st held tightly in his hand as though he
would drag her back. With that a loathing came over me, for I said within
me, "Is the woman so anxious for the blood of the innocent whom she has
hounded to death that she would intrude on the scaffold itself?"

Then I remembered the duty of the Justicers, ere the sentence was carried
out, to recite the crimes of the condemned.

So I cried aloud, even as I had heard my father do.

"The crimes of Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, sole daughter of
Dietrich, lately Prince thereof--guilty of no evil, save that she has
been the savior of this people of Thorn and their deliverer in time of
pestilence!"

The people hushed themselves with astonishment at my words. And then a
cry went up.

"The Red Axe speaks true--she is innocent--innocent!"

But the voice of Gerard von Sturm came again, stern as that of the
recording angel:

"_Executioner of the Wolfmark, do your duty_!"

Scarce knowing what I did, I went on with my formal accusation.

"Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, who is about to die, is also guilty of
loving me, Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, and of none other
crime. For this the Duke has decreed that she should die. It is her own
will that she should die by my hand."

Helene came forward and put her hand in mine in token that I spoke
truly, and there fell a great silence across the people. I saw the Lady
Ysolinde straining at her father's hand, like a dog in a leash when the
quarry rises.

Then my love kissed me once, just as though she had been saying
good-night in the Red Tower, simply and sweetly, like a child, and laid
her head down on the block as on the white pillow of her own bed.

"_God do so and more also to them on whose heads is the innocent blood of
my love and my wife_!"

The words burst from me rather than were uttered.

I raised the blade.

But ere the Red Axe could fall there arose a wild scream from the Duke's
enclosure. Some one cried, "Let me go! He has said it! He has said it! I
will not be silent any longer!" It was the Lady Ysolinde, who had broken
away from her father's hand.

"The girl is his wife," she went on. "He has claimed her--according to
the laws of the Wolfmark, that cannot be broken, he has called her his
wife. It is the Executioner's right. One woman he can claim as his
during his term of office--one only, and for his wife. Duke Otho, I call
upon you to allow it! Chancellor Texel, I call upon you to read the law!