g the conquered come
and leave their gold. They hate and threaten, but they obey. And
the desires of the victors grow wilder the more gold they can
extort. What are Denmark's king and his soldiers but my servants,
at least for this one day? To-morrow they will go to church, or sit
in peaceful mirth in their inns, or also perhaps be good fathers in
their own homes, but to-day they serve me; to-day they are evil-doers
and ravishers."

The longer one listens to him, the better one understands what the
picture is; nothing but an illustration of the old story of how
people can torture one another. There is not one redeeming feature,
only cruel violence and defiant hate and hopeless suffering.

Those three beer vats were to be filled that Visby should not be
plundered and burned. Why do they not come, those Hanseaters, with
glowing enthusiasm? Why do the women not hasten with their jewels;
the revellers with their cups, the priest with his relics, eager,
burning with enthusiasm for the sacrifice? "For thee, for thee, our
beloved town! It is needless to send soldiers for us when it
concerns thee! Oh, Visby, our mother, our honor! Take back what
thou hast given us!"

But the painter has not wished to see them so, and it was not so
either. No enthusiasm, only constraint, only suppressed defiance,
only bewailings. Gold is everything to them, women and men sigh
over that gold which they have to give.

"Look at them!" says the power that stands on the steps of the
throne. "It goes to their very hearts to offer it. May he who will
feel sympathy for them! They are mean, avaricious, arrogant. They
are no better than the covetous brigand whom I have sent against
them."

A woman has sunk down on the ground by the vats. Does it cost her
so much pain to give her gold? Or is she perhaps the guilty one? Is
she the cause of the laments? Is it she who has betrayed the town?
Yes, it is she who has been King Valdemar's mistress. It is
Ung-Hanse's daughter.

She knows well that she need give no gold. Her father's house will
not be plundered, but she has collected what she possesses and
brings it. In the market-place she has been overcome by all the
misery she has seen and has sunk down in infinite despair.

He had been active and merry, the young goldsmith's apprentice who
served the year before in her father's house. It had been glorious
to stroll at his side through this same market-place, when the moon
rose from behind the gables a