"My king and master is not here, but I guard his jewels and treasures," cried Rané, as he pointed to the spot where the king lay; "and I shall cleave the skull of the first who approaches." And he swung his puny sword wildly about him, striking it against the pole of a waggon and a clump of wood lying on the barn-floor.
"You defend your king like a rogue and a traitor!" whispered Aagé: "give me your sword, if you will not use it better."
"Away, boy!" shouted Rané, furiously, as he aimed a blow at the head of the page, but without touching him.
Among the armed, monk-like figures was a little, decrepit man, who tottered forward, with the uncertain steps of old age and blindness, by the side of a powerful and gigantic form. These two pressed on at the head of the disguised band, the blind man holding fast by the skirt of the other, until they reached the spot to which Rané had pointed. They both stopped by the heap of straw that concealed the king.
"Here!" uttered a hollow voice, proceeding from the visor of the tall masked figure, and his mailed arm uplifted a huge sword. At the same instant the weapons of all the others gleamed aloft in the lurid light of the torch.
"Aha!" shouted the blind old man, with wild maniacal laughter, as he suddenly flung himself, with his long sword, deep into the heap of straw.
A scream of horror, blended with the madman's half-suffocated laughter, issued from beneath the straw which concealed the king and his raving murderer. In their struggles both rolled from under it, and the whole of the armed band then fell at once upon the unfortunate monarch.
Rané continued to lay wildly about him, without, however, wounding any one. At last he sprang forward, and plucked the torch from the hand of him who carried it. "Help, help! They are murdering my king and master!" he cried, as he flung the torch into the straw, and rushed furiously from the barn.
A fierce blaze instantly lit up the horrible scene.
The gory body of the king was dragged to the middle of the barn, where it lay, pierced at once by twelve swords. The fearful monk-like forms stood in silence round the body, with their dripping weapons in their hands, and gazed through their masks with straining eyes on the murdered Erik, whose features were now horribly distorted in the throes of death.