e
forgot to confide this last tantalizing, supremest vision to His Grace
the Archbishop.

These documents had been prepared in the underground Chamber of
Conference of the Fortress, where secrets might be freely uttered
because of the double walls of massive masonry: where flaring torches
fastened high in the chamber, scattered the ghostly shadows, and ample
potations of the fine wine of the "Commanderie" sustained their courage.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, a slender figure with vizor down, showing a tunic of mail
between the folds of a dark mantle, came out from the Fortress, and
stepping forth into the gray of the dawn, crossed to the Palazzo Reale,
with slow, uncertain footsteps.

"Open!--In the name of the Queen's Council!"

The words came in muffled tones from behind the vizor--uncertain, like
the footsteps, yet impossible to disregard.

"The password for this night?" the guard demanded.

It was given at once, but with visible repugnance--"_a bas Venezia!_"

"Are ye many?"

"But one."

The bars were instantly drawn back and the young knight entered the
first court of the palace.

"Halt! Declare for whom thou standest. That password is already outworn:
for they of the Queen's Council be of two minds."

As if from a sense of suffocation the cloak was torn off showing a suit
of armor too heavy for the slight limbs; and the helmet was loosened
with supple, nervous fingers, disclosing a face pale, strong and
soulful. The face might have been that of a man--an artist, or a poet;
but the hair, lying in loose, dusky waves about the brows, and low, in
rich clinging coils at the back of the shapely head, could only belong
to a woman.

A sudden wrath flamed in her deep eyes.

"If they of the Queen's Council be of two minds they are craven, though
I, a woman say it! But the Queen's guard, in the Queen's palace, can
have but one mind--_to uphold her cause!_"

There was no other voice in all Cyprus so tender, so compelling, so
magnetic, so all-convincing; the voice revealed her.

"Dama Margherita de Iblin!" was echoed about the court in surprise. The
news spread. The men-at-arms came thronging about her with reiterated
assurances of loyalty; it was good to confess their faith to her.

"We hold this palace for our Queen," they said, "and for no traitorous
Council. May the holy Saints in Heaven curse them roundly who forced us
to do their bidding, when we thought ourselves serving He