"We are a King's sons!" cried Corbe with even more anger than fear. "If you do any harm to me, my grandmother will have you all killed!"
At this moment, awakened at last by the noise, little Merovee sat up on the pallet and looked around with wonderment but not in terror. The six-year-old child could not understand what was going on; he rubbed his eyes and turning his little head, with his eyes still swollen with sleep, hither and thither, he looked alternately from the four new arrivals to his brothers, as if asking what it all meant. The King having said "Begin with the eldest," the assistant seized Sigebert. More dead than alive, the hapless child offered no resistance, but let himself be bound hands and feet, as the lamb does in the slaughter-house; he only murmured in a woebegone voice:
"Seigneur King! Good seigneur King, do not have us killed—why would you have us killed? We are willing to be slaves. Send us out to herd your sheep far away from here; we shall obey you in all things; but, O, seigneur, mercy, good seigneur King, mercy! Mercy for my two little brothers and for me!"
As a worthy grandson of Clotaire I, Clotaire II remained unmoved by the prayers of his victim.
Sigebert passed from the hands of the assistant to those of the executioner. The child's arms were bound behind his back, and his feet were tied together; his physical prostration rendered him unable to keep upon his feet. He fell upon his knees before the slaughterer. The latter took hold of the child by its long hair and firmly bending its neck back against his own knee left the child's throat well distended and exposed to the knife. With a smothered voice and casting an agonizing glance at the mayor of the palace Sigebert murmured:
"Warnachaire, you who called me during our late journey your 'dear boy,' will you not implore mercy for me—"
These were the innocent child's last words. Clotaire II gave a motion of impatience. The executioner approached his knife to the child's throat, but doubtlessly experiencing a fleeting sentiment of pity, he turned his head aside and shut his eyes as if to escape seeing the dying glance of his victim. The movement was but transitory, the long knife quickly plowed its way through the child's throat and, operated as a saw, cut down until it struck the vertebrae of the neck. Two jets of purple blood spurted from the wide-gaping wound and fell in opposite directions like a ruddy dew on a fold of the robe of Fredegonde's son and upon the iron greaves of Duke Warnachaire. Withdrawing his knee which had served him for a block, the executioner left the body to its own weight. It fell backward; the inert head rebounded upon the floor; a slight tremor ran over the expiring child's shoulders and limbs, and the lifeless body of Sigebert sank motionless in a pool of blood.
During the time that the murder of Sigebert was enacting, Merovee wept scalding tears on the straw where he remained seated; the child wept because, as he murmured, 'they were hurting' his brother, but with one so young no thought of death could enter his head. His brother Corbe, however, a boy of violent and vindictive character, did not emulate the gentle resignation of Sigebert. He fought and shrieked, and tried to bite and scratch the assistant who was to bind him fast. The latter was only tying the last knots when the first child's throat was cut.
"Dogs! Murderers!" cried Corbe in his weak, shrill voice, while his eyes flashed fire from the midst of his pale face. He straightened himself and he writhed so convulsively in his bonds that the executioner was hardly able to hold him. "Oh!" he screamed, grinding his teeth and panting for breath in the struggle; "Oh, my grandmother will put you all to the torture for this—you will see—you will see—Pog will get you, yes—every one of you—you will be put to awful tortures!"
Turning towards the mayor of the palace of Burgundy, Clotaire II said, pointing his finger at Corbe: "Warnachaire, it would have been impolitic to leave this hateful and vindictive child alive! Even if dethroned he would have become a dangerous man."