"Now the question is, where have
you concealed it?"
"I will tell you, with all my heart, only spare my life!"
"Tell us first, and we will think about your life afterward. Let
me advise you as a friend, my lord, to tell at once, and
truthfully," said the duke, toying negligently with the
thumb-screws.
"It is buried at the north corner of the old wall at the head of
Bradshaw's grave. You shall have that and a thousandfold more if
you'll only pardon - "
"Enough!" broke in the dwarf, with the look and tone of an
exultant demon. "That is all we want! My lord duke, give me the
death-warrant, and while her majesty signs it, I will pronounce
his doom!"
The duke handed him a roll of parchment, which he glanced
critically over, and handed to the queen for her autograph. That
royal lady spread the vellum on her knee, took the pen and
affixed her signature as coolly as if she were inditing a sonnet
in an album. Then his highness, with a face that fairly
scintillated with demoniac delight, stood up and fixed his eyes
on the ghastly prisoner, and spoke in a voice that reverberated
like the tolling of a death-bell through the room.
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