is
mind that so outspoken and tricksome a maid had best take a few
thousand years of purgatory--as it were on her way upwards, _en
passant_."

A sudden lowering passion at this point altered his countenance.

"No," he thundered, standing up erect from the pillar against which
he had been leaning, and his whole voice and bearing changing past
description, "it is enough--listen! I will be brief with you. I have
brought both of you here that you may die. I cannot expect of you that
you will understand or appreciate my motives, which are indeed above
the knowledge of children. This is a temple to a Great God, and he
demands the sacrifice of the noblest and most innocent blood. I do you
the honour to believe that it is here to my hand. Also, your deaths
will cause a number of people both in Scotland and elsewhere to sit
easier in their seats. Lastly, I had sworn that you should die if your
friends from Scotland came to trouble me. They have come, and Gilles
de Retz keeps his word--as doth the Master whom he serveth!"

He bowed in the direction of the vast shadowy figure, which to
Laurence's eye appeared to turn towards his niche with a leer, as if
to say, "Listen to him. What a fool he is!"

The maids stood silent, not comprehending aught save that they were to
die. Then suddenly Gilles de Retz cried out in his loudest military
tones--"Henriet, Poitou, De Sille, bind these maidens upon the iron
altar, that Barran-Sathanas may feed his eyes on their beauty and
rejoice!"

And as they stood motionless upon the square of white marble, the
servitors came forward and led them to the great altar of iron. They
lifted the maidens up and laid their bodies crosswise upon the vast
grid, the bars of which were as thick as a man's arm, arranging them
so that their heads hung without support over the bar next the shadowy
image.

As they bound them rudely hand and foot, the long and beautiful hair
of Maud Lindesay escaped from its fastenings and fell down till it
reached the bath of red porphyry which extended underneath the whole
length of the altar of iron.

Then through all the Temple of Evil there ensued sudden silence. Not a
sob or a moan escaped from the doomed maidens, and the feet of the
assistants fell silent and soft as the paws of wild beasts upon the
ebon floor.

Gilles de Retz waited till his acolytes had retired to their appointed
places, where they stood like carven statues watching what should
happen. Then slowly