, Helene Gottfried shall be executed upon the common scaffold
by the axe of the executioner. Of our clemency is this sentence
delivered, instead of the torture and the burning alive at the stake
which it was within our power to command. This is done in consideration
of the youth of the criminal, and as the first exercise of our ducal
prerogative of high mercy."

With an angry roar the people closed in.

"Take her!" they cried; "rescue her out of their hands!"

And there was a fierce rush, in which the outer barriers were snapped
like straw. But the lictors had pulled down the trap-door on the instant,
and the people surged fiercely over the spot where a moment before Helene
had stood. Before them were the levelled pikes and burning matches of the
Duke's guard.

"Have at them!" was still the cry. "Kill the wolves! Tear them to
pieces!"

But the mob was undisciplined, and the steady advance of the soldiers
soon cleared the hall. Nevertheless the streets without continued angry
and throbbing with incipient rebellion. Duke Otho could scarce win
scathless across the court-yard to his own apartments. Tiles from the
nearest roofs were cast upon the heads of his escort. The streets were
impassable with angry men shaking their fists at every courier and
soldier of the Duke. Women hung sobbing out of the windows, and all the
city of Thorn lamented with uncomforted tears because of the cruel
condemnation of their Saint of the plague, Helena, the maiden of the
Red Tower.

CHAPTER XLV

THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE

I rushed out into the street, distract and insensate with grief and
madness. I found the city seething with sullen unrest--not yet openly
hostile to the powers that abode in the Castle of the Wolfsberg--too long
cowed and down-trodden for that, but angry with the anger which one day
would of a certainty break out and be pitiless.

The Black Horsemen of the Duke pricked a way with their lances here and
there through the people, driving them into the narrow lanes, in jets and
spurts of fleeing humanity, only once more to reunite as soon as the
Hussars of Death had passed. Pikemen cried "Make way!" and the regular
guard of the city paraded in strong companies.

A soldier wantonly thrust me in the back with his spear, and I sprang
towards him fiercely, glad to strike home at something. But as quickly a
man of the crowd pulled me back.

"Be wise!" he said; "not for your own sake alone, but for the sake