He is ordered away, and the young knight is called on.
"Stand forward, Lavè Rimaardson," cried the king. And the wild, misguided youth stepped forward, while every one present regarded him with looks of sympathy and compassion, except the king and Ranè, who betrayed much anxiety as he watched his countenance. "It was you on whom with this sword I conferred knighthood about three years ago," said the king; "now your arms in your native halls shall be broken with ignominy, and your reversed shield shall be hung beneath the gallows, in token of your disgrace. Do you avow your connexion with these vile and insolent pirates?"
"Yes, King Erik Christopherson; and I avow still more. Could you and I but have met alone in the caves of Daugbery for one half-hour, you should as surely not have beheld the sun set as I expect not to see it."
"Ha! treason!—madman!" cried the king, starting back. "If you deem by such audacious speech to win a moment's reprieve, you deceive yourself. Had you a thousand accomplices I would not spare you the time to name them."
"Therein you are wise, King Erik," answered the fettered knight, with a scornful laugh. "Lose no time, for you have none to spare. When your hour of reckoning comes, you will have more to answer for than those you now doom to the rack and the wheel. … If the brave Stig Andersen does not take a bloody revenge upon the destroyer of bis peace, if the unfortunate Lady Ingeborg's blind, heart-broken, and deranged father cannot grope his way with his dagger to that false heart. King Erik, there is no longer a particle of honour left in Denmark, a particle of warm blood stirring in the veins of the Danish nobility, and they will deserve to have no better monarch than you are."
The king became suddenly as white as a corpse; he foamed at the mouth with rage, and his hand grasped the hilt of his sword. In another moment he had drawn it from its scabbard, and, like a maniac, he rushed upon the prisoner, who stood immovable and laughing scornfully. But Drost Peder sprang forward and forced himself between the prisoner and the enraged monarch.
"Hold, Herre King!" he exclaimed. "Your grace is no executioner to fell a bound and helpless victim. In my house a deed shall not be perpetrated which would stain the honour of the crown."
The king’s fury seemed calmed in a moment; he returned the sword slowly to its scabbard; but at the same time he cast a withering look on the noble Drost.
"Well!" he exclaimed coldly, "you are right, Drost Hessel; I had nearly forgotten my royal dignity … but you have also nearly forgotten your respect to your sovereign, in presuming thus to school him."
The king’s adventure with the beautiful somnambulist is a curious scene: he is exceedingly terrified by the visions which she relates while in a state of deep slumber and perfect unconsciousness. Duke Waldemar’s imprisonment—the Lady Inge’s solitary, dreamy existence in her father’s remote castle, until the stirring events of the times draw her into active life and participation in some wild scenes—the struggles in her mind between patriotic feelings and duty to her father—the murder-scene, and many others, are extremely well described. "Prince Otto of Denmark” is a shorter work, but one also of great interest. There are many striking scenes in it; but of one in particular we may give an outline, though it is too long to give a translation of it.
