onscious action had bound them to her.

But Dama Margherita, still in her trance of song, waved them to quiet
again as they stood grouped about the Queen, in the very mood of the
closing scene, creating an atmosphere of restrained passion, through
which the voice of the improvisatrice throbbed and pulsated like their
own hear-beats.

But now the tones of the improvisatrice are low and quiet, and her
motions assert the dignity of a life nobly lived. For Joan of Iblin has
returned from Crusade, has conquered the intruders and restored quiet
to the realm. But, thereafter, siege is laid to his own castle and fief
of Beirut, and now, gray-haired and full of honors, his time of service
drawing to a close, his trust fulfilled and the young monarch come to
his majority, he implores his royal ward to assemble his full court, and
kneeling in their presence before the youth whom he had served from
tenderest infancy, he prays:

"_If I have served thee well, my nephew and my monarch--now come to
thine own--because I loved thee well, yet loving honor more:_

"_If I have fought for thee in keeping of my trust, and dared the enmity
of the Emperor our Suzerain,--and for thy sake:_

"_Now, by my love for thee--for I am old and the cities of my fiefs are
doomed;_

"_Send, if it seemeth good to thee and to these, the knights and barons
of thy realm, and save my lands--that they be not wrested from me when
my strength is spent!_"

The true-hearted Prince threw loving arms about him, with words of
comfort and with promises, and would have raised him. But the Lord of
Iblin would bring his speech to its conclusion and have his say before
them all, thus kneeling--as if it were a rendering of his trust, a
fitting close to a so loyal life.

The words of his Swan-Song had been chanted in full, rare, solemn
harmony--the lutes in gracious melody accompanying, like an undertone of
love--slow tears down dropping from the eyes of Margherita.

And one by one, as the chant proceeded, through her strange magnetic
power, her listeners _saw_ a knight step forth from the circle and drop
to his knees, swearing fealty to the King and the Lord of Iblin, until
all were kneeling. Then the chanting voices hushed and the rapid motions
ceased: and under that spell they saw, as in a vision, luminous in the
darkness, the kneeling knights of that early court of Cyprus, and in
their midst, the gray-haired Joan of Iblin and the boyish monarch, in
his young, ro