narrow courts, and women
crazed by fright flee through the town. Shall they stand impotent
before such things? Is there no one whom their vengeance can reach,
no one whom they in their turn can torture and destroy?

God in Heaven, see! The goldsmith's house is not plundered nor
burned. What does it mean? Was he in league with the enemy? Had he
not the key to one of the town gates in his keeping? Oh, you
daughter of Ung-Hanse, answer, what does it mean?

Far away on the royal ship Violence stands and watches his royal
servant, smiling behind his vizor. "Listen to the storm, Sire,
listen to the storm! The gold that you have ravished will soon lie
on the bottom of the sea, inaccessible to you. And look back at
Visby, my noble lord! The woman whom you deceived is being led
between the clergy and the soldiers to the town-wall. Can you hear
the crowd following her, cursing, insulting? Look, the masons come
with mortar and trowel! Look, the women come with stones! They are
all bringing stones, all, all!

Oh king, if you cannot see what is passing in Visby, may you yet
hear and know what is happening there. You are not of steel and
iron, like Violence at your side. When the gloomy days of old age
come, and you live under the shadow of death, the image of
Ung-Hanse's daughter will rise in your memory.

You shall see her pale as death sink under the contempt and scorn
of her people. You shall see her dragged along between the priests
and the soldiers to the ringing of bells and the singing of hymns.
She is already dead in the eyes of the people. She feels herself
dead in her heart, killed by what she has loved. You shall see her
mount in the tower, see how the stones are inserted, hear the
scraping of the trowels and hear the people who hurry forward with
their stones. "Oh mason, take mine, take mine! Use my stone for the
work of vengeance! Let my stone help to shut Ung-Hanse's daughter
in from light and air! Visby is fallen, the glorious Visby! God
bless your hands, oh masons! Let me help to complete the vengeance!"

Hymns sound and bells ring as for a burial.

Oh Valdemar, King of Denmark, it will be your fate to meet death
also. Then you will lie on your bed, hear and see much and suffer
great pains. You shall hear that scraping of the trowels, those
cries for vengeance. Where are the consecrated bells that drown the
martyrdom of the soul? Where are they, with their wide, bronze
throats, whose tongues cry out to God f