Anny shook her head.

“She says I’ll be took to the Castle if I don’t do as she bids,” she said hurriedly.

Nan lashed the earthen floor with her strip of leather.

“The woman’s a lying fiend,” she said quickly and intensely.

The girl laid her hand on the other woman’s trembling arm.

“I know she is, Mother, I know she is, but what will I do?” she said softly.

Nan looked up impatiently.

“Do? Why, do naught, the old hell-kite, the sithering——”

“Ay, but listen, Mother! Listen!” The girl’s voice was so insistent that the older woman allowed her voice to die away to a muttering.

Anny went on.