Ryno tore one of the golden locks from his head and handed it to his persecutor. 'If one spark of humanity yet slumbers in your bosom you will send this lock to my poor wife, with the message--That I die faithful to her, and that I wish her to train up my son as a good and virtuous knight.--Now let your executioners come on, I am ready.'
'Then, by Woden!' roared the foaming parent, 'you never behold the rising of another sun!'
He struck a bell, and twelve armed men with closed visors and drawn swords, slowly and silently entered. One of them detached Ryno's chains from the wall. Again the bell sounded, and at the other end of the prison the heavy doors of the torture vault flew open with a horrible clang. The cave-like room was hung with black and lighted with torches. Every instrument which the cruelty of man has invented for the torment of his fellow man, brightly polished and arranged with frightful regularity, met the glance of the unfortunate prisoner. Large pincers were glowing in a chafing dish, and in the centre of the room stood the dreadful rack with its fearful and mysterious equipments. Three hideous ruffians, with naked arms, in blood-red caps and doublets, stood waiting beside it. On the right was an open and empty coffin.
'For the last time, choose!' cried the incensed tyrant.
'Death!' said Ryno, calmly, and sighing the name of Aliande, he advanced toward the rack with a firm step. A beam of light suddenly illuminated the dungeon. The torture-chamber, the guards, the rack, the executioners, had all vanished,--and Ryno found himself again in a magnificent room whose azure star-besprinkled dome was supported by rose-crowned pillars. With a friendly smile the sorceress Hiorba approached him; and, as on the first day of his marriage, with the glow of newly awakened love, sank the happy Aliande upon his breast, thanking him for his unshaken fidelity to his early vows.
'You have sustained the trial!' said Hiorba, 'and thereby expiated many a former folly, which Aliande must now forget. Love has returned, confidence is born anew, and I shall leave the again united pair with unshaken hope. The unhappy Daura will accompany me. Possibly she may learn forgetfulness in my quiet and peaceful retreat, which she ought never to hare left. Farewell, my children. Forget not the true watchwords of hymen--LOVE AND FIDELITY! Ryno, remain the same Ryno you were in the grotto and in Arno's dungeon. Aliande, never forget that, not tears and reproaches, but kindness and affection only, can reclaim an erring husband.'
She disappeared in a cloud of incense, and the reunited lovers sealed their mutual promise to obey her sage instructions, with a kiss.
Faithfully was that promise kept. Even when Aliande's head had become silvered with age she alone was the happiness of Ryno, as he was hers; and it was many years before the venerable matron, surrounded by her grandchildren, was surprised by her friend Hiorba, who came in a robe of light to kiss her expiring breath from her pale lips.