other monks went up in the same way to
Joan's chamber, repeating the same question and getting no answer,
whereupon they relieved the first two, and began themselves to pray.
Next a third couple went to the door of this inexorable room, and coming
away perturbed by their want of success, perceived that there was a
disturbance of people outside the convent, while vengeful cries were
heard amongst the indignant crowd. The groups became more and more
thronged, threatening voices were raised, a torrent of invaders
threatened the royal dwelling, when the queen's guard appeared, lance in
readiness, and a litter closely shut, surrounded by the principal barons
of the court, passed through the crowd, which stood stupidly gazing.
Joan, wrapped in a black veil, went back to Castel Nuovo, amid her
escort; and nobody, say the historians, had the courage to say a word
about this terrible deed.

CHAPTER V

The terrible part that Charles of Durazzo was to play began as soon as
this crime was accomplished. The duke left the corpse two whole days
exposed to the wind and the rain, unburied and dishonoured, the corpse of
a man whom the pope had made King of Sicily and Jerusalem, so that the
indignation of the mob might be increased by the dreadful sight. On the
third he ordered it to be conveyed with the utmost pomp to the cathedral
of Naples, and assembling all the Hungarians around the catafalque, he
thus addressed them, in a voice of thunder:--

"Nobles and commoners, behold our king hanged like a dog by infamous
traitors. God will soon make known to us the names of all the guilty:
let those who desire that justice may be done hold up their hands and
swear against murderers bloody persecution, implacable hatred,
everlasting vengeance."

It was this one man's cry that brought death and desolation to the
murderers' hearts, and the people dispersed about the town, shrieking,
"Vengeance, vengeance!"

Divine justice, which knows naught of privilege and respects no crown,
struck Joan first of all in her love. When the two lovers first met,
both were seized alike with terror and disgust; they recoiled trembling,
the queen seeing in Bertrand her husband's executioner, and he in her the
cause of his crime, possibly of his speedy punishment. Bertrand's looks
were disordered, his cheeks hollow, his eyes encircled with black rings,
his mouth horribly distorted; his arm and forefinger extended towards his
accomplice, he seemed to