g.
Vine-stakes ran up hill and down dale, all about it. White houses were
sprinkled here and there. As we ascended, the sea sank beneath, and the
shining dashes of the wave-crests diminished to sparkling pin-points.
Then with oriental suddenness the sun went down. Still upward fared the
joyless _farceur_, and still upon the soles of my feet, and with my
pilgrim staff in my hand, I followed.

Sometimes the sprays of fragrant blossom swept across our faces.
Sometimes a man stepped out from the roadside and challenged; but, on
receiving a word of salutation from my knave, he returned to his place
with a sharp clank of accoutrement.

White blocks of building moved up to us in the equal dusk of the
evening, took shape for a moment, and vanished behind us. The summit of
the mountain ceased to frown. The strain of climbing was taken from the
mechanic movement of the feet. The mule sent a greeting to his kind; and
some other white mountain, larger, more broken as to its sky-line, moved
in front of us and stayed.

"Castel del Monte!" said the muleteer, wrinkling all the queer puckered
leather of his visage in the strong light which streamed out as the
great door opened. A most dignified Venetian senator, in the black and
radiant linen of the time, came forth to meet me, and with the utmost
respect ushered me within. In my campaigning dress and broad-brimmed
hat, I felt that my appearance was unworthy of the grandeur of the
entrance-hall, of the suits of armour, the vast pictures, and the
massive last-century furniture in crimson and gold.

CHAPTER XIV

AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT

I had expected that Lucia would have come to greet me, and that some of
the other guests would be moving about the halls. But though the rooms
were brightly lit, and servants moving here and there, there abode a
hush upon the place strangely out of keeping with my expectation.

In my own room I arrayed me in clothes more fitted to the palace in
which I found myself, though, after all was done, their plainness made a
poor contrast to the mailed warriors on the pedestals and the scarlet
senators in the frames.

There was a rose, fresh as the white briar-blossom in my mother's
garden, upon my table. I took it as Lucia's gage, and set it in my coat.

"My lady waits," said the major-domo at the door.

I went down-stairs, conscious by the hearing of the ear that a heart was
beating somewhere loudly, mine or another's I could not tell.

A door