been stolen from her?--With a woman struggling
with such anguish?"

"The Prince!--Our King! _Sanctissima Maria!_ San Marco confound the
knaves!"

Every man's hand sought his sword with a murmured oath of loyalty and
vengeance. Questions stormed upon her: but she commanded silence with a
gesture.

It was news indeed; no hint of it had passed beyond the walls of the
Fortress.

"Of where he may be hidden, naught is known. Yet the galley of Naples
lieth in our port, and one may reach it at low tide over the shallows--a
few feet away from the tower of the Fort. It were easy to carry the
child there unseen."

"Aye; it were easy--and not so hard to find him--if he were there."

"Nay, but to hold him when found! Do it not rashly, lest harm come to
him. The Bernardini will plan the emprise. Tell him the Lady Margherita
came at risk of life--in this disguise--to put his true men on the
quest. Tell him----"

She was interrupted by an exclamation.

"Margherita!--the Lady de Iblin--_thus!_"

The Bernardini had just entered the court of the Palace.

A vivid flush rose to her cheek, but she stood quite still in the place
where he had found her, and he came and bent his knee and kissed her
hand with the customary homage.

"Else might I not have crossed the Piazza," she said, "nor left the gate
of the Castle. It is easy to forfeit one's head at a moment of wrath
where Rizzo commandeth! And one--a guard within the Fortress, friend to
our cause unguessed of the Council--hath lent me this disguise that I
might bring thee my so weighty tidings of woe."

"'So weighty tidings of woe?'" he echoed startled.

"These will tell it thee," she went on hurriedly, "for I must be
returned to my chamber ere the change of guard--lest he be called on
duty and fail to respond with this full toggery of steel, because he
hath shown me this favor."

"The Queen?" he gasped.

"The Queen still liveth; but--oh, my Lord, Aluisi!"--her voice broke and
her lips quivered, she stretched out her hands to him, the nervous
fingers interlaced in a passion of pleading--"they have stolen the
baby-Prince: she will go mad if they keep him from her!"

"They shall not!" he thundered with a terrible oath: he--whose speech
was fair as a woman's. "Tell her we pledge our lives to find him--to
save them both--_all these and many more_."

With a gesture he included all the company.

"Heaven hear us!" they swore in deep, angry, concert.

She turned her face