ore with a torch.
She entered the garden, saw something white upon the grass, advanced
trembling, gave one piercing cry, and fell backward.

The wretched Andre was lying in his blood, a cord round his neck as
though he were a thief, his head crushed in by the height from which he
fell. Then two monks went upstairs to the queen's room, and respectfully
knocking at the door, asked in sepulchral tones--

"Madam, what would you have us do with your husband's corpse?"

And when the queen made no answer, they went down again slowly to the
garden, and kneeling one at the head, the other at the foot of the dead
man, they began to recite penitential psalms in a low voice. When they
had spent an hour in prayer, two other monks went up in the same way
to Joan's chamber, repeating the same question and getting no answer,
whereupon they relieved the first two, and began themselves to pray.
Next a third couple went to the door of this inexorable room, and coming
away perturbed by their want of success, perceived that there was a
disturbance of people outside the convent, while vengeful cries were
heard amongst the indignant crowd. The groups became more and more
thronged, threatening voices were raised, a torrent of invaders
threatened the royal dwelling, when the queen's guard appeared, lance in
readiness, and a litter closely shut, surrounded by the principal barons
of the court, passed through the crowd, which stood stupidly gazing.
Joan, wrapped in a black veil, went back to Castel Nuovo, amid her
escort; and nobody, say the historians, had the courage to say a word
about this terrible deed.

CHAPTER V

The terrible part that Charles of Durazzo was to play began as soon as
this crime was accomplished. The duke left the corpse two whole days
exposed to the wind and the rain, unburied and dishonoured, the corpse
of a man whom the pope had made King of Sicily and Jerusalem, so that
the indignation of the mob might be increased by the dreadful sight.
On the third he ordered it to be conveyed with the utmost pomp to
the cathedral of Naples, and assembling all the Hungarians around the
catafalque, he thus addressed them, in a voice of thunder:--

"Nobles and commoners, behold our king hanged like a dog by infamous
traitors. God will soon make known to us the names of all the guilty:
let those who desire that justice may be done hold up their hands
and swear against murderers bloody persecution, implacable hatred,
everlasti