“Ha! ha!” she cried triumphantly, “this is my work, Skelda! I closed the gates and shut you all in with the outer door. My love to you, my—husband!” This last word was hissed out at him between clenched teeth. “My love to you, dear friend.” And she mockingly threw him a kiss on the tips of her fingers. Then, when the wretched Skelda’s feet were dragged from under him by a branch that had coiled round his legs, she addressed herself to Coryon, who had now fixed his eyes upon her, his evil face twitching convulsively with the fury he could not suppress.
“See, great Coryon! Mighty Coryon! All-powerful Coryon! See my handiwork! Yes, mine! See what a woman’s wit hath done for thy precious friends. What a day to live to see! I saw thee in the clutch of thy prisoner; heard thee called ‘coward’ to thy face. It was sweet that; and sweet to see thy prey escape thee! And this is sweet too! Look at thy great friend Skelda; see how he kicks and shrieks! Think of it—all my doing! See how Dakla glares! Now he and Palana are fighting one another! Oh, but it is a brave sight to look upon! Fit even for the gods ye have served so well! I think I am almost avenged; but the sweetest of all is yet to come—when I see thee given to the tree, as I shall!”
Coryon struggled, but vainly, to get at her. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her back upon him, then slowly approached Monella; the look of triumph died away, and an expression that was partly of sorrow, and partly of hard determination, took its place. Arrived in front of him, she threw herself humbly on her knees.
“My lord,” she cried, with clasped hands, “I crave justice at thy hands, I demand it! In the names of the countless women and fair children whom yonder monster hath given over to the same awful death that hath now overtaken his own creatures; in the name of my own bitter wrongs and sufferings, I demand that this loathsome being shall not escape his just reward. I ask that he be given up to that tree to which he has consigned so many; and that first he be confined in the same cell from which I have escaped. I will lead thy officers to it. Let him be kept there till the wicked tree, with recovered appetite, shall be ready to devour him! Let him there endure the tortures he hath inflicted upon me and countless others!”
“Who art thou, daughter?” asked Monella gently.
She shook her head mournfully and replied, much as she had to Leonard,
“I am called Fernina, lord. Once, I was a joyous-hearted wife and mother; but Coryon stole me away from my home to give me to his friend Skelda. What I am now I scarcely know; misery and suffering, and shame and infamies unutterable have made me—alas, I know not what!”
“From my heart I pity thee, my daughter. Thy wrongs cry out for punishment, and thy prayer is just. Show my officers the place. Coryon shall be the last meal of the accursed fetish he has fed with the blood of so many victims.”
“I will go back by the way by which I came,” Fernina answered, “and will make safe again the covered-way; then will I open the gates, that thine officers may take him in that way.”
By this time the covered-way was empty; every occupant had been dragged or had leaped out and was held in the toils below. There was, therefore, nothing to prevent its being used again. Fernina went up the path and disappeared from view; then soon the sliding shutters were seen to move back in their places; and, shortly after, she appeared at one end of the covered-way and beckoned to those in charge of Coryon to follow her. He was led down and placed in the same cell she had occupied, and there shut in and left to himself, and to look out, if he chose, at his friends in the tree’s tenacious arms outside. Some of them were so close he could have spoken with them.