"Do you see my key?" cried she. "This is the key to your hearts, this is the key to the doors of your palaces. This knife will pare down your pride and humble you to the dust beneath my feet. You could shoot me dead as I stand here I know, though that would be no very great master-stroke. But the same instant in which I fell, my mother, the old witch, would stand behind my back and would shout to the infuriated mob with all the force of her lungs, and tell them whose this child is, and then do you know in whose heart this knife would be plunged first of all?" A sort of painful wail came from below the dark window, like the sounds that are heard in a deserted, dilapidated old fortress where the whole building is ever sighing and moaning, and none can tell whence the noise comes. During the virago's muttered discourse the bolder spirits among the mob had gradually flitted back again into the courtyard. They perceived that the headsman's wife was not afraid, and this of itself gave them courage. Some of them even drew near to the threshold of the house, where they pricked up their ears and did their best to catch something of what the woman was talking about so mysteriously. It might be worth their while to hear. Dame Zudár began sharpening the knife against the stone ledge of the castle window. "I give you three minutes to think it over," she now exclaimed aloud. "If you then say: let there be bloodshed! bloodshed there shall be." And with that she turned back to the child. There she stood in front of the castle threshold, with the heavenly resignation of a martyr on her pale, innocent face. She appeared to be quite undisturbed by the dreadful scene before her. The thought that she was now about to die absorbed all her faculties. "Kneel down!" cried the virago coldly. The child took her at her word, and knelt down on the lowest of the flight of steps. "Pray, if you have a mind that way." The child devoutly raised her eyes to Heaven, and holding the lighted candle in front of her in her tiny hands, began to sing this verse of a hymn: "The Lord my God, I praise and bless, For He hath heard my soul's distress, And hath inclined His ear to me Who love Him through eternity." To many it seemed, while the child's quavering voice was intoning the sad melody, as if, either from the midst of the crowd, or from some corner close at hand, a man's voice was accompanying the tone in a subdued voice, dwelling upon the final notes, as they do in church. Who could it be? None could say whence the accompanying voice proceeded. A cold shudder ran down Dame Zudár's back. It was the voice of the headsman! But what a mad idea! Men no longer come forth unhurt from the midst of the fire, as did the three holy children in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. So she strengthened her heart, marched up to the door, and began thundering upon it with her fists.