rators whom Nicholas of Melazzo had
pointed out in the vaults of Castel Nuovo. But these phantoms each held
his head in his hand, and shaking it by the hair, bespattered him with
drops of blood. Some brandished whips, some knives: each threatened
Charles with his instrument of torture. Pursued by the nocturnal train,
the hapless man opened his mouth for one mighty cry, but his breath was
gone, and it died upon his lips. Then he beheld his mother stretching
out her arms from afar, and he fancied that if he could but reach her he
would be safe. But at each step the path grew more and more narrow, pieces
of his flesh were torn off by the approaching walls; at last, breathless,
naked and bleeding, he reached his goal; but his mother glided farther
away, and it was all to begin over again. The phantoms pursued him,
grinning and screaming in his ears:--

"Cursed be he who slayeth his mother!"

Charles was roused from these horrors by the cries of his brothers, who
had come to embrace him for the last time before embarking. The duke in
a low voice asked their pardon, and then fell back into his state of
despair. The children were dragged away, begging to be allowed to share
their brother's fate, and crying for death as an alleviation of their
woes. At length they were separated, but the sound of their lamentation
sounded long in the heart of the condemned man. After a few moments, two
soldiers and two equerries came to tell the duke that his hour had come.

Charles followed them, unresisting, to the fatal balcony where Andre had
been hanged. He was there asked if he desired to confess, and when he
said yes, they brought a monk from the sane convent where the terrible
scene had been enacted: he listened to the confession of all his sins,
and granted him absolution. The duke at once rose and walked to the
place where Andre had been thrown down for the cord to be put round his
neck, and there, kneeling again, he asked his executioners--

"Friends, in pity tell me, is there any hope for my life?"

And when they answered no, Charles exclaimed:

"Then carry out your instructions."

At these words, one of the equerries plunged his sword into his breast,
and the other cut his head off with a knife, and his corpse was thrown
over the balcony into the garden where Andre's body had lain for three
days unburied.

CHAPTER VII

The King of Hungary, his black flag ever borne before him, started for
Naples, refusing