"Thanks, good people! thanks!" said the king, with pleased emotion; "if it please the Lord, and our blessed Lady, Valdemar's and Dagmar's days shall return." The young queen feelingly greeted the many loyal persons who surrounded her. Amid the general rejoicing and festive stir, there was no one beside Drost Aage who saw anything suspicious in the continuance of the mask; but among the great number of maskers, he had especially noticed two, who frequently made their way nearly up to the king, and disappeared again. They were dressed up according to the ideas which the lower classes entertained of mermen; their painted faces were hidden by green silken hair, and they wore coats of glittering silver scales. Their restless deportment appeared suspicious to Aage, who paid close attention to every movement of these masks--but his suspicion soon vanished; a pretty little fishermaiden came to meet the second mask and the pair soon danced so lovingly together, that Aage conjectured a little love affair was in progress. "Why cannot I thus dance here with _her_?" he sighed, and his thoughts travelled to the maiden's tower at Wordinborg. He looked with interest on the fair fisher-maiden, who with her long hair, and her joyous sparkling eyes, bore a faint resemblance to the Lady Margaretha's capricious sister Ulrica. "Alas, no! poor maidens!" sighed the Drost, stepping out into the hall balcony--"they are now in the gloomy tower over yonder; _they_ hear and see nought of these rejoicings--and yet they are innocent--it is injustice; crying injustice--in this matter he is stern and unyielding. To-night, however, he is mild, and joyous, and happy--who knows----." It seemed as if Aage was suddenly inspired by a bold hope; he returned into the antechamber, and approached the king, who took greater pleasure in being a spectator of the merriment of the lower orders in the antechamber than in looking on the more graceful and skilful dancing in the knights' hall. But the Drost presently once more beheld one of the frightful mermen figures near the king; his suspicions of this mask were again awakened, and he observed the glittering handle of a dagger between the silver scales on the merman's breast, on which his hand often rested when he approached Eric. Aage placed himself between the king and the intrusive mask, and asked, "Who art thou?" "Rosmer[10]," said a strange, unknown voice--"ho, ho, ho!"--and the merman now sang in a hoarse tone: "Home came Rosmer from the sea, To curse he did begin: My right hand's scent it warneth me A christian man's within."