But there were many waiting there, for it had been noised about the countryside that there would be this great beheading and many came to see it for a show and brought their children. As soon as the gates were opened they all pressed in, the mother on her ass, and the two men, and they all turned to that piece of ground near the city wall within a certain open space. There in the early morning light a great crowd stood already, thick and pressed and silent with the thought of this vast spectacle of death. Little children clung hard to their parents in nameless fear of what they did not know, and babes cried out and were hushed and the crowd was silent, waiting hungrily, relishing in some strange way and hating, too, the horror that they craved to see. But the mother and the two men did not stay in the crowd. No, the mother whispered, “Let us go to the door of the gaol and stand there,” for in her poor heart she still held the hope that somehow when she saw her son some miracle must happen, some way must come whereby she could save him. So the man turned the ass’s head toward the gaol and there it was, and beside its gate set in the high wall spiked with glass along the top they waited. There a guard stretched himself and by him a lantern burned low, the candle spilling out a heap of melted tallow red as blood, until a chill wind blew up suddenly with the dawn and blew the guttering light out. There the three waited in the dusty street, and the mother came down from the ass and waited, and soon they heard the sound of footsteps stirring, and then the sound of many footsteps made on stone and marching and then there was a shout, “Open the gates!” The guards sprang up then and stood beside the gates erect, their weapons stiff and hard across their shoulders, and so the gates swung open. Then did the mother strain her eyes to see her son. There came forth many persons, youth tied to youth and two by two, their hands bound with hempen thongs, and each two tied to the two ahead. At first they seemed all young men, and yet here and there were maids, but hard to tell as maids, because their long hair was shorn and they wore the garments that the men did, and there was nothing to show what they were until one looked close and saw their little breasts and narrow waists, for their faces were as wild and bold as any young man’s. The mother looked at every face, at this one and at that, and suddenly she saw her own lad. Yes, there he walked, his head down, and he was tied to a maid, and his hands fast to hers. Then the mother rushed forward and fell at his feet and clasped them and gave one loud cry, “My son!”