"It is impossible! They are thickly plated with iron."
"Then send for the monster! Tell him that Witichis desires to speak with him, and I will strike him down at the passage door."
"And then? You rave! Let me go out. I will call Wachis away from his useless watch."
"No! I cannot think that we shall not succeed. Perhaps that devil will return of his own accord. Perhaps--" she continued reflectively--"Ha!" she cried suddenly, "it must be so. He wants to murder him! He intends to steal alone to the defenceless prisoner. But woe to him if he come! I will guard the threshold of that door as if it were a sanctuary, and woe to him if he cross it!"
She leaned heavily against the half-door of the room, and swung the ponderous axe.
But Rauthgundis was wrong.
Not to kill his prisoner had the Prefect taken the keys into his own keeping.
He had gone with them in his hand to the south side of the palace, where he gained admittance to Mataswintha's room.
The stillness of death and the excitement of fever alternated so rapidly in Mataswintha, that Aspa could never look at her mistress without the tears rushing to her eyes.
"Most beautiful daughter of the Germans," began the Prefect, "dissipate the cloud which rests upon your white brow, and listen to me calmly."