“But she is obstinate as the oldest. Put manacles on her hands at once.”
The executioner turned over a quantity of such prison ornaments,—to Christian eyes really such,—and at length selected a pair as light and small as he could find, and placed them round her wrists. Agnes playfully, and with a smile,
The judge angrily reproved the executioner for his hesitation, and bid him at once do his duty.
shook her hands, and they fell, like St. Paul’s viper, clattering at her feet.[206]
“They are the smallest we have, sir,” said the softened executioner: “one so young ought to wear other bracelets.”
“Silence, man!” rejoined the exasperated judge, who, turning to the prisoner, said, in a blander tone:
“Agnes, I pity thy youth, thy station, and the bad education thou hast received. I desire, if possible, to save thee. Think better while thou hast time. Renounce the false and pernicious maxims of Christianity, obey the imperial edicts, and sacrifice to the gods.”