And the men, as alert as their clumsy bodies would allow, as quick as the darkness would permit, groaning, sweating, falling up against one another, worked with a will to accomplish the end which they had in view.
To burn the witch!
And she, the woman, her poor wits almost gone at sight of this fast approaching, inevitable doom, did not attempt to struggle. Had the gag been removed from her mouth she would not have uttered a sound.
Nature, more merciful than her own children, had paralysed the brain of the wretched girl and left her semi-imbecile, crazed, watching now with uncomprehending eyes the preparations for her own appalling death.
"Watch how the witch will burn!" said Matthew in a hoarse whisper. "Her soul will fly out of her mouth, and it'll be shaped like a black cat."
They had all descended the steps and were standing in a semicircle on the turf below, looking up at the miserable holocaust which they were about to offer up to their own cowardly superstition.
James the wheelwright was busy with his tinder, with John the smith bending over him, ready with a resin torch, which would start the conflagration.
And Mirrab, looking down on them with lack-lustre, idiotic eyes! Her body had fallen in a strange, shapeless heap across the leather bonds which held her, her feet were buried in the pile of faggots, whilst her fingers worked convulsively behind the flagstaff to which they were tied.
The Duke of Wessex, having taken leave of his friend, had been idly strolling towards the witch's booth, always closely followed by faithful Harry Plantagenet. At first sight of a group of men dimly outlined in the darkness he scarcely realized what was happening.