“By Saint Waldemar! By Saint Usuph! In the name of Saint Hospitius, spare the dead!”
“Help me, and do not talk of saints to the devil!”
“My lord,” continued the suppliant Spiagudry, “by your illustrious ancestor, Saint Ingulf—”
“Ingulf the Destroyer was an outlaw like myself.”
“In the name of Heaven,” said the old man, falling on his knees, “whose anger I would spare you!”
Impatience overcame the little man. His dull gray eyes flashed like a couple of live coals.
“Help me!” he repeated, flourishing his sword.
These words were uttered in the voice which might beseem a lion, could he speak. The keeper, shuddering and half dead with fright, sat down upon the black stone slab, and held Gill’s cold, damp head in his hands, while the little man, by means of sword and dagger, removed the crown with rare skill.
When his task was done, he gazed at the bloody skull for some time, muttering strange words; then he handed it over to Spiagudry, to be cleaned and prepared, saying with a sort of howl,—
“And I, when I die, shall not have the comfort of thinking that an heir to the soul of Ingulf will drink sea-water and the blood of men from out my skull.”