There was no sign of love in her face; there was no tenderness or pity. Only black horror and disgust; only a sullen, disappointed rage, and a scowling disgust.
"They have made him as ugly as the king's gorillas," she sobbed. "Ugh! he is ugly!"
The jester nodded his head mockingly. "Thou art right. They have made him too foul for thee ever to love, have they not?"
"Love? God! I could not love a beast like that."
"Nor couldst thou even pity him—is he not too foul even for pity?"
"Nay, I'd never dare to pity such a thing. He is too horrible, too loathsome. I would swoon if he touched me."
"What, lady, neither love nor pity? Yet this may merely be a passing sickness of the humours. To-morrow thou mayest love him better than before."
"Love?" She was fast growing hysterical. "I could never bear the sight of such a mangled dwarf." Thrusting her hand inside her dress, she drew out a gleaming bodkin, and flung it at the fool's feet. "Kill him," she screamed, "kill him!" Then she rose unsteadily and staggered out the iron door.
"Kill him!" the jester echoed. "Merciful Mary, I thank thee!" and, concealing the bodkin in his blouse, he descended the ladder, to help the captain and the torturers in their work.
An hour later, the squire's corpse was thrown over the castle walls. "'Tis a shame," growled the captain; "he would have made so fine a mute. One of the torturers' knives must ha' slipped, whilst they were cutting out his tongue. For I noticed that the spinal cord was severed at the base of the mouth—and that is a sure death, you know."