The men turned and sprang towards the woman, who was now convulsed with horrible laughter.
“Seize her,” cried one,—and they all made to obey.
But quickly raising a phial to her lips, she drank the contents, and in an instant fell back a corpse.
The old witch shook her crutch at the armed men.
“The murder of an innocent man is avenged,” she cried. “Is it not written that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children? And lo—the murderer’s son perishes upon the gibbet where the father’s crime was done.”
Then, laughing shrilly, she hobbled away over the hills, and, full of fear, the men-at-arms let her go unmolested.
