He is too horrible, too
loathsome. I would swoon if he touched me."
"What, lady, neither love nor pity? Yet this may merely be a passing
sickness of the humours. To-morrow thou mayest love him better than
before."
"Love?" She was fast growing hysterical. "I could never bear the sight
of such a mangled dwarf." Thrusting her hand inside her dress, she
drew out a gleaming bodkin, and flung it at the fool's feet. "Kill
him," she screamed, "kill him!" Then she rose unsteadily and staggered
out the iron door.
"Kill him!" the jester echoed. "Merciful Mary, I thank thee!" and,
concealing the bodkin in his blouse, he descended the ladder, to help
the captain and the torturers in their work.
An hour later, the squire's corpse was thrown over the castle walls.
"'Tis a shame," growled the captain; "he would have made so fine a
mute. One of the torturers' knives must ha' slipped, whilst they were
cutting out his tongue. For I noticed that the spinal cord was severed
at the base of the mouth--and that is a sure death, you know."
"So? I had not known that," said the jester softly, and he smiled to
himself.
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