es bounded to his feet, his face livid now
with passion, his eyes ablaze.

"Out! Away!" he cried. "Go, my lord, and go quickly, or as God watches
us I will add here and now yet another sacrilege to those of which you
accuse me."

The prelate gathered his ample robes about him. If pale, he was entirely
calm once more. With stern dignity, he bowed to the angry youth, and
so departed, but with such outward impassivity that it would have been
difficult to say with whom lay the victory. If Affonso Henriques thought
that night that he had conquered, morning was to shatter the illusion.

He was awakened early by a chamberlain at the urgent instances of Emigio
Moniz, who was demanding immediate audience. Affonso Henriques sat up in
bed, and bade him to be admitted.

The elderly knight and faithful counsellor came in, treading heavily.
His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines under its
grizzled beard.

"God keep you, lord," was his greeting, so lugubriously delivered as to
sound like a pious, but rather hopeless, wish.

"And you, Emigio," answered him the Infante. "You are early astir. What
is the cause?"

"III tidings, lord." He crossed the room, unlatched and flung wide a
window. "Listen," he bade the prince.

On the still morning air arose a sound like the drone of some gigantic
hive, or of the sea when the tide is making. Affonso Henriques
recognized it for the murmur of the multitude.

"What does it mean?" he asked, and thrust a sinewy leg from the bed.

"It means that the Papal Legate has done all that he threatened, and
something more. He has placed your city of Coimbra under a ban of
excommunication. The churches are closed, and until the ban is lifted
no priest Will be found to baptize, marry, shrive or perform any other
Sacrament of Holy Church. The people are stricken with terror, knowing
that they share the curse with you. They are massing below at the gates
of the alcazar, demanding to see you that they may implore you to lift
from them the horror of this excommunication."

Affonso Henriques had come to his feet by now, and he stood there
staring at the old knight, his face blenched, his stout heart clutched
by fear of these impalpable, blasting weapons that were being used
against him.

"My God!" he groaned, and asked: "What must I do?"

Moniz was preternaturally grave. "It is of the first importance that the
people should be pacified."

"But how?"

"There is one way only--by