bedclothes, which were hanging over the bedside. But he stayed her with
a thrust of his sword, which did graze her white side.

Then, leaning against the wall, hands and arms held up to veil her eyes,
she stood waiting.

The other never left off crying:

"_Puttaccia! Puttaccia!_" (Whore! Whore!)

Then, forasmuch as he did yet tarry, and slew her not, she was afraid.
He saw that she was afraid, and said gleefully:

"You are afraid!"

But pointing her finger at the dead body of the Duke d'Andria, she made
answer:

"Fool! what think you I can have to fear now?"

And, to make a seeming of being no more terrified, she sought to recall
a song-tune she had sung many a time as a girl, and began humming the
same, or rather hissing it, betwixt her teeth.

The Prince, furious to see how she defied him, did now prick her with
his point in the belly, crying out:

"_Ah! Sporca-puttaccia!_" (Fie! Filthy trull!) Exultant, she stayed her
singing, and said:

"Sir, 'tis two years sithence I have been to confession."

At this word the Prince of Venosa bethought him how that, an if she died
and were damned, she might return by night and drag him down to Hell
along with her. He asked her:

"Will you not have a Confessor?"

She did ponder an instant, then shaking her head:

"'Tis useless. I cannot save my soul. I repent me not. I cannot, and I
will not, repent. I love him! I love him! Let me die in his arms."

With a quick movement, she did thrust the sword aside, threw her on the
bleeding corse of the Duke d'Andria, and lay clipping her dead lover in
her arms.

Seeing her so, the Prince of Venosa did lose what patience he had kept
till then, to the end he might not kill her ere he had made her suffer.
He drave his blade through her body. She cried, "Jesu!" rolled over,
sprang to her feet, and after a little shudder that shook her every
limb, fell to the floor dead.

He struck her several blows more in the belly and bosom; then said to
his varlets:

"Go throw these two pieces of carrion at the foot of the Great
Staircase, and open wide the Palace doors, that men may note my
vengeance at the same time as the insult done mine honour."

He bade strip the lover's corse bare like the other.

The men did as they were bidden. And all the day the bodies of the Duke
d'Andria and Dona Maria lay naked at the bottom of the steps. The
passers-by drew near to see them. And the news of the bloody deed being
spread about the cit