"Curse you, let me be," she tried to scream, but the words were only a whistle. "If I tell, what then?"
"Out with her to the tree," said Herrick, and one of the men bent down, and touched her.
"Simon sold him to the enemy," the old woman said--"the enemy that's now on the way to make carrion of such as you. He's dead, or if he isn't he's safe in a tower by the frontier close to Larne, and you'll never get him, curse you."
"I know the place, sir," whispered one of the men. "She may be speaking the truth."
The hag had closed her eyes again, but after a few seconds she opened them, and in that short interval she seemed to have forgotten all that had gone before. She started, as though for the first time she realized that men were looking down at her, and she began to curse them in a long string of foul oaths which were truly appalling. Herrick thought she must be shamming sickness, for she suddenly raised herself almost into a sitting posture, and pointing at him with her long, skeleton hand, let loose all the vials of her vituperation upon him, promising him a hell here and damnation of the most horrible and fantastic kind hereafter.
"Duke!--Liar!" she screamed, and her voice was strong for an instant. "Duke!--curse you--wounded man--fates--some day--curse!"
The words were in a descending scale, the last a mere whisper, and then her body heaved as if she would spring to her feet. The next moment she fell backward with a thud--dead!
Herrick turned away with a shudder. Such a death was horrible.
"The world's well rid of her," said Briant.
"Bury her presently," said Herrick to the charcoal-burners. "God knows her history, and shall judge her. Bury her out of the beaten track, and deeply, and then if you will, follow us toward Larne. Montvilliers has need of every stalwart son she has given birth to."
They were soon riding through the forest again, Pierre Briant and his men with them. Herrick rode alone a little in advance, and the old hag's doggerel was singing in his ears. Her last disjointed words were evidently an attempt to repeat the rhyme. It was well that the soldiers knew nothing of the circumstances under which it had first been spoken, or they might have been superstitious enough to look upon him as a leader foredoomed to failure.