When he had satisfied himself with this posturing, the monster looked towards our place of refuge. A great spasm seized my heart when I saw him take the first step towards us, for I guessed that it was his forbidden treasure-house in which we lurked. So I thought it had certainly come to the last bitter push with us. But something yet more terrible than the matter of the boy diverted for the moment the monster’s attention. The lad whom he had cast to the side had been left alone, none daring to meddle. But now, as he passed him, Sawny Bean gave the body a toss with his foot. At this, quick as a darting falcon on the stoop, a woman sprang at him from, a crevice where she had been crouching—at least by her shape she was a woman, with long elf-locks twisting like snakes about her brow and over her shoulders. She held an open knife in her hand, and she struck at the chieftain’s hairy breast. I heard the point strike the flesh, and the cry of anger and pain which followed. But the monster caught the woman by the wrist, pulled her over his knee, and bent back her head. It was a horrid thing to see, and there is small wonder that I can see it yet in many a dream of the night. And no doubt also I shall see it till I die—hear it as well, which is worse. Then for a long season I could look no more. But when I had recovered me a little, and could again command my heart, I saw a great part of the crew swarm thick as flies—fetching, carrying, and working like bees upon spilled honey about the corner where had lain the bodies of the lad and the woman. But it was not in the ordinary way that these were being prepared for burial. In the centre of the cave sat Sawny Bean, with some of the younger sort of the women pawing over him and bandaging his wounded shoulder. He was growling and spitting inarticulately all the while like a wild cat. And every time his shoulder hurt him as the women worked with the wound and mouthed it, he would take his other hand and strike one of them down, as though it was to her that he owed the twinge of pain. Presently the monster arose and took the gold brocade again in his hand. I thought that of a certainty now our time was come, and I looked at Nell Kennedy. God knows what was in my eyes. My heart within me was ready to break, for the like of this pass had never man been in. That I should have to smite my love to the death within an hour of my first kiss and the first owning of her affection. But she that loved me read my thought in mine eyes. She bared her neck for me, so that I could see its tender whiteness in the flicker of the fire. ’Strike there,’ she said, ’and let me die in your arms, who art my own heart’s love, Launcelot Kennedy.’