lives: now be blind in body until your better eyes are unsealed.”
She threw her cloak open. It fell to the ground, and the radiance that flashed from her robe of snowy whiteness, from her face of awful beauty, and from her eyes that shone like pools of sunlight, smote them blind.
Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, waver to and fro, then sit down on the steps of the dais; and she knew they were punished, but knew not how. She rushed up to them, and catching a hand of each said—
“Father, dear father! mother dear! I will ask the wise woman to forgive you.”
“Oh, I am blind! I am blind!” they cried together. “Dark as night! Stone blind!”
Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and kneeling at her feet, cried, “Oh, my lovely wise woman! do let them see. Do open their eyes, dear, good, wise woman.”