“I am the Princess,” she whispered; “let me in.”
“A very pretty hostage for us,” thought Martin, and letting her go seized the key, locking the door in the inside.
“Take me to your master,” she cried, and Martin led her up the church wondering, but half suspecting some further trap.
“You have a dagger in your hand,” said he, holding her wrist.
“I have. If I had meant to use it, it would have been used first on you. Take it, if you like.”
She hurried up to Hereward, who lay sleeping quietly on the altar-steps; knelt by him, wrung his hands, called him her champion, her deliverer.
“I am not well awake yet,” said he, coldly, “and don’t know whether this may not be a dream, as more that I have seen and heard seems to be.”
“It is no dream. I am true. I was always true to you. Have I not put myself in your power? Am I not come here to deliver you, my deliverer?”
“The tears which you shed over your ogre’s corpse seem to have dried quickly enough.”
“Cruel! What else could I do? You heard him accuse me to those ruffians of having stolen his sword. My life, my father’s life, were not safe a moment, had I not dissembled, and done the thing I loathed. Ah!” she went on, bitterly, “you men, who rule the world and us by cruel steel, you forget that we poor women have but one weapon left wherewith to hold our own, and that is cunning; and are driven by you day after day to tell the lie which we detest.”