ung this taunt out at me
viciously; but I had enough to do to hold myself steady, there by the
grave's edge, and did not heed him.

"I do not think he is a coward," said she. (O, but those words were
sweet! and for the first time I blessed her.) "But coward or no
coward, he is our hostage, and you must not kill him."

He turned to the priest, who all this while had stood with head on
one side, eyes aslant, and the air and attitude of a stranger who
having stumbled on a family squabble politely awaits its termination.

"Father Domenico, is my sister right? And may I not kill this man?"

"She is right," answered the reverend father, with something like a
sigh. "You cannot kill him consistently with honour, though I admit
the provocation to be great. The Princess appears to have committed
herself to something like a pledge." He paused here, and with his
tongue moistened his loose lips. "Moreover," he continued, "to kill
him, on our present information, would be inadvisable. I know--at
least I have heard--something of this Sir John Constantine whom the
young man asserts to be his father; and, by what has reached me, he
is capable of much."

"Do you mean," asked the Prince, bridling angrily, "that I am to fear
him?"

"Not at all," the priest answered quickly, still with his eyes
aslant. "But, from what I have heard, he was fortunate, long ago, to
earn the esteem of the good lady your mother, and"--he paused and
felt for his snuff-box--"it would appear that the trick runs in the
family."

"By God, then, if I may not kill him, I may at least improve on my
sister's treatment," swore the young man. "Made him her
swine-keeper, did she? I will promote him a step. Here, you!
Take and truss him by the heels!--and fetch me a chain, one of you,
from the forage-shed. . . ."

In the short time it took him to devise my punishment the Prince
displayed a devilishly ingenious turn of mind. Within ten minutes
under his careful directions they had me down flat on my back in the
filth of the sty, with my neck securely chained to a post of the
palisade, my legs outstretched, and either ankle strapped to a peg.
My hands they left free, to supply me (as the Prince explained) with
food and drink: that is to say, to reach for the loaf and the
pannikin of water which Marc'antonio, under orders, fetched from the
hut and laid beside me. Marc'antonio's punishment (for bearing
witness to the truth) was to be my gaoler and sty-ke