"Is there not a single free man here, who dares to speak a word for me?" cried the captive, springing up with a wild look. "Ha! slaves of a tyrant! I despise ye," he continued, looking frantically around him. "The deed for which I was outlawed, was the proudest ever achieved by Danish man. A tyrant's murder hath been an honoured deed so long as the world hath stood, wherever a spark of freedom was in the spirit of the people--Now there are nought but cowardly slaves in Denmark, and it shames me to call you countrymen. There you stand aghast! because a bold word is heard again in kingly hall--You have courage only for crawling in the dust before a revengeful despot, and to doom the last friend of freedom to the scaffold--Is it not enough for you to see my blood? Will you saw off my hands and feet? Will you pluck out my eyes, that no free man may see you blush? Will you deal thus with a descendant of Skialm--Hvide's noble race? I am a knight," he added proudly. "I demand but to be judged by the law of knighthood--That is recognised over all the world, but under this country's laws I stand no longer." "Who dubbed thee a knight? asked the king, with a contemptuous look. "The greatest knight in Denmark's kingdom," answered the captive, drawing himself up with a look of defiance. "The man whose shoe latchet no knight here was worthy to loose--The Marsk of Denmark's kingdom, Stig Anderson Hvide, and if your chivalrous bearing is aught else than empty boast and mockery, King Eric, you will suffer me to be judged with equity according to the law which is as the apple of your eye." "Be it so, by all the holy men!" exclaimed the king with glowing cheeks; "according to the law of chivalry shall thy doom be executed, since thou dost thyself demand it, and thou shalt learn what it is to be doomed to dishonour. The knighthood which an outlawed regicide gave thee is truly but little honour worth, nevertheless thou shalt not take it with thee to thy dishonourable death. Thy hands and feet thou shalt keep, and thy false eyes also--but the honour thou boastest of, thou shalt lose according to law, for the sake of chivalry--and thy life for my father's sake alone." At a signal from the king, the captive was now removed, and a council of the oldest knights met together to decide upon the mode of carrying the sentence into execution, according to the laws of chivalry.