with emotion as she pressed him to her heart--

"My son, as you refuse to come with me, here is a wonderful talisman,
which I would not use before the last extremity. So long as you wear
this ring on your finger, neither sword nor poison will have power
against you."

"You see then, mother," said the prince, smiling, "with this protection
there is no reason at all to fear for my life."

"There are other dangers than sword or poison," sighed the queen.

"Be calm, mother: the best of all talismans is your prayer to God for me:
it is the tender thought of you that will keep me for ever in the path of
duty and justice; your maternal love will watch over me from afar, and
cover me like the wings of a guardian angel."

Elizabeth sobbed as she embraced her son, and when she left him she felt
her heart was breaking. At last she made up her mind to go, and was
escorted by the whole court, who had never changed towards her for a
moment in their chivalrous and respectful devotion. The poor mother,
pale, trembling, and faint, leaned heavily upon Andre's arm, lest she
should fall. On the ship that was to take her for ever from her son, she
cast her arms for the last time about his neck, and there hung a long
time, speechless, tearless, and motionless; when the signal for departure
was given, her women took her in their arms half swooning. Andre stood
on the shore with the feeling of death at his heart: his eyes were fixed
upon the sail that carried ever farther from him the only being he loved
in the world. Suddenly he fancied he beheld something white moving a
long way off: his mother had recovered her senses by a great effort, and
had dragged herself up to the bridge to give a last signal of farewell:
the unhappy lady knew too well that she would never see her son again.

At almost the same moment that Andre's mother left the kingdom, the
former queen of Naples, Robert's widow, Dona Sancha, breathed her last
sigh. She was buried in the convent of Santa Maria delta Croce, under
the name of Clara, which she had assumed on taking her vows as a nun, as
her epitaph tells us, as follows:

"Here lies, an example of great humility, the body of the sainted sister
Clara, of illustrious memory, otherwise Sancha, Queen of Sicily and
Jerusalem, widow of the most serene Robert, King of Jerusalem and Sicily,
who, after the death of the king her husband, when she had completed a
year of widowhood, exchanged goods temporary for goods