"For Crimen læsæ majestatis,
The spider's web doth prison thee.
Custodibus inebriatis,
A thief shall catch a thief, thou'lt see.
Then strive and toil, and toil and strive,
That web thou'lt never leave alive."
While the cook thus sang in a loud voice, the clanking of chains was heard below in the archbishop's dungeon, and the two half-drunken turnkeys started from their seats, while Jörgen, who was still sober, took the opportunity of conveying a couple of the cook's silver pieces into his own pocket. "Let him writhe in his chains, the hound!" said Morten, remaining quietly seated; "he hears well enough how I mock him in the song, and that enrages him; but it does him good."
"Right, Morten!" said Niels the horseman, as he peeped through the chink in the floor. "He twists in his chains, as though he were possessed--thou may'st be sure it is the Latin that vexes him--but no matter for that. I would have him hear, that we lay folk know a thing or two as well as himself."
"Come, let's drink, comrades!" called the cook, and continued to sing, as he rose from the bench, and staggered, as if half-intoxicated, about the chamber:--
"Thy Latin hast thou clean forgot?
And canst not catch the blithe bird's lay?
Then dark and dreary be thy lot,
Within these walls thou'lt pine away.
Then strive and toil, and toil and strive,
That web thou'lt never leave alive.
"Hast thou a message to Rome?
Hark! the bird sings right cunningly!
Or farther yet, from my greenwood home?
Speak! and I'll haste far o'er the sea.
Then strive and toil, and toil and strive,
That web thou'lt never leave alive."
As he sang the last verse, he fell down flat beside the hole, above the archbishop's dungeon, and peeped through it.
"The false knave mocks me," he heard the captive murmur with a deep sigh.
"Then strive and toil, and toil and strive,
Thou'lt never leave that web alive,"
sang Morten at the top of his lungs, while he reeled about, and continued to repeat the burden of the song, in which the turnkeys joined with loud laughter.