stle walls.

The faithful horse was the solitary mourner who watched his unconscious
master while life was ebbing and sought to comfort him with mournful
whinnies of almost human affection.

* * * * *

Had the young knight Marco Bembo but known of his uncle's barbarous
murder, and that the white-haired Councillor Zaffo lay foully
slaughtered in the first court of the castle because of his great crime
of loyalty to the Queen, he might have paused before he attempted to
force an entrance to the fortress. And yet he would not--being loyal as
the venerable Councillor himself, and as full of bravery as Andrea
Cornaro; the thought of the Queen's greater need would but have spurred
his courage.

The young Venetian had reached the second court without molestation,
when he turned to silence the cry that came from a swaggering band of
sailors who had followed him and were shouting for "Alfonso--Prince of
Galilee!" They fell upon him at the signal from Rizzo which marked him
guilty--for was he not a Venetian?

"_E tu, traditor!_"

The words rang out unanswered, save by his desperate sword.

They were but six, and he was standing against treason, for the Queen
and the honor of his house!

He fought them all, without a groan, until his strength was spent; and
they, eager to do the will of this ruffianly king-maker, who was winning
a fresh coronet for their Prince of Naples--this man of force who would
make much booty possible--fought six to one, and spared not.

And then, by bidding of their Chief, they flung the palpitating,
tortured, lifeless remnant of what--one little hour before--had been a
loyal, noble, winsome man, dreaming of duty and high achievement--into
the horror of the moat by the pitiful wreck of Andrea Cornaro--the two
murdered for the double crimes of relationship and loyalty to the
trembling girl-Queen.

XX

His Grace, the Archbishop, was among the first to respond to the summons
of the alarum, having his mind filled with weighty matters of life and
death which had rendered him sleepless--some of which he had discussed
confidentially with General Saplana, who had been one of those most
distinguished and trusted by the late King.

With Saplana the Commander of Famagosta, and with his own brother Gioan
Peres Fabrici, as with some other members of the Queen's Council, many
details of the conspiracy which was now being brought to so satisfactory
a conclusion, had b