Volume Iii Part 3 (2/2)
”I should have strangled him. And now? What shall we do now?”
”Do? Nothing! Nothing can be done!”
”He _must_ be liberated. Dost thou hear? he _must_!”
”But, mistress, I know not how.”
Rauthgundis caught up an axe which lay near the hearth.
”We will open the doors by force.”
Dromon tried to take the axe from her hand.
”It is impossible! They are thickly plated with iron.”
”Then send for the monster! Tell him that Witichis desires to speak with him, and I will strike him down at the pa.s.sage door.”
”And then? You rave! Let me go out. I will call Wachis away from his useless watch.”
”No! I cannot think that we shall not succeed. Perhaps that devil will return of his own accord. Perhaps--” she continued reflectively--”Ha!”
she cried suddenly, ”it must be so. He wants to murder him! He intends to steal alone to the defenceless prisoner. But woe to him if he come!
I will guard the threshold of that door as if it were a sanctuary, and woe to him if he cross it!”
She leaned heavily against the half-door of the room, and swung the ponderous axe.
But Rauthgundis was wrong.
Not to kill his prisoner had the Prefect taken the keys into his own keeping.
He had gone with them in his hand to the south side of the palace, where he gained admittance to Mataswintha's room.
The stillness of death and the excitement of fever alternated so rapidly in Mataswintha, that Aspa could never look at her mistress without the tears rus.h.i.+ng to her eyes.
”Most beautiful daughter of the Germans,” began the Prefect, ”dissipate the cloud which rests upon your white brow, and listen to me calmly.”
”How is the King? You leave me without news. You promised to let him go free when all was decided. You promised that he should be taken over the Alps. You have not kept your word.”
”I promised it on two conditions. You know them well, and you have not yet done your part. Tomorrow the nephew of the Emperor will return from Ariminum, ready to take you to Byzantium, and I desire you to give him hopes that you will become his bride. Your marriage with Witichis was forced and null.”
”No, never! I have told you so before.”
”I am sorry for it, for the sake of my prisoner, for he will not see the light of day again until you are on the way to Byzantium with Germa.n.u.s.”
”Never!”
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