"I am not a hired assassin," replied Lavé Rimaardson, proudly: "I am a knight of princely blood, and no king shall offend me with impunity. In the hour that you adjudged me an outlaw, I swore your death and downfall, King Erik! And were my right hand now free, I should keep my oath, and this moment would be your last." "Madman!" exclaimed the king, stepping back; "if, by such audacious confession, you think to gain a respite, you are mistaken: you shall not even have time to name your accomplices, if you have them." "There you are wise, King Erik," replied Rimaardson, with a contemptuous laugh. "Be sparing of the moments you have yet at your disposal. You know not how few they are; and, when your hour of reckoning comes, you will have more to account for than the sinners you now condemn to the rack and wheel." "Peace, wretch!" cried the king, enraged; but an uneasy blinking of his eye seemed to indicate a sudden change in his feelings. "Your life is in my hands," he continued: "you are an outlaw and a rebel, a robber and murderer, and have even sought the life of your king and master; but Drost Hessel has testified that there is still within you a remnant of honour and of chivalrous spirit. Your brother Bent, too, is a trusty and deserving man; and your ignominious death, in company with these felons, would cast a shadow even on my throne. Think you not now, that King Erik Christopherson could still show you favour?" "Yes! with endless imprisonment in fair Sjöborg: is it not so?" replied the haughty prisoner. "No! I do not, by a perjury, sell my soul and salvation, or, to save my life, forswear my revenge: it shall and must arrive, if not by my hand, by another's! When the harvest is ripe, reapers enough are to be found--" "Satan, speak out! What mean you?" cried the king, in painful uncertainty. "Wretched felon! know you not that I have racks at hand? Look through that window: there stands he who can unbind your tongue." "It is unnecessary, King Erik," replied the prisoner, suppressing his voice, but raising his head and gazing on the king with a dreadful look: "your hangman need not cut me for being tongue-tied. If you will hear the truth, I shall not conceal it in my dying hour. However great may be my crimes," he continued, in a louder tone, "I am still superior to the nidding who betrayed and dishonoured the wife of his best friend, whilst he bled in the nidding's behalf in the field of battle. If the brave Stig Andersen does not take full revenge for his wife's dishonour--if the blind, crazy father of Fru Ingeborg has not sight and sense enough remaining, to guide his sword into the false heart of King Erik--then there is not an honest drop of blood in the hearts of Danish nobles, and they deserve no better king than they have got."