The disarmed knight was meanwhile led upon the dunghill near the stables of the castle; here his gold spurs were taken off, and on the same degrading spot the tail of the horse he rode last was docked. While the attention of the spectators was rivetted on these singular proceedings, the dishonoured knight made a vain attempt to escape. He was now bound with cords, and again led upon the scaffold--there he stood staring wildly around him and foaming with rage, while the priests chanted a requiem over him as over the dead. He looked around in a frenzy; when, however, he perceived that the sword of the executioner was not glittering over his head, he seemed not as yet to have abandoned all hope of life, and drew himself up in desperate defiance. The solemn death-chant, nevertheless, appeared to awe him, and to damp his resolution. Ere it was ended, he sank down in an attitude of prayer. The chanting ceased, and the castle chaplain presently stepped forward with the holy scriptures, and began to read with a loud voice the Psalmist's denunciations against traitors--"Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him----" "Nay! silence with thy curses Priest! Whether they be scripture or not!" called the king with vehemence. "His soul must be judged by the merciful God. It is here question only of knightly honour." But the chaplain had entered with such zeal into his text, that, without heeding the king's words, he still added, "When he shall be judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin----" The kneeling knight started up at these words, and glared frantically at the priest, "Know then, every free man in Denmark! and judge if it were sin!" he shouted--"I prayed in this hour to the vanquisher of monsters, St. Magnus, and all the saints, that king Glipping's accursed race might be rooted out of the earth, as he was himself by this hand in Finnerup Barn." "Thou didst declare the truth unto him priest!" said the king, suppressing with difficulty his exasperated feelings-- "yet--no more ecclesiastical cursing! his thoughts and prayers are for God to judge; this criminal stands here only before his earthly judges." The priest was silent; the king now turned solemnly to the pursuivant-at-arms, and asked, "Say, what is this criminal's name?" "Sir Aagé Kaggé, of the noble race and lineage of the high-born Hvides," answered the pursuivant-at-arms. "That is not _his_ name who here stands in our sight," cried the herald, "for in _him_ I and Danish chivalry only recognise a traitor, a deceiver, and a false swearer."