The King was silent, but the Queen was still more angry, and in her heart was determined that Lucilla should never return to her home until she had found out about her dancing. So when they were alone she said to her husband, “It is now quite clear, it is by witchcraft that this woman has learned, and we should do very wrong if we let her go till she has confessed all.” So again they sent for Lucilla and ordered her to confess, and again she wept and declared that she could tell no more. Then the King said, “Well, let us give the woman her bag of gold and let her go,” but the Queen stopped him, and said, “No indeed, let us first try shutting her up in prison for a bit, and see if that won’t open her lips.”
At first the King refused, for he said that Lucilla had done no wrong, but the Queen insisted that she was deceiving them, and that her dancing must be witchcraft, and at last the King began to listen to her. Also he was very angry with Lucilla for wanting to go home, and much disappointed to think he should see her dancing no more; so he consented, and said that either she must tell him how it was she came to be able to dance better than anybody else in this world, and who taught her, or else they should think her dancing witchcraft, and she must go to prison and wait her punishment.
Poor Lucilla wept most bitterly. “Alas!” cried she to herself, “woe is me, for I dare not break faith with the windfairies, and yet if I do not, I shall never see my husband or my babies again, for I fear lest they may put me to death here.”
However, she continued to be silent, and the King ordered her to be put into prison until she should speak out and tell them the truth; and the guards came and led her away to prison, and locked her into a dark cell. It was dreary and cold, and the walls were so thick that she could not hear any of the noises from without, and there was only one little window, which was too high up for her to see through. Here she lay and lamented, and almost wished she could die at once, for she believed that they would burn her, or drown her, and bitterly did she grieve that she had left her home and her children.
Every day the King sent down to ask if she had changed her mind, but every day she answered that she had nothing to say. One evening she sat in her dark cell alone, grieving as usual, when the prison door opened, and there entered a woman wrapped in a cloak and with her face hidden by a mask. When she took off the mask Lucilla saw it was the Queen, and she sprang up hoping that she had come to tell her that she was to be released, but the Queen said, “Now I have come to you alone that you may tell me the truth. Who taught you to dance, and where can I learn to do what you do? If you will tell me I will ask the King to forgive you, and you shall have your bag of gold, and go when you like.”
Then poor Lucilla began to cry afresh, and said, “My gracious lady, I can tell you one thing that I have not yet told to any one, that is, that I did learn my dancing, but who told me, or how it was, is a secret that I swore I would never tell to any one. And now I implore your Royal Highness to let me go back to my fisherman husband, and my babies. Alack! alack! it was an evil hour for me when I left my home.”
Upon this the Queen became furious, but she hid her anger, and first she tried to coax Lucilla to confess all, then she threatened her with the King’s wrath, and then, as Lucilla still wept and said that she could not break her promise, she started up in a rage, and said, “Indeed, it is of little use, however much you love your husband and your children, for you will never see them again. The King has settled that you shall be killed this very week, so now you know what you have gained by your wicked obstinacy.”
So the Queen returned to the King, and told him that the dancer had confessed that she had learned her dancing, but she would not say from whom, therefore it must be from the Evil One, and therefore there was nothing for it but that she should be killed. So they settled that first they would try to drown Lucilla, and if she were a witch she would not sink, and the King gave orders that she should be taken out to sea next day and thrown overboard, and also that she should have heavy weights tied to her feet, and her arms should be bound to her sides.
Next morning the guards fetched her, and they bound her arms to her sides, and tied heavy weights to her feet, and they took her down and placed her in a boat on the sea-shore, and they rowed her out to sea, and all along the beach stood crowds of people, shouting and jeering, and calling out, “She is a witch! she is a witch! the King has done well to have her killed.”
“Alas! alas!” cried Lucilla, “what have I done to deserve this? surely I have done no wrong to be so cruelly treated. Dear windfairies, come to my help, for in truth now is the time of my direst need, and if you desert me I am lost; but I pray you keep faith with me, as I have kept faith with you.” Then, when they had rowed the boat out a little way, the guards seized her, and threw her into the water, and the salt waves splashed over her face and through her hair; but in spite of the heavy weights on her feet she never sank, but felt as light as when she danced with the waves on the sea-shore by her home, and she knew that the windfairies held her up; and the waves rocked her gently, and drew her in towards the land, and laid her on the sand, and all the crowd yelled with rage.