"Ay indeed, your eminence!" exclaimed Grand in the greatest exasperation, as he kicked the footstool from him, and rose, "Speak ye now to me in this tone? Was it for this you summoned me from my secure Hammershuus, and bade me trust to the passport of my deadly foe? You think, perhaps, to have trapped me into a snare I cannot escape from! You imagine, perhaps, that my pious colleague, our mutual and venerable host, who here sways town and castle, will, out of base and cowardly fear, betray his friend and guest, and lawful archbishop, to flatter the temporal tyrant, who already, as I perceive, hath rendered a papal nuncio his spiritual slave? No, lord Cardinal! In that case, you know neither me, nor the meritorious servant of the Lord here, at our side. If he hath already for my sake, and that of the church, with courageous energy exposed himself to the tyrant's wrath, and even to tumult and sedition in his own town, he will surely not now stoop to degrade himself by an act of treachery which would brand him as a dastardly traitor. My safety and freedom are provided for; any moment I please I can embark, and neither the king nor the seditious burgher-pack shall forbid me to wend free from hence, and seek justice before St. Peter's judgment seat. Here I dare speak out freely that which I deem of you, as well as of that presumptuous and ungodly king. You have not fulfilled your duty here as papal nuncio.--Instead of confirming ban and interdict with the holy Father's authority----" "That is my own affair, my brother!" interrupted Isarnus, with cool calmness, "Since your own counsellors have enforced the interdict according to the constitution of Veile no confirmation was needed. We speak now only of the king, and whether you will be reconciled to him and recall the ban." "No, never! To all eternity!" cried Grand, impetuously; "and I laugh at his accusations: that which I once spoke of his father's murder, and which he now makes the plea for his tyrannical conduct, I dare repeat here, and before the highest judgment seat. If the king's murder was _destined_ to take place, it was unfortunate that it did _not_ take place sixteen years before, then that wretched monarch would have left no posterity behind him, and the descendants of Eric Glipping would never have dishonoured Denmark's throne. Yes! I made that intrepid speech, and I repeat it now; but I deny all share in the tyrant's murder, and all connection with Duke Valdemar and the outlaws. It matters not to me, henceforth, who reigns in Denmark, be it Duke Valdemar or a Jew, a Saracen or a heathen, or--the devil himself, if only King Eric and his wretched brother may never be obeyed here as kings and lieges."