A Silver Brand — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A ‘SILVER BRAND. 53 she will talk to him! Ah! she hasa wonderful Spirit.” ‘ “Hark!” exclaimed Seippel, starting to his. feet. “There is the horn. Heis coming again. Alack, alack! poor lady, what next must she bear?” Lisbet sprang up also, looking about the room nervously. Without they heard Hans’ clumsy foot- ~ steps crossing the paved court-yard in equal trepi- dation. Up above, upon the roof, where the hapless pris- » oner still chose to spend the most of her time, the. sound of the horn came likewise and gave its warn- ing. But there was no craven fear upon that pallid, - spirited face. . “Tam glad for once that the tyrant and villain is at hand,” she murmured. “Now, I shall solve the few doubts I cherish. I will learn his plans thor- | oughly, and then—and then.” ‘The silvery voice deepened with a solemn thrill. “Then, skies, you must open me a miraculous flight; or earth, you must rise in earthquake throes to take me down! There is a must to all things, and desperate as it may be, I must find the way for my escape!” She paused and looked over. to’ the rapidly- approaching horsemen, three in number, and smiled proudly.and haughtily. : “He comes expecting me,.to cower at his feet. He thinks these four weeks alone without my flowers have broken my spirit. He hopes to find me weak, worn, wasted, an abject slave. Ah, he does not know the indomitable spirit in this weak body. If there were nothing else my hatred of him would feed my energies and keep me alive and strong. He could not wring from me the hiding-place of those papers, though he kept» me upon the rack these fifteen years that have gone like a horrible nightmare. He could not win my consent to be- come his queen though the proudest throne in the wide world claimed him for its lord. It 1s some- thing of triumph for me to make him see and feel it.” She swept across to the chair which stood un- sheltered where the lovely bower had been, seated herself, carefully smoothing out the folds of the Eomicboo cS Eo