rioted all manner of fruits and bloom: back of
them the vineyards of Varoschia--lemons, burning like topaz against the
dark thatch of their glossy leaves, and near them the thin gray of the
olive-trees, outlining with pale shadow the forests that spread to the
mountains.

Vast vases of stone looked down from the heights in grotesque
shapes--serpents coiled, thrusting out their tongues tipped with rubies,
with glaring emeralds for eyes: and below them, deep cut in the living
rock and blazoned so that one might read them from afar, the arms of the
kingdom--as if sacred pythons, terrible and fierce, kept watch above the
harbor for the honor of the realm.

And far off, against that wonderful mountain background, a colossal
marble lion stood guard over the ruins of the city that slept upon the
coast below--with demoniac, fiery eyes of flashing jewels, striking
terror to the souls of mariners who might have wandered with
sacrilegious feet among those crumbling tombs and temples in search of
buried treasure.

For this buried city on the coast was the ancient city of Salamis, and
famed for her magnificence--the _Famagosta Vecchia_ which had furnished
many a stately column and intricately wrought carving to enrich the
modern city to which Janus had transferred the capital of his kingdom.
Half-buried fragments of palaces and tombs and temples reached far along
the coast, giving the touch of pathos and historic interest: and about
them swept the broken circles of the splendid aqueduct which, in the
days long past, had gathered the waters of the mountain streams to
furnish the countless fountains and cisterns of Salamis. Great palms had
sprung up in the fissures of the massive, grass-grown arches, and vines
trailed draperies of beauty over their decay--and so they stood, a
monument to the past, challenging the dwellers of the modern city to a
labor so needful for the public weal.

The port was gay with trading ships and colors of many lands; but Mutio
di Costanzo studied it with frowning brows, noting only the absence of
his own galleys of Cyprus, which lay, unmanned in the dock-yards by
order of King Janus the Second! And before them, where he turned his
gaze, still frowning, on the silver of the sea rode the galleys of the
fleet of Venice--decked with the banners of San Marco and of Cyprus.

Caterina, under her canopy, with all her court about her in fullest
state, had received the homage of the people, as she passed her fo