st promise they will not proceed
to extremities with your son. An enemy, madam, may have good reasons
for negotiating; and although the Genoese Government would be
delighted to break me on the wheel, yet, on some points, I can compel
them to bargain with me."

He lifted his eyes. Mine were fixed on the Princess's, and I saw
them thank him for the falsehood.

"Come, dear mother," she said, taking the Queen's hand.
"Though Camillo be in Genoa he can be reached."

"My poor boy was ever too rash."

"He can be reached," the Princess repeated--but I saw her wince--
"and he shall be reached. General, I pray you to send these two men
to me. And now, mother, let one sorrow be enough for a time.
There is woman's work to be done upstairs; take me with you that I
may help."

I did not understand these last words, but was left puzzling over
them as the two passed through the turret-door and mounted the
stairway. Nor did I remember the custom of the country until, ten
minutes later, I heard their voices lifted together in the upper
chamber intoning a lament over my father's body.

My father--so my uncle told me--had left express orders that he
should be buried at sea. Throughout the long afternoon, with short
pauses, the voices wailed overhead, while we worked to set the
fortress in order for the garrison which Paoli sent (despatching his
second gunboat) to fetch from Isola Rossa; until, an hour before
sunset, two monks came down the stairway with the corpse, and bore it
to the quay, where Billy Priske waited with one of the _Gauntlet's_
boats. Paoli and my uncle had taken their places in the
stern-sheets, and Dom Basilio and I, having lifted the body on board
and covered it with the _Gauntlet's_ flag, ourselves stepped into the
bows, where I took an oar and helped Billy to pull some twenty
furlongs off the shore. Dom Basilio recited the funeral service; and
there, watched by his comrades from the quay, we let sink my father
into six fathoms, to sleep at the foot of the great rock which had
been his altar.

As I landed and climbed the path again, I caught sight of Camilla,
standing by the parapet of the east bastion, in converse with
Marc'antonio and Stephanu. She had braided her hair, and done away
with all traces of mourning, At the turret door her mother met me,
equally neat and composed.

"I have been waiting for you," said the Queen. "Come, O son, for I
want your advice."

She led me up past the second wi