een in this mood, and he soothed
her and talked to her kindly and sweetly, for he really loved her,
though he had given in to bad advice about the brother. And when the
king's suspicions were lulled, the queen said to him that she had now
but one request to make, and that was that she might have permission to
go down with her maids to the river-shore in the early morning, and see
herself the execution of her traitor brother. The king, who would now
have granted her anything--anything she asked, except just that one
thing, the life of her brother--gave permission; and then the queen said
that she was tired and wished to rest after all the trouble of the last
few days, and would the king leave her. So the king left her to herself,
and went away to his own chambers.

Very early in the morning, ere the crimson flush upon the mountains had
faded in the light of day, a vast crowd was gathered below the city, by
the shore of the great river. Very many thousands were there, of many
countries and peoples, crowding down to see a man die, to see a traitor
burnt to death for his sins, for there is nothing men like so much as to
see another man die.

Upon a little headland jutting out into the river the pyre was raised,
with brushwood and straw, to burn quickly, and an iron post in the
middle to which the man was to be chained. At one side was a place
reserved, and presently down from the palace in a long procession came
the queen and her train of ladies to the place kept for her. Guards were
put all about to prevent the people crowding; and then came the
soldiers, and in the midst of them the blacksmith; and amid many cries
of 'Traitor, traitor!' and shouts of derision, he was bound to the iron
post within the wood and the straw, and the guards fell back.

The queen sat and watched it all, and said never a word. Fire was put to
the pyre, and it crept rapidly up in long red tongues with coils of
black smoke. It went very quickly, for the wood was very dry, and a
light breeze came laughing up the river and helped it. The flames played
about the man chained there in the midst, and he made never a sign; only
he looked steadily across at the purple mountain where his home lay, and
it was clear that in a few more moments he would be dead. There was a
deep silence everywhere.

Then of a sudden, before anyone knew, before a hand could be held out to
hinder her, the queen rose from her seat and ran to the pyre. In a
moment she was there