Overhead the
sky had turned to daylight at last, but they were grey clouds that
filled the heavens so far as he could see. Meanwhile, the horns brayed
in unison, a rough melody like the notes of bugles, and the drums beat
out the time.
Again there was a long pause--in which the lapse of time was
incalculable. Time had no meaning here: men waited from incident to
incident only--the moving of a line of steel caps, a pause in the music,
a head thrust out from a closed window and drawn back again.... Again
the music broke out, and this time it was an air that they played--a
lilting melancholy melody, that the priest recognised, yet could not
identify. Men laughed subduedly near him; he saw a face wrinkled with
bitter mirth turned back, and he heard what was said. It was "Jumping
Joan" that was being played--the march consecrated to the burning of
witches. He had heard it long ago, as a boy....
Then the rumour ran through the crowd, and spent itself at last in the
corner where the priest stood trembling with wrath and pity.
"She is in the hall."
It was impossible to know whether this were true, or whether she had not
been there half an hour already. The horror was that all might be over,
or not yet begun, or in the very act of doing. He had thought that there
would be some pause or warning--that a signal would be given, perhaps,
that all might bare their heads or pray, at this violent passing of a
Queen. But there was none.
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