al, you must absolve my people."

"If... if you will first make submission. My duty... to the Holy See...
Oh God! Will nothing move you?"

"When they have been hanged you will understand, and out of your own
affliction learn compassion." The Infante's voice was so cold, his
mien so resolute that the legate despaired of conquering his purpose.
Abruptly he capitulated, even as the halters went about the necks of his
two cherished lads.

"Stop!" he screamed. "Bid them stop! The curse shall be lifted."

Affonso Henriques opened the window with a leisureliness which to the
legate seemed to belong to the realm of nightmare.

"Wait yet a moment," the Infante called to those outside, about whom by
now a little knot of awe-stricken villagers had gathered. Then he
turned again to Cardinal Corrado, who had sunk to his chair like a man
exhausted, and sat now panting, his elbows on the table, his head in his
hands. "Here," said the prince, "are the terms upon which you may have
their lives: Complete absolution, and Apostolic benediction for my
people and myself this very night, I on my side making submission to
the Holy Father's will to the extent of releasing my mother from duress,
with the condition that she leaves Portugal at once and does not return.
As for the banished bishop and his successor, matters must remain as
they are; but you can satisfy your conscience on that score by yourself
confirming the appointment of Don Zuleyman. Come, my lord, I am being
generous, I think. In the enlargement of my mother I afford you the
means of satisfying Rome. If you have learnt your lesson from what I
here proposed, your conscience should satisfy you of the rest."

"Be it so," the Cardinal answered hoarsely. "I will return with you to
Coimbra and do your will."

Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in completest sincerity
in token that the feud between them was now completely healed, Affonso
Henriques went down upon his knees, like the true and humble son of Holy
Church he accounted himself, to ask a blessing at the Cardinal's hands.

II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS

Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of Ivan the Terrible

The news of it first reached him whilst he sat at supper in the great
hall of his palace in the Kremlin. It came at a time when already there
was enough to distract his mind; for although the table before him was
spread and equipped as became an emperor's, the gaunt spectre of famine
stalked outs