Those whose glance had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank farther;
but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look. In the doorway
the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time to a silly quavering
song that she was singing with lips so distorted as to be almost
unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray, and now as she quitted
the door post and came toward them she reeled in her \walk, stumbling over
stones and groping blindly with her huge bony hands. But still she kept on
singing, with twisted lips that strove to simper, and once she tried to sway
her ungainly body into an uncouth dancing-step that brought her floundering to
her knees.
"A devil has possession of her," Elfgiva shrieked. "Take her out of my sight,
or I shall go mad! Take her away--take her away!" Shrieking in wildest terror
she fled before her, and for a moment the garden seemed given over to a
grotesque game of blind-man's buff as women and boys scattered with renewed
screaming at each approach of the ghastly face. It did not stop until the two
soldiers who had been made keepers of the wretched creature came running out
of the house and led her away.
Then it was Thorkel's sardonic voice that brought the Lady of Northampton back
to herself. "Now, is this how you take the sight of your own handiwork? Or is
it because you regret that the King is not in this plight? One mouthful and no
more has she had of the blood of the coiled snake.
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