und his
neck, and there, kneeling again, he asked his executioners--

"Friends, in pity tell me, is there any hope for my life?"

And when they answered no, Charles exclaimed:

"Then carry out your instructions."

At these words, one of the equerries plunged his sword into his breast,
and the other cut his head off with a knife, and his corpse was thrown
over the balcony into the garden where Andre's body had lain for three
days unburied.

CHAPTER VII

The King of Hungary, his black flag ever borne before him, started for
Naples, refusing all offered honours, and rejecting the canopy beneath
which he was to make his entry, not even stopping to give audience to
the chief citizens or to receive the acclamations of the crowd. Armed
at all points, he made for Castel Nuovo, leaving behind him dismay and
fear. His first act on entering the city was to order Dona Cancha to be
burnt, her punishment having been deferred by reason of her pregnancy.
Like the others, she was drawn on a cart to the square of St. Eligius,
and there consigned to the flames. The young creature, whose suffering
had not impaired her beauty, was dressed as for a festival, and laughing
like a mad thing up to the last moment, mocked at her executioners and
threw kisses to the crowd.

A few days later, Godfrey of Marsana, Count of Squillace and grand
admiral of the kingdom, was arrested by the king's orders. His life was
promised him on condition of his delivering up Conrad of Catanzaro, one
of his relatives, accused of conspiring against Andre. The grand admiral
committed this act of shameless treachery, and did not shrink from
sending his own son to persuade Conrad to come to the town. The poor
wretch was given over to the king, and tortured alive on a wheel made
with sharp knives. The sight of these barbarities, far from calming the
king's rage, seemed to inflame it the more. Every day there were
new accusations and new sentences. The prisons were crowded: Louis's
punishments were redoubled in severity. A fear arose that the town, and
indeed the whole kingdom, were to be treated as having taken part in
Andre's death. Murmurs arose against this barbarous rule, and all men's
thoughts turned towards their fugitive queen. The Neapolitan barons had
taken the oath of fidelity with no willing hearts; and when it came
to the turn of the Counts of San Severino, they feared a trick of some
kind, and refused to appear all together before the Hungarian,