ecause, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the
absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable
of inflicting it.

Then came the evidence.

The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was
brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance--in fact, as
my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar
Laurence--he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who
even then had watched the Little Playmate with no friendly eyes.

As she passed the judges I saw the deadly fear mount to agony on the face
of old Hanne. The look in her eyes of physical pain suffered and
overpassed was the same which I had often seen in the wars after the
surgeon has done his horrid work. That same look I saw now on the face of
Hanne. So I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses under the Hall of
Judgment the Extreme Question had been put to her, and to all appearance
answered according to the liking of the persecutors, though they dared
not torture so notable a public prisoner as Helene.

I saw a look of satisfied vindictiveness pass over the brutal features of
Duke Otho. He changed his position and whispered to his colleagues.

It was Master Gerard von Sturm who rose to put the questions to the
witness. And as he did so, I heard the steady sough of talk among the
people rise mutteringly in a low growl of anger and contempt. The Duke's
lictors struck right and left among the crowd, as men bent forward with
fierce hate in their voices, lowing like oxen, as if to clear their lungs
of a weight of contempt.

It was not thus in the old days, when there was no people's arbiter
in all the Wolfmark so famous or so popular as Master Gerard of the
Weiss Thor.

"What is the reason of that turmoil?" said I to my neighbor.

"This is the man who was her first accuser. Why, he dares not go outside
his house without a guard of the Duke's riders," said the man, picking at
his finger-nail with his teeth, as if it were a bone and he did not think
much of its savoriness.

"You have already confessed," said the advocate to old Hanne, when they
had propped up the poor wreck of skin and bone, "and you do now confess
that this maid and yourself have ofttimes had converse with the Enemy
of Souls?"

A spasm passed across the face of the witness, and a low sound proceeded
from her mouth, which might have been an affirmative answer, but which
sounded to me much more like a moa