BLUE-
BEARD

brothers are there, just returned from the wars.
Bid them ride and spur and never slack rein till
they have reached this place and saved me.’

Next morning Blue-beard asked for his keys, and
his wife restored them to him with a hand that
trembled so that he suspected what had happened.
He looked at the keys and said: ‘I miss that of
my cabinet. Where is that?’

‘I must have left it upstairs,’ she said.

‘Do not fail to bring it me,’ he said, in a stern
voice.

There was no help for it. She was obliged to
produce the key.

Blue-beard looked at it with a frown. ‘Why is
there blood on this key?’ he asked.

She was too frightened to answer.

‘You have been in the cabinet, which I forbade
you to open and enter. Very well, madam, you
shall go in again and this time remain there, hung
to the wall beside the other ladies you saw there.’
She threw herself at her husband’s feet, weeping
and entreating pardon, with all the marks of
sincere repentance for her disobedience. So
beautiful and distressed was she that she might

- have melted a heart of stone, but that of Blue-

beard was harder than stone.

‘You must die, madam,’ said he, ‘and that in-
stantly.’

“If I must die,’ she replied, looking at him with
eyes bathed in tears, ‘give me at least time to say
my prayers.’

‘Very well,’ he answered, ‘I grant you a quarter
of an hour, not a moment longer.’

When she was alone, she summoned her sister,
and said to her: ‘Sister Anne, I pray you, mount
the tower, and see if my brothers are coming.
I sent them word to come without delay. When
you see them, sign to them to speed their fastest.’

Her sister immediately ascended to the battle-

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