"That I did so to save you, you know well; but any excuse is welcome. Yet what fidelity could I expect from a regicide?"
"By that word you accuse yourself, Duke Waldemar. That sin--if sin it is--you share with me. Deep injuries had I to revenge, which you had not. If King Erik's blood stains not your hand, it yet lies as heavy on your head as it does on mine. Your counsel and wishes were in Finnerup barn, albeit you yourself were absent."
"A mightier Power has judged between us," replied the duke. "I will not curse you in your dying hour; but one thing you must tell me--you must solve to me a riddle that has driven me mad:--where is the dagger I gave you when we swore the tyrant's fall?"
"I left it in his bosom," replied the marsk, "that it might be known you were our head and prince. Your name I even had graven on it, that no doubt might exist of your participation in the deed, and that thus our fortunes might be indissolubly linked together."
"Shameless traitor! And thus it is that you would drag me with you to perdition! But say, who was the accuser that displayed the dagger of the bloody paction before the eyes of king and people?"
"If it was not Drost Hessel, let your confessor teach you the name of the angel who accuses the faithless!"
"It was not the drost," exclaimed the duke, while his brain began to reel: "he lay then in chains at Nordborg. But you it was--even you, accursed regicide!--or it was the foul fiend himself!"
"Priest, priest! where art thou?" cried the marsk, glancing fearfully, around him. "Name not the Evil One, Duke Waldemar! In our bloody council we invoked him often enough."
At that instant the door was hastily opened, and Mat Jute entered, much excited. "Sir marsk," he cried, "what is to be done? The priest has fled, and the island is surrounded by the king's ships. The troops are about to land, with Thorstenson at their head, to storm the castle."
"Let the priest speed to the infernal pit!" cried the marsk, rising. "Now, I will not die. Come on, King Erik's men! You shall once more see what Marsk Stig can accomplish!" He grasped his weapon with the suddenly returned strength of a giant. "Away!" he shouted, in a fearful voice: "every man to his post! We shall crush them with brynkiöls and glowing stones."