thou wilt tell our beloved Lady that we have
sought to wrest the child from the galley of Naples; for rumor hath it
that he is hidden there. And if he be there, we will bring him, or give
our lives to save him. Tell her our galley waiteth far, to take the
Prince to Venice if, from pursuit, there should be need to fly.'

"But--listen Ecciva--they said, '_if we come not again, and our galley
should be found waiting on the coast, then tell her that our lives were
little to express our love; and she shall not mourn that we have given
them for her and for her child_.'--Oh, Ecciva!" she ended with a long
sigh of adoring appreciation.

Ecciva broke the tension with her exclamation: "No, Contarini mia, all
knights are _not_ like that: I said it but to tease thee. Tell it to the
Dama Margherita with a face like that, and she will make it a second
'Kypria,' for she hath, verily the gift. I have not such a tale of
knighthood to tell thee: yet, if thou carest for my tidings they would
make a canto for the new Kypria of the Dama Margherita, in contrast to
thine. And first of the traitor Saplana--_of whom there is news_."

Eloisa greeted the tidings with an exclamation of relief.

"He--and the precious group of noble villains--or of villain
nobles--one's tongue takes twist in talking trash--the more when it is
true; a precious group of traitors, all on the wild seashore--how the
Dama Margherita would bring out the booming of the waves! These doughty
villains fleeing because, forsooth, they feared the fleet of
Venice!--tossing their reins on the necks of the steeds that brought
them, and leaving them to wander at their will. A little gold and their
arms and bucklers in the fishing skiff that brought them to the galley
of the noble Ferdinand--the goodly King of Naples,--his well-beloved
son, Alfonso, wore not for long the title of the 'Prince of
Galilee!'--Is it a pretty tale for the poem of the Margherita? The tale
of the fleeing villains!"

"But who went with the Commander?--Which others?"

"There was the nephew, Almerico--much in temper because thy noble uncle
the Contarini would not yield up to his traitorous care the Castle of
Cerines for the signature forced from the Queen. There was Fabrici--the
very Reverend, the Primate of Cyprus. And then--and then--not last, but
first, and deepest and darkest traitor of them all--the very darkest
villain of them all--there was Rizzo!"

"Ecciva! Not Rizzo!--the land is free of him!"