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.
The child took her at her word, and knelt down on the lowest of the flight of steps.
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.
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.