The brute watched her with a sneer, and then turned to the man-at-arms. "Tie her up to the draw-well, strip her naked, and give her fifty stripes. Then hang her, naked, on the tree outside the castle gate."
The man lifted her up in his arms, a light burden, and bore her shrieking and struggling away.
Fulke leant back against the wall with a satisfied smile. Dom Anselm had composed his features to an expression of stern justice, Lewin was white and sick. Human life went for very little in those days, but he did not like this torture of girls.
Gundruda, the pretty waiting maid, who watched the execution with great complaisance, told him afterwards that the poor girl was dead, or at least quite insensible to pain, long before the whipping was over. "Little fool to stay here when she might have gone with the other," concluded Gundruda.
"Fool indeed," said he, "I cannot forget it—I am not well, Gundruda, pretty one." She put her arms round him, and they strolled away together.
So Elgifu paid bitterly for her folly, and went to a rest which was denied her in this world.
In the early afternoon one of the men-at-arms, dressed as a peasant, set out for Icomb by water.
Lewin stayed with Gundruda a little while, trying to find comfort in her smiles and forgetfulness in her bright laughing eyes.
But the minter could find very little satisfaction with the girl. Her beauty and sprightly allurements had no appeal for him just then. There was no thrill even in her kisses. So after a while he left her, for a sudden longing to be alone came over him. The idea was strong in him to get as far away from the world as possible. By many steps he mounted to the top of Outfangthef. As he emerged into the light, after the dusk of the stairs, it began to be evening.
Down below, over all the castle works, men were busy at the defences, clustering on the walls like a swarm of flies. Presently, one by one, torches flared out, so that work might still go on when it was dark.