little by the arbitrary exercise of iron-clad authority upon all
occasions that offer, for this wounds the just pride of his
subordinates, and thus tends to undermine his strength. A little
concession, now and then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy.

Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once more, and measurably
happy, her wine naturally began to assert itself again, and it got
a little the start of her. I mean it set her music going--her silver
bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a master talker. It would not
become me to suggest that it was pretty late and that I was a tired
man and very sleepy. I wished I had gone off to bed when I had
the chance. Now I must stick it out; there was no other way. So
she tinkled along and along, in the otherwise profound and ghostly
hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if
from deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled shriek
--with an expression of agony about it that made my flesh crawl.
The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted
her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The sound bored
its way up through the stillness again.

"What is it?" I said.

"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many hours now."

"Endureth what?"

"The rack. Come--ye shall see a blithe sight. An he yield not
his secret now, ye shall see him torn asunder."

What a silky smooth hellion she was; and so composed and serene,
when the cords all down my legs were hurting in sympathy with that
man's pain. Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches,
we tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone stairways dank
and dripping, and smelling of mould and ages of imprisoned night
--a chill, uncanny journey and a long one, and not made the shorter
or the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this
sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an anonymous
informer, of having killed a stag in the royal preserves. I said:

"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing, your Highness.
It were fairer to confront the accused with the accuser."

"I had not thought of that, it being but of small consequence.
But an I would, I could not, for that the accuser came masked by
night, and told the forester, and straightway got him hence again,
and so the forester knoweth him not."

"Then is this Unknown the only person who saw the stag killed?"

"Marry, _no_ man _saw_ the killing, but th