ou cursed woman, if you had really loved
him, and had made him happy--I could have forgiven all! But you never
loved him; you are only capable of ambition! His lot with you was
misery. For years I saw him wasting by your side, oppressed, unloved,
chilled to the very soul by your coldness. Grief soon killed him. You!
you have robbed me of my lover and brought him to the grave with
sorrow--revenge! revenge for him!"

And the lofty dome echoed with the cry: "Revenge! Revenge!"

"Help!" cried Amalaswintha, and ran despairingly round the circle of
the gallery, beating the smooth walls with her hands.

"Aye! call! call! here no one can hear you but the God of Revenge! Do
you think I have bridled my hate for months in vain? How often, how
easily could I have reached you, with dagger or poison, at Ravenna! But
no; I have decoyed you here. At the monument of my murdered cousins; an
hour ago at your bedside; I with difficulty restrained my uplifted
hand--but slowly, inch by inch, shall you die. I will watch for hours
the growing agony of your death."

"Terrible! Oh, terrible!"

"What are hours compared with the long years during which I was
martyred by the thought of my disfigurement, of your beauty and your
possession of my lover! But you shall repent it!"

"What will you do?" cried the terrified woman, again and again seeking
some outlet in the walls.

"I will drown you, slowly and surely, in the waterworks of this bath,
which your friend Cassiodorus built. You do not know what tortures of
jealousy and impotent rage I endured in this house when your wedding
with Eutharic was celebrated, and I was compelled to serve in your
train. In this room, you proud woman, I unloosed your sandals, and
dried your fair limbs--in this room you shall die?"

She touched a spring in the wall.

The floor of the basin, the round metal plate, divided into two halves,
which slid slowly into the walls on the right and left.

With horror the imprisoned woman looked down from the narrow gallery
into the chasm thus opened at her feet.

"Remember that day in the meadow!" cried Gothelindis; and in the lower
story the sluices were suddenly opened, and the waters of the lake
rushed in, roaring and hissing, and rose higher and higher with fearful
rapidity.

Amalaswintha saw certain death before her. She saw the impossibility of
escape, or of softening her fiendish enemy by prayers. At this crisis,
the hereditary courage of the Amelungs returned