to all the thousand watching eyes, the King descended from his
litter and mounted, amid salutations, to the enclosure on the
amphitheatre where his throne was set up, and seating himself upon the
throne gazed steadfastly at the arena, where now assistant executioners
were piling the faggots close about the platform.

Not far from the King the court ladies babbled.

"Do they need so much wood to burn one little woman?" Messalinda asked,
curiously, watching the executioners at their task.

Faustina chuckled maliciously.

"If she be a witch, it will take a deal of fire to frighten the devil
out of her."

Soft-haired, soft-eyed Yolande gave a little, delicate shiver, for she
was sensitive and fastidious.

"I hope she will not make a great noise," she said.

Faustina reassured her.

"I do not think so; they say the smoke will soon choke her."

Yolande gave a sigh of relief and settled herself down for
entertainment. Over in the royal enclosure the archbishop of Syracuse
turned with an obeisance to the image of the King.

"Shall we begin, sire?" he asked, and the seeming King answered him.

"Is all ready?"

"All, sire," the archbishop answered.

"Let them begin," the royal figure commanded. The archbishop bent to
where Sigurd Olafson stood, below the royal enclosure.

"The King waits," he said. Sigurd instantly gave the order for the
prisoner to be brought forth. There was a brief pause, then a new
flourish of trumpets, and from the dark archway, that yawned like a
wolf's mouth in the side of the amphitheatre, Perpetua was brought in,
chained and guarded, and led in front of the royal throne. "She looked
very pale," wrote an old Norman chronicler, "and very fair, and as brave
as a sainted martyr."

The archbishop of Syracuse rose and addressed her.

"Woman, you are charged by the King's sainted majesty with working by
witchcraft against his sovereign person, delivering him to his lips
enchantment in a draught of seeming water, to the hurt of his body and
the peril of his soul. If you are guilty and will confess yourself, we
need not waste some precious moments in a vain contest for your sinful
flesh."

Perpetua answered very quietly and very clearly, and all men in
Syracuse heard what she had to say that day.

"I am not guilty. My soul is as clean of sin as on the day my mother
gave me birth. I pray Heaven's forgiveness for the King."

The archbishop flushed angrily.

"Do not blaspheme," he commande