Only when all about her had become silent and when the last footfall had died away she sighed and opened her eyes.
Then she saw a man, wearing the blue linen and the black cap and the hard shoes, kneeling at her feet.
She bent down. He raised his head. She looked at him.
And then she recognised him.
(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil's-ear, one man's hand seized another man's arm. "Hush! Keep quiet!" whispered the voice, which was soundless and yet which had the effect of laughter—like the laughter of spiteful mockery.)
The girl's face was as a crystal, filled with snow. She made a movement as if for flight. But her knees would not obey her. Reeds which stand in troubled water do not tremble more than her shoulders trembled.
"If you have come to betray us,
