
him free, for thy son was killed in fair battle, and this man deserves
not slavery or torture. I did seek the tent of the Great Slave, and it
was to set him free--no more. For that did I go, and, for the rest, my
soul is open to the Spirit Who Sees. I have done naught, and never did,
nor ever will, that might shame a king, or the daughter of a king, or
the wife of a king, or a woman. If to set a great captive free is death
for me, then am I ready. I will answer all pure women in the far Camp of
the Great Fires without fear. There is no more, O king, that I may say,
but this: she who dies by fire, being of noble blood, may choose who
shall light the faggots--is it not so?'

"Then the king replied: 'It is so. Such is our law.'

"There was counselling between the king and his oldest men, and so long
were they handling the matter backwards and forwards that it seemed she
might go free. But the king's wife, seeing, came and spoke to the king
and the others, crying out for the honour of her dead son; so that in a
moment of anger they all cried out for death.

"When the king said again to the girl that she must die by fire, she
answered: 'It is as the gods will. But it is so, as I said, that I may
choose who shall light the fires?'

"The king answered yes, and asked her whom she chose. She pointed
towards the Great Slave. And all, even the king and his councillors,
wondered, for they knew little of the heart of women. What is a man with
a matter like that? Nothing--nothing at all. They would have set this
for punishment: that she should ask for it was beyond them. Yes, even
the king's wife--it was beyond her. But the girl herself, see you, was
it not this way?--If she died by the hand of him she loved, then it
would be easy, for she could forget the pain, in the thought that his
heart would ache for her, and that at the very last he might care, and
she should see it. She was great in her way also--that girl, two hundred
years ago.

"Alors, they led her a little distance off,--there is the spot, where
you see the ground heave a little, and the Great Slave was brought up.
The king told him why the girl was to die. He went like stone, looking,
looking at them. He knew that the girl's heart was like a little
child's, and the shame and cruelty of the thing froze him silent for a
minute, and the colour flew from