thirst was satisfied, "tell me, where is your
master, Cattrina?"

"God or the fiend can say alone. When he found that I was smitten with
the plague he left me to perish, as did the others."

"And as we shall do unless you tell me whither my enemy has gone," and
Hugh made as though to leave the place.

The priest clutched at him with his filthy, claw-like hand.

"For Christ's sake do not desert me," he moaned. "Let one Christian soul
be near me at the last ere the curse of that wizard with the yellow cap
is fulfilled on me. For the sake of Jesus, stay! I'll tell all I know."

"Speak then, and be swift. You have no time to spare, I think."

"When the darkness fell there in the Place of Arms," began Nicholas,
"while you knights were waiting for the third blast of the trumpet,
Cattrina fled under cover it."

"As I thought, the accursed coward!" exclaimed Hugh bitterly.

"Nay, to be just, it was not all cowardice. The wizard in the yellow
cap, he who showed himself to the people afterward and called down
this Black Death on Venice, appeared to him in the darkness and said
something to him that turned his heart to water. I think it was that if
he stayed, within five short minutes he'd be dead, who otherwise, if he
fled, had yet a breathing space of life. So he went."

"Ay. But whither, man? Whither?"

"Here to his house, where he disguised himself and bade me prepare to
travel with him. Only then the sickness took me and I could not. So he
went with some of his people, riding for Avignon."

"What to do at Avignon?"

"To obtain the confirmation of his marriage with the lady Eve Clavering.
It has been promised to him by certain cardinals at Court who have the
ear of his Holiness the Pope."

"Ah, I thought it! What more?"

"Only this: tidings reached him that the lady Clavering, with the old
Templar, Sir Andrew Arnold, journeys to Avignon from England, there to
obtain the dissolution of their marriage with Sir Edmund Acour, Count de
Noyon, Lord of Cattrina. In Avignon, however the cause may go, Cattrina
purposes to snare and make her his, which will be easy, for there he has
many friends and she has none."

"Except God!" exclaimed Hugh, grinding his teeth.

"And Sir Andrew Arnold," broke in Dick, "who, like some others, is, I
think, one of His ministers. Still, we had better be riding, master."

"Nay, nay," cried Nicholas in a hoarse scream. "Tarry a while and I'll
tell you that which will force the Pope to