he palace of Famagosta a cordon of
soldiers stood motionless, while before them the mounted guard paced
slowly to and fro; and across the Piazza, with that impatient, surging
crowd between, was faintly heard the steady footfall of the sentinels,
measuring and remeasuring with unemotional precision their narrow beat
before the entrance to the world-famed fortress of Famagosta.

A group of nobles in eager, low-voiced converse crossed the square,
pressed through the cordon of soldiers and gave the password and the
great door was opened to admit them and closed again.

Two burghers picked out a face among them, as the torches of their
escorts flared.

"That was Marin Rizzo, Counsellor to the Queen; a man of
power--unscrupulous."

"And more a friend--I have heard it whispered in Nikosia--to Naples than
to Cyprus."

"Hast evidence for thy speech?" the other questioned eagerly in a lower
tone.

"It is for that we must watch; the time is threatening."

"But Messer Andrea Cornaro was with him: he will know how to guard the
interests of the Queen, having been so great a favorite with our Janus,
and one for management, despite his courtly ways! Without our Messer
Andrea, his niece had never been our Queen."

"Nay--nor if His Holiness had had his will. I had the tale from a source
to trust, though the story was kept hushed. It would take one like our
Janus, with his royal ways, to scorn the flattering offers of His
Holiness! There were also threats!"

"Nay; threats would never move him, except to see the comedy thereof and
make his mood the pleasanter! But I had not dreamed him saint enough for
the Holy Father to sue to him for an alliance."

"Ah, friend, the ways of those above us be strange! But it was for this,
I take it, that His Holiness--who hath a temper most uncommon
earthly--sent none to represent him at the Coronation of the King."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "It lacked for naught in splendor; it
was a day for Cyprus and for Nikosia."

"_Vanitas Vanitatum_," droned a friar of the Latin Church who had been
standing near enough to catch echoes of their speech.

Both men glanced towards him and instinctively moved away.

"Aye; little it matters now--coronation honors or splendors for him! But
he had a way with him!"

"And he was one for daring!"

They crossed themselves and lapsed into silence, as their eyes sought
the banners drooping, shrouded, before the palace-gates, near the statue
of their d