The other two Scotsmen ceased drinking and looked in alarm at Sir Archie, who thus laid aside all his manliness and yielded to remorse. For a moment they were perplexed, but then one of them went up to the bar, took the tallest tankard that stood there and filled it with red wine. He brought it to Sir Archie, clapped him on the shoulder and said: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne's hoard is not yet done. So long as we have coin to buy such wine as this, no cares need sit upon us." But in the same instant as these words were spoken: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne's hoard is not yet done," Elsalill saw the dead girl rise from the bench and vanish. And in that moment Elsalill saw before her eyes three men with great beards and rough coats of skin, struggling with Herr Arne's servants. And now it was plain to her that they were the three who sat in the cellar--Sir Archie, Sir Philip, and Sir Reginald. III Elsalill came out of the closet where she had stood and rinsed the hostess's cups, and softly closed the door behind her. In the narrow corridor outside she stopped and stood motionless leaning against the wall for nearly an hour. As she stood there she thought to herself: "I cannot betray him. Let him be guilty of what evil he may, I love him with all my heart. I cannot send him to be broken upon the wheel. I cannot see them burn away his hands and feet." The storm that had raged all day became more and more violent as evening wore on, and Elsalill could hear its roar as she stood in the darkness. "Now the first storms of spring have come," she thought. "Now they have come in all their might to set the waters free and break up the ice. In a few days we shall have open sea, and then Sir Archie will sail from hence, never to return. No more misdeeds can he commit in this land. What profits it then if he be taken and suffer for his crime? Neither the dead nor the living have any comfort of it." Elsalill drew her cloak about her. She thought she would go home and sit quietly at her work without betraying her secret to any one. But before she had raised a foot to go, she changed her purpose and stayed. She stood still listening to the roaring of the gale. Again she thought of the coming of spring. The snow would disappear and the earth put on its garment of green. "Merciful heaven, what a spring will this be for me!" thought Elsalill. "No joy and no happiness can bloom for me after the chills of this winter. "No more than a year ago I was so happy when winter was past and spring came," she thought. "I remember one evening which was so fair that I could not sit within doors. So I took my foster sister by the hand, and we went out into the fields to fetch green boughs and deck the stove."