"Stand back!" she said. "I am not afraid of love. I am not afraid of you. But your voice is not the voice of the woods, and your eyes shine with another light. You cannot snare me so."

He saw that she distrusted him; he saw that she did not fear him; he knew that he had not won her, yet believed himself near to the winning.

"If you love me—" Robert cried.

The girl stretched out her arms to the wide sky in protest.

"If I love you!" Her arms dropped to her sides and she continued, sadly, "I have dreamed of you very often, but I never dreamed of you thus."

"All lovers love fiercely," Robert insisted, passionately.

Perpetua shook her head. "I do not believe you."

Chafing to find himself so powerless to soften her, Robert made a gesture of despair.

"Ah!" he sighed, "we waste irrevocable seconds that should be spent in kisses."

Perpetua moved a little closer to him. The man's pain in his voice stirred the woman's pity in her heart, and she spoke more tenderly than she had spoken for some time.

"Hunter, if you love me, you shall tell my father your tale and he will be your friend as he is mine, and we will marry and live and die in the woodland."

She stood before him, beautiful as the living image of a goddess offering herself to a mortal with Olympian simplicity. So might Oenone have willed to wed with Paris. Robert stared at her, amazed, confounded.

"I cannot marry you," he protested. "You are the executioner's daughter."

Now, indeed, the warm color of her cheeks grew warmer and her eyes darkened with indignation.

"My father is a good and honest man, but were I the child of a robber, were I a fosterling of a wolf of the woods, I am a woman—the woman you say you love."

Robert waved her words away disdainfully, peevishly.

"I cannot marry you."

Perpetua's cheeks paled and her lips quivered a little, and her eyes were moist beneath their lowered lids, but she answered him as firmly as before and more sadly.

"Good-bye, then. I am not sorry you came, for I cherish sweet thoughts of you, but I shall be glad to see you go."

She turned as if to glide into the woods, but Robert stayed her, calling to her in a voice of loud command.

"I will not lose you!" he cried. "If I cannot win you as the simple hunter, I will command you as the King. I am Robert of Sicily."

As he spoke he slipped the green mantle from his arms and shoulders, flung it from him, and stood before her in the royal garments of the King. Perpetua gazed in astonishment at the rich habit, at splendor such as she had never seen.

"You are the King?" she whispered.



Robert answered proudly, confident now of reward.

"I am, indeed, the King."

Perpetua looked on him with the same fearless honor wherewith she would have faced some monster in the forest.

"If you are the King, what have you to do with me?" she asked.

Robert answered her joyously, passionately.

"You shall be my loveliest mistress now, my loveliest memory forever." But even as he spoke the fire in his blood was chilled by the scorn and wrath in Perpetua's eyes.

"God pity and God pardon you," she prayed. "You are called Robert the Bad by honest men. Be called so always by clean women!" Her outstretched right hand seemed to hurl her imprecation into his brain. Blind fury seized upon him.

"You play the fool with me!" he said, and advanced upon her only to recoil as she slipped her hand to her girdle and drew the long, keen knife that rested there.

"Keep away from me!" she warned him. "For I am strong and young, and I might kill you." Her face was pitifully pale now in its great sorrow, but the determination in her eyes menaced more than steel.

"I think I could master you," Robert sneered, but he kept his place, watching her.

"Then you should kill me," Perpetua sighed. "And that might be best, for you have destroyed my beautiful dream."

She turned as she spoke, and, casting her weapon from her, to fall upon the soft grass, she ran into the wood. For a moment the King stood still, stupidly conscious of the humming of the bees, stupidly staring after the flying child. Then he stirred himself into pursuit, crying, "Stay, fool, stay!" but desisted instantly, for the girl was as fleet as a fawn, and could run surely where his feet would stumble. Already she was out of sight in the thick of the trees.

"Go, fool, go!" he shouted. "If you are crazy enough to repel greatness!" And flinging himself upon the fallen column, he buried his face in his hands to keep back the bitter tears.



V

LYCABETTA

Lying there in his wild rage, he babbled to himself.

"Am I mad? Shall I, Sicily, be defied by this cold Amazon? She shall burn as a witch for this; she shall burn! She has put some spell upon me, and she shall burn for my burning. I would not have her now, but she shall die in pain."

Drowned in his frenzy of thwarted passion and baffled anger, the King was unaware that a woman had entered the open space from the mountain-path, and was moving with light steps across the grasses towards the spot where he sat and ate his heart. The new-comer was beautiful with a beauty so different from that of the girl whose kingdom was the hill-top that few to whom the one seemed perfect would have found the other all-conquering fair. Tall and imperious as some evil empress of old Rome, her black hair bound with ivy leaves of gold, her fine body draped in strangely dyed silks—snake-colored, blue and green and golden-scaled—that shot a shimmering iridescence with every movement of the limbs, whose whiteness their transparency rather betrayed than veiled, she trod the earth with such an air as Balkis may have worn when she came a-visiting Solomon. The painters of the antique world would have welcomed in that voluptuous flesh, in the poppy of her mouth, in the midnight of those eyes that glowed with the fires of Thessalian incantations, their ideal for some image of the goddess of all-conquering desire. The Sophists of the antique world would have read her story charactered in every lithe line, in every appealing motion, and saluted in her the priestess of sheer appetite, for whom the gods were dead, indeed, yet living in their material form—Dionysus as wine, Aphrodite as the act of love, Apollo as the kindling sunlight.

As Balkis came to seek Solomon, so this woman came to the mountain-summit seeking a king. But she had thought to greet him coming out of the gray church, and it was with a start of surprise that she saw the glittering figure crouched in an attitude of woe upon the fallen column, and recognized in that image of abasement the Prince of Naples, the young lord of Sicily. Swiftly, but with the stately grace of those who of old time moved and allured in the streets of Rome when the feast of Flora was towards, she passed through the thick grasses to the column and the King. She knew it was he by his habit, by the familiar form, though she could not see his face, and she wondered why he sat there alone and with such show of grief. She was by his side without his hearing her, and it was not until she spoke that he knew of her presence.

"My lord!" she said, softly, in a voice as sweet as the voices of the women who sang the praises of the mystic Venus in the secret gardens of Cyrene.

Robert jerked his head from his hands, startled to find that he was no longer alone, but, when he saw who it was that had interrupted his meditations, wonder and joy contended in his countenance.

"Lycabetta!" he cried; "Lycabetta, by the gods! Why is the priestess of love on these summits?"

Lycabetta had dropped on her knees at his feet in Oriental abasement, but her face was raised to his and her eyes were lamps of passion.

"Sire," she sighed. "If I disturb your Majesty's quiet, sign and I will retire."

Robert, bending to her, caught her by the shoulders, and, lifting her to her feet, kissed her mouth.

"No, no!" he cried. "Stay, fair priestess of the ungovernable flesh. What brought you here?"

Lycabetta knitted her white fingers together beseechingly.

"Your Majesty is a most Christian king. Will you promise me your pardon if I confess to a pagan superstition?"

Robert kissed her again and laughed. Her trained senses knew the unreality of his kisses, of the words with which he answered her.

"Exquisite idol, I could pardon you much for the sake of your kisses. What bountiful wind has blown you to the height of this Sicilian hillock?"

Lycabetta answered him humbly, the false humility enhancing her exuberant beauty.

"When I and my women followed your Majesty from Naples—for what could such poor sunflowers as we are do without our sun?—I learned that on this hill there stood long ago a temple to Venus, very propitious to women of my kind, who came and prayed there. Your father suffered no daughters of delight to ply their trade in Syracuse, and so in gratitude for our happy restoration I came to kneel in the ancient, sacred dust. My litter bore me part of the way, till the path became too steep and I had even to climb like a peasant or abandon my purpose."

Robert smiled condescension.

"Dear goddess of exquisite desires, our piety has power to pardon your paganism. I am king over the pagan shrine as over the Christian altar. But, before I absolve you, I have a command to lay upon you." His smile became cruel as he spoke, for a scheme of revenge, exquisitely evil, possessed him.

"Your slave listens," Lycabetta said, lifting her hands to her jewelled forehead in sign of submission.

Robert flung his arm around her and drew her down beside him on the column.

"Lycabetta," he said. "If I know you well, you are a creature of little scruple, to whom what fools call virtue is a soundless word, and virginity but an unpierced pearl of price in the market." He paused for a moment, weighing his revenge, tasting it, finding it sweet to savor. "To-night I will deliver into your care a young girl, proud of her purity, strong in her simple innocence. It shall be your task to make her into a courtesan like yourself, shaming and staining the flower of her girlhood into a flaming rose of vice. You can do this?"

"It is an easy task, sire."

Robert shook his head, and the cruelty in his face deepened.

"You will not find it easy. I think she will resist you. I know she will resist you. Conquer her resistance by what means you please. I shall not question them." His voice broke into a scream of rage. "Break her spirit, degrade her body, slay her soul, and when she is as I would have her be, send me word that I may come and laugh at her."

Lycabetta watched him curiously.

"It shall be done, sire," she said, dispassionately.

"She is angel-fair. Fools would say she was angel-good—fools who believe in angels. She will plead with the speech of angels. You must be pitiless."

Lycabetta shrugged her shoulders. In her heart she wondered if the King were losing his wits.

"Were she my sister, sire, your whim should be my law. Trust me, I shall make her worthy of our ancient rites. But, sire, forgive me if I doubt this fierce resistance. We women are all alike in the end."

Robert turned away from her with a stifled groan.

"I thought so till this morning," he said, heavily.

Lycabetta guessed at the secret and pricked with a question.

"Surely this moon-flower never defied you, sire?"

Instantly the King turned on her, his fair face so hideous with fury that Lycabetta slipped from his side and cowered before him.

"Silence, jade!" he snarled, beastlike. "If you play with me, I will nail you naked to your own door for Syracusan clowns to mock at."

Lycabetta grovelled in the grass at his feet.

"Forgiveness, sire," she begged.

Robert shook his rage from him, for he needed the woman to play out the evil play.

"Go into the chapel," he ordered her, "and whisper to the captain of the guard that I need Hildebrand."

Pagan though the woman was, she respected the ruling faith and made bold to protest.

"Sire, if I disturb the ceremony—"

Robert rose and towered above her, disdainful in pride.

"I am the King. There is no church, no shrine, no ceremony where I am not. Go!"

Not daring to disobey, Lycabetta left him, and, mounting the steps of the chapel, opened the door cautiously and entered. Robert seated himself again with burning brain and heart. A little white, bell-like flower grew at his feet. He trampled it with his heel into the grass, crushing it shapeless.

"How I shall triumph over this Diana," he said, aloud, hugging his foul thought, "when every seaman can command her!"

Then he sat in silence, brooding over sins, till Lycabetta came out of the chapel and descended the steps, followed by Hildebrand, who came to Robert.

"You called me, sire?" he said.

Robert sprang to his feet and drew Hildebrand apart.

"Speed to the city," he whispered. "When it dusks, send my two Moorish slaves to Theron's hut. They must persuade or force the girl to go with them and bear her to the house of Lycabetta."

Hildebrand bowed.

"I obey, sire. Will you enter the chapel? They wait for you."

"They shall wait till the world's end, if I choose," Robert answered, sourly. "If I choose that they shall sit there till they die and rot, what is that to you?" He dropped moodily on the seat and sat staring fiercely at the empty air.

Hildebrand left him and joined Lycabetta.

"The King is peevish," he whispered to her, and Lycabetta whispered back to him:

"Some girl has crossed him. It is the first time he has known refusal, and it maddens him like mandrake."

Hildebrand looked thoughtful.

"She may prove court favorite yet, if his mood changes. Maybe we were wise to use her gently. Let me bring you to your litter."

She gave him her hand and the pair descended the mountain-path, leaving the King again alone.



VI

THE ARCHANGEL

Still the King sat on the column, the living sovereign throned on the relic of dead grandeur. He sat so motionless that the birds heeded him no more than if he had stiffened into stone, senseless as the block which supported him, monumental as the marble. His robes, his jewels, glowed and glittered in the light of the descending sun; but the birds in their wheelings heeded them no more than if they had been the adornments of the radiant image that once had reigned in that place. The bees boomed homeward, the shadows lengthened, all the sounds of evening began to voice along the aisles of the forest, but the King gave them no heed. From fierce thoughts of vengeance, from the ache of defied desires, his mind had dropped into the past as a swimmer might drop into the darkness of a cool pool. And as such a swimmer snared by treacherous weeds might in his struggles see all the facts and happenings of his past life flow before him, so to Robert's brain the flood of memory flowed unsummoned, or, rather, he seemed to sit, with a great painted book upon his knee, and turn at once unreluctant and indifferent the gold-and-purple pages of his past—his fretful, curious youth, his joyous flight over sea, his viceroyalty at Naples. And every page of the book was a tale of pleasure sated, fleshly greeds gratified, the pride of life, the lust of the eye. And every page was starred with the faces of fair women, who had welcomed, wooed, worshipped; they seemed to shift and flicker over the fancied pages like the vivid faces of dreams, the many forgotten, the few faintly remembered—dark Faustina, fair Messalinda, brown Yolande—whose score was yet to pay—Lycabetta, the miracle of ivory and ebony. So the faces thronged, thick-haunting, beseeching, teasing, pleading, and then suddenly they vanished; on a white, stainless page one face glowed into life, the face of a girl with clear, honest eyes, with adorable, maiden mouth, with wind-blown tresses as red as the most royal sunset—the face of the executioner's daughter, the face of a brave virgin, the face of Perpetua.

Robert wrenched himself from his lethargy with an impious oath, and glared about him. He laughed as he thought of his company, priests and courtiers, minions and soldiers, cooped up in the church, while he, their master, sat out there enjoying sunshine and shadow and telling the beads of his sweetest sins. A mad thought came into his mind—would it not be droll to girdle the church with soldiers sworn to slay whoever dared to issue from the church without the summons of the King, and so hold them there to hunger and thirst and belike die, so long as it pleased him so to hold them? As he hugged the fancy, chuckling over attendant thoughts, a little bell sounded, clear and sweet as the voice of a child, calling from the belfry of the church. It was vesper-time, and the servants of the church were fulfilling their service for the largest congregation their temple had known since its foundation. Robert frowned at the sound. How did the shavelings dare not to wait for his presence? He struck his hands angrily together. In the chime of the bell he seemed to hear the voice of Perpetua crying out against the words that had ruined the beautiful world. In the golden evening light he seemed to see the face of Perpetua gazing with scornful eyes upon her enemy. He closed his hands as if he were crushing her body and soul in his grasp.

"I did not think the woman lived who could so wound me," he cried, aloud. "If she fawned at my feet now, I would spurn her. To deny me—me, the greatest prince in the world! There is not another woman in the world who would say me nay."

From the little church came the swell of solemn music, mingled with clear, human voices, the voices of the holy ones within chanting the "Magnificat." The noble Roman words came flowing through the still air, grand and simple, to the ears of the King. But their grandeur, their simplicity, carried no calm to his writhing spirit.

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum: et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo."

Robert frowned as he listened. He remembered enough of his boyhood's Latin to interpret their message, and he muttered it sourly to himself in the vulgar tongue of Sicily.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

The reverential words chafed his disordered temper. He wove their fine gold into the dark web of his tempestuous passions. "Why do these monks plague me with their croakings?" he cried. "I need no help from Heaven to strengthen me against this buffet."

Renewed rage at his denial set him devising new pangs for her who had denied him, heedless of the chanting from the church; but soon again he found himself listening, as if against his will, to the sonorous words.

"Fecit potentiam in brachio suo: dispersit superbos mente cordis sui."

"What are the fools crooning?" cried the exasperated King. "He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts."

The words, as he rendered them, rang in his ears like a warning. He hardened his heart, but he listened still, for the next sentence seemed to lapse with deeper solemnity through the golden air.

"Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles."

Robert echoed the words in a scream of insane fury.

"He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree."

In the quiet of the evening his voice sounded strange to him, horridly shouting; he shook his clinched fists at the church as he raved.

"These fools shall bray no more folly. Who shall uplift or cast down here save I? Is there any other God save I in Sicily?"

To him, in his heat, it seemed as if the church, through the voices of her ministrants, was seeking to come between him and his purpose, to save Perpetua from his hate. Though the voices had ceased, the august menace echoed in his brain, and he raved again.

"Shall I, who am the glory of the world, the very flower of knighthood, believe that any power beyond those skies can cast me from my seat or save this woman from my will?"

Even as he spoke the golden sunlight withered around him; the blackness of darkness seemed to muffle all the earth; only a pale light like the light of earliest dawn illuminated the gray walls of the church and gleamed with strange effulgence upon the armored image of the archangel. The King, rigid with terror, beheld the image of the archangel move slowly into life. It lifted the drawn sword on which its hands had rested and pointed the weapon at the crouching King. Slowly the radiant figure seemed to leave its niche; stately it descended the rough-hewn steps. Then it paused. The church now was swallowed up in the enveloping darkness. Only the figure of the archangel was visible in that agony of blackness, bright as burnished silver, bright as moonlight. Its right arm extended its sword towards the crouching King, and the blade glowed like a blade of white fire. Like a flash of lightning it seemed to leap to Robert's breast and sear his heart; he would have screamed with the pain, but his voice seemed dead within him, and all around him thunder rolled, horrible as the noise of a dispersing world.

The awful tumult was followed by a yet more awful silence. Robert, unable to move, unable to speak, feeling as if he were the last living thing on an obliterated earth, unable to do aught save stare in terror at that shining, celestial shape, now saw the beautiful lips part, now heard a voice address him; and the sound of that voice was clear like light, and loud as all the winds of all the world—a terrible, beautiful voice, the trumpet of doom.

"Robert of Sicily!"

The great voice called him by his name, and the King in his abasement thrust out his hands appealingly.

"Heaven has been patient with your pride. But now the cup of your offence is overfull, your silver has become dross, and Heaven is weary of you. You shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth and as a garden that hath no water. I will set you up as a gazing-stock, and it shall come to pass that all they that look upon you shall loathe you. Base of soul, be base of body. God will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible."

As the great words died into silence, Robert's body was wrung with pangs. His spirit seemed to struggle in its earthly house, his flesh to divide and dissolve in anguish. Horrid tremors tore him; rigor of cold clawed at his heart, yet fever seemed to flush every channel of his body; his senses reeled as if to dissolution. Again the lightning flamed from the sword of the archangel; again the sullen thunder rumbled through the vaulted darkness. Robert staggered to his feet with an inarticulate cry as the archangel vanished from his view. All was unutterable night, and then in a moment the veil of darkness dissipated; again the mountain summit was flooded with golden air; again the kindly sunlight reigned over earth and sea; again the birds called joyously through the trees, and belated bees forsook the flowers; again Robert, dizzy and dismayed, sat on the fallen column and stared at the gray church.

But not Robert the King, the young, the comely, the radiantly clad. His fair features had withered to the foul features of the fool Diogenes; his body had warped to the crooks and hunches of the fool's body; his raiment had faded from its regal pomp to the stained livery of the mountebank. But it was with no knowledge of his metamorphosis that the changed man stared at the church and shuddered in the warm air.

"What a horrible dream!" he muttered to himself, drawing his hand across his damp forehead. "I must have dozed in the warm air; yet I did not think I slept. The storm seemed so real, and the spirit with the flaming sword—"

At the thought of the spirit he scrambled to his feet and limped across the grass to the church. The bronze image of the archangel stood in its niche, its hands resting as of yore on the hilt of the great sword. Robert peered at it with eyes still dazzled, and he babbled to himself weakly.

"That image seemed to quicken, but now it is no more than motionless bronze. I slept; I dreamed, and the lying vision has shaken me. I am wet with sweat and my knees tremble. I will go into the chapel and pray."

He moved a little farther to ascend the steps, conscious of an unfamiliar heaviness, unconscious of transformation. But as he made to set his foot upon the lowest of the steps leading to the church, its doors were thrown wide open, and to Robert's astonishment the congregation began to issue forth, headed by the archbishop of Syracuse, and ranged themselves in a double rank on the semicircle of the steps as if forming a lane for one who was yet to come.

For a moment, in his rage, speech seemed denied to Robert as he glared at the many-colored crowd before him—the fair ladies of honor, butterfly bright; the slim, Italianate youths, fantastically foppish; the smooth, eager priesthood; the soldiers weary of ceremonial but indifferent to fatigue; the sturdy bulk, blue eyes, and yellow hair of the Northern Guards. They paid no heed to Robert, standing there below them; their glances were all for the open portal of the church and its depths beyond of cool twilight.

Rage overcame amazement and gave Robert back his speech.

"How is this, my lord archbishop?" he cried out in a great voice—"I bade you wait within the church till I came."

The archbishop, hearing this sudden appeal to him, turned for a moment his wrinkled, astute face in the direction of the speaker, and, following his example for the moment, all the others turned their indifferent eyes upon Robert. Some of the pretty she-things whispered and tittered. The archbishop spoke in a voice of gentle petulance.

"Peace, fool!" he said, and waved his jewelled hand in gentle reproof of importunacy. If the jewelled hand had struck Robert brutally in the face it could not more have staggered him. All the air seemed to glow red around him; his reason surrendered itself to fury at this unmeaning, indecent affront.

"Are you mad, priest?" he gasped, pointing a hand that trembled with passion at the prelate, who had turned away from him and was again gazing reverentially into the church. The women now were laughing outright, but most of the men had only frowns for the unseemly license of a court buffoon. Sigurd Blue Wolf, the captain of the Varangians, moved leisurely down a step.

"Stand aside, fellow!" he said, placidly, in his large voice of Northern command. He had some pity in his heart for the misshapen thing.

"Where did the buffoon spring from?" Faustina whispered behind her fan to Messalinda.

Robert had no eyes for the laughing, frowning faces; no ears for the bidding of Sigurd. He mouthed at the archbishop, foam on his lips and blood in his eyes.

"You shall hang for this were you ten times archbishop!" he cried. He could not understand the madness, the audacity of his people; his anger could not pause in its gallop to make coherent question, to frame coherent answer. A slim, courtier creature, a thing of jewels and feathers, perched on the lowest tier of the steps, admonished him with a shake of scented fingers. Through his frenzy Robert remembered that only last night he made this same courtier serve him as a foot-stool.

"Do you dare to speak thus to your King?" he gasped, tearing at the breast of his jerkin in a new-felt difficulty of breathing, a new-felt longing for air.

Messalinda turned to those about her as one who held the key to the riddle.

"This is how he played the King yesterday," she said, "and earned the King's displeasure."

The others nodded. They knew Diogenes' pertinacity with a joke. Yolande gave voice to the general feeling:

"It is ever the worst of these mountebanks, that they will harp on a dull jest."

The archbishop, irritated at the continuance of the talking and brawling, averted his eyes a moment from the interior of the church, and turned them again upon Robert, who stood as if rooted to his place, the image of a fighting beast at bay.

"You presume too much upon our patience," he said, sharply. "You will vex the King again." As he spoke he glanced in the direction of Sigurd Blue Wolf, a significant glance, suggesting that it was time these interruptions should be ended. Sigurd moved leisurely a little nearer to Robert, who did not heed him, heeding only the archbishop. Through his bewildered mind bewildering thoughts were flitting. What was the meaning of this strange jest at his expense? Could the archbishop believe that he would ever pardon so preposterous an enormity? Yet now a kind of fear crept in upon his rage, as he heard the priest use the name of the King.

"I am the King," he asserted, hotly. "What ribaldry is this? I am the King!"

A chorus of derisive laughter came from his spectators, amused at the insistence of the fool. After all, if Diogenes chose to jeopardize his head, what was it to them? Robert glared at all those familiar faces that dared to regard him so familiarly. Every contemptuous glance of their eyes, every mocking note of their voices were so many arrows, stinging his tortured mind beyond endurance. Was this some sick dream from which a mighty effort of will should set him free?

"This is dangerous sport, to tease the lion!" he yelled. "Now, by my royal word—"

He made a stride forward as if to advance upon his tormentors. Sigurd Blue Wolf advanced, caught him by the arm and whispered to him, not unkindly:

"His Majesty is at his prayers within. You were wise to slip away ere he comes out, for the sight of you may anger him. Quick, fool, into the wood."

Robert tried in vain to shake off his mighty grasp. He beat ineffectually at the Northman's breast as he might have beaten at a gate of brass.

"Insolent fool!" he screamed. "How can the King be within when I stand here? I am the King!"

But even as he spoke he stiffened as a man suddenly struck with catalepsy. For again all eyes were turned away from him to the doorway of the church, and there, framed in that doorway, Robert's haggard eyes saw his own image, his royal likeness, his very self. So had he seen himself that morning in his Venetian mirror—the familiar smooth face and waved hair, the familiar carriage, the chosen robes and gold and jewels. All present, save only Robert, saluted Robert's double reverentially, Sigurd released his grasp of Robert's arm, and then on Robert's stricken ears came the sound of his own voice from the threshold of the church.

"Who says he is the King?" his own voice asked. The archbishop turned to him who spoke and answered, "Sire, your fool in a most unseemly humor plagues us."

Into Robert's distraught brain there leaped some wild idea of conspiracy, of intrigue to supplant him by the means of some pretender fashioned like himself.

"Who is this impostor?" he cried, and, turning to Sigurd, he commanded, "Seize him, soldiers!"

Sigurd answered with a blow like the butt of a ram.

"Silence, dog!" he shouted, now out of all patience. Robert reeled under an insult bitterer than the blow, and insanity overswept his senses.

"Traitors! villains!" he cried, and clapped his hand to his girdle, where his sword-hilt should have been. But no sword-hilt answered to his eager fingers. Mad, confused thoughts of treachery mastered him. "Where is my sword?" he cried. "Who has disarmed me while I slept?" A wild sense of defied kingship flooded his spirit. "With my naked hands I will overthrow this treason."

Blindly, idly, he flung himself forward, meaning to scale the steps and grapple with his parallel, but in a moment the strong arms of Sigurd held him in the grip of a bear. Then he who stood at the summit of the steps, and wore the likeness of the lord of Sicily, lifted his hand and spoke, and his voice was as the voice of King Robert in the ears of all men there save only one, save only Robert the King, struggling in the grip of Sigurd Blue Wolf, and to him, through the cruel echo of his own speech there seemed to ring some note of tones heard in a dream, a dream of a bronze image that quickened and spoke words of doom.

"Do him no hurt," said the kingly presence, gently. "He is mad, and madness needs compassion. Let him be in peace, and those of you who are pitiful may well pray for him. Let us go hence, friends."

"You hear what the King says," Sigurd growled in Robert's ear. "To your knees, fool!" Robert struggled helplessly to release himself, crying, "I am the King!" whereat Sigurd, dropping his strong hands on his captive's shoulders and repeating, angrily, "To your knees, fool!" forced him ignominiously to the ground, first tottering on his knees and then collapsing in a huddle on the ground.

The kingly presence on the steps surveyed the grovelling, abject thing in the fool's livery with an implacable smile.

"Remember," he said, softly, and the word beat upon Robert's brain like the blow of a hammer. Then he came slowly down the steps through the lane of adoring faces. As he came to the last, Sigurd, as if fearing some further attempt on the part of the fool, set his heavy foot on Robert's back where he sprawled, and pinned him to the ground. But Robert made no struggle. Unchallenged, his presentment passed to the edge of the mountain-path, and, descending, disappeared, followed by whispering courtiers, full of the King's mercy to a brawling fool. Sigurd lifted his foot from the fallen man and headed his Varangians. Ladies and youths, priests and soldiers, all in their turn and order descended the slope of the hill, and Syracuse swallowed them up in time.

But the man in the fool's motley lay on his face on the grass and made no sign of life.



VII

DISCROWNED, DISHONORED

The red shield of the sun had slipped into the sea, the warm twilight had glided into warm night, and the yellow circle of the perfect moon glowed in a sea-blue sky. To your Sicilian the moon is ever a marvel, a mystical influence, now generous, now maleficent, always portentous. One salutes in her the spirit of Diana; another sees on that yellow disk only the awful face of Cain; to yet a third the moon is nothing more nor less than a baker's daughter; while a fourth will swear that she is the sister of the sun, who loved her brother too well and is condemned, in punishment for her sin, to drift forever in solitude through the skies. But whatever the moon meant to each, all paid the moon homage. Lovers in Syracuse, wandering in grove or garden, looked up at it, thinking sweet thoughts, uttering sweet words, and then, looking into each other's eyes, forgot the world as their lips met. Poets in Syracuse, catching sight of the moon through their open casemates, abandoned lamp and parchment, and, propping their chins on their hands, stared at that enigmatic field of silver and believed themselves to be inspired. Philosophers in Syracuse, pacing quiet streets, smiled at the ancient of days and sighed over their flying shadows, symbolical of much. Needy folk, greedy folk, showed pieces of silver to it, singing:

"O Holy Moon, I beg a boon: Keep me healthy, Make me wealthy Very soon."

Children not yet abed played quaint blindfold games in which they made the moon their playmate, shrilling the distich:

"Tell us, Mistress Moon, who ask it, What you carry in your basket."

Fishermen in Syracuse, hanging out their little lanterns at the prows of their boats, compared on the dancing waters the lustre of the moonlight with the reflection of their little wicks, and were proud of the power of their fish-oil. Dogs in Syracuse bayed.

In the hills above Syracuse all was silent. The moonlight, flooding slope and valley, wood and ruin and church, shone on the figure of a man in motley lying motionless upon the grass. It shone, too, on the sad face of a girl wandering, wandering through the pine woods. The moonlight shone caressingly upon her crown of flame-colored hair, upon his deep, tearless eyes.

Since she had fled from the false hunter into the thickets of the wood Perpetua had wandered hither and thither in its familiar deeps, drinking the cup of pain. In one short day she had learned from foul face and from fair face such knowledge of the evil of the world as tortured her brave heart. Nothing could stagger her belief in goodness as the law of life, but she had not dreamed until this day of the strength of its enemies. The bright of face, made in the mould of beauty, stamped with the seal of grace, these could be traitors to God, slayers of peace.

Torn by such thoughts, she drifted almost unconsciously, fighting with her sorrow, to all the dear places of her daily visits—the companionable tree, the well-spring of cool waters, the bowl-shaped hollow in which she loved to lie and see nothing but the sky, the little shrine in the clearing where a path ran through the wood—to each of these spots she went in turn as one who makes a pilgrimage. All were the same in the sweet moonlight as they had been that morning in the light of the sweet sun. How green the world had seemed that morning!—and now it had grown gray and the birds sang nothing but dirges. But the girl was too strong to let her young sadness master her. Stoutly she told herself she was a fool to think that the world was changed because of a maid's sorrow; bravely she bade herself bear her cross. To-morrow, perhaps, she would tell her father, and they would climb higher on the hills, hide deeper in the woods—fly somewhere from the envy of the evil King. To-night she might not sleep, but at least she would not weep.

Perpetua made her way homeward through the wood. As she passed into the open space where the ancient fane had risen, she saw in the bright moonlight the figure of a man extended at full length on the grass. A sudden fear for her father leaped into her mind—could he have fallen there? She ran swiftly forward, but as she neared the prostrate figure her fears fled, for she recognized by his garments the withered fool of the morning. He seemed to be moaning like a beast in pain, and her distaste of him could make no head against her pity. She knew, too, being Sicilian, how dangerous it was to lie in the moonlight—to do so was to court madness. She bent down beside him and touched him very softly on the shoulder. "What is the matter with you?" she asked.

She had moved so lightly over the thick grasses—he was steeped so heavily in his stupor—that he did not know of her approach until she spoke. Then Robert raised his heavy, weary head and stared at her, dazed, while she looked sadly at the twisted visage of the fool. Then consciousness came back to Robert, and he knew Perpetua, and his heart rejoiced within him.

"You! you!" he cried, hopefully. "Do you not know me?"

Perpetua looked pitifully at the ill-favored face. Who that had once seen it could fail to remember it, she thought; so she answered, gently,

"Indeed I do."

Robert rose stiffly to his feet and held out his hands to her eagerly. In the moonlight his face seemed to her more hideous than even she had thought it in the morning, and she drew away from him involuntarily, but he paid no heed to this, thinking only of her words.

"Ah, Heaven be praised!" he sighed. "You know I am the King."

Instantly Perpetua remembered the fool's tale of the morning—how he had played at being the King and was menaced with death for his mimicry. She felt sure that the moon had overthrown his weak wits, and that he had now come to believe, in his madness, that he was, indeed, the King. But Robert plied her eagerly.

"You remember," he insisted, "a while ago, in the sunlight, how I told you who I was? I am the King."

He drew himself up proudly, and his air of dignity contrasted so grimly with his wry figure that Perpetua, who had found no tears for her own grief, was ready to weep for him. So she answered him according to his folly, hoping to soothe him.

"Yes, yes, I remember," she murmured, touched to the heart by the trouble in his wild eyes. "But you seem sick and faint. Shall I bring you some water?"

She made as if to leave him, to seek for water, but he stayed her with a gesture, speaking rapidly, in a low voice that seemed charged with fear.

"There is a strange conspiracy against me"—he paused, as if trying to command his fevered thoughts, and pressed his hands to his forehead—"or else I have been dreaming a strange dream." He looked around him drearily, and then again fixed his questioning gaze upon her. "But you—you know me?"

"Yes, yes, I know you," Perpetua answered him, gently; but to herself she said, "Poor soul! poor soul!" and she wondered what she could do to help the afflicted thing. If her father had returned he would know what to do—or one of the holy brothers of the Church. Even while she reflected two forms rose against the sky, coming from the pathway, giant figures with skins like burnished copper, clad with a barbaric splendor, with pelts of leopards over their shoulders, and having great rings of gold upon their arms and in their ears.

"This is the place," said one; and, "Knock at the door," ordered the other. Perpetua stepped out of the shadow of the trees towards them. Robert, following her action with his eyes, saw the men and knew them, amazed, for his Moorish slaves Zal and Rustum. He asked himself why they were there, and could not answer the question; yet some memory seemed to be trying to assert itself in his troubled brain, and he watched what followed vaguely as one shackled by sleep.

"What do you seek?" Perpetua asked of the new-comers.

The one who had spoken last questioned her.

"Are you the daughter of Theron the executioner?"

"I am she," Perpetua answered.

The other black giant spoke.

"You must come with us. Your father has sent for you. He lies sick at Syracuse."

Perpetua gave a great cry.

"My father sick! I will go with you at once."

The sound of her cry seemed to rend the veil of forgetfulness that hung about the brain of Robert. He knew now why these men had come, sent by Hildebrand in obedience to his King's command. For the first time in his foolish life Robert felt his heart throb with pity, his spirit rise in arms against injustice. The girl who had disdained him in his pride had been kind to him in his misery; she should suffer no wrong from him. He limped into the open space and waved the Saracens aside with a gesture of command, while he called to Perpetua:

"No, no; do not go with them. It is a trick, a lie." Advancing fiercely upon the slaves, who stared at the sudden appearance of the discredited jester, he cried out: "I have changed my mind. Begone!" Then, reading only derision and denial on their countenances, he raged at them.

"Do you not know me, fellows? I am the King!"

The black slaves grinned evilly. One of them turned to Perpetua, who, in her eagerness to join her father, listened with impatience to the grotesque assertions of the fool.

"Come, maiden, come," he said. "There is no time to lose." Then as Robert interposed himself between the girl and the slave, the slave roared at him, "Out of the way, fool!"

Robert felt his members tremble at the ferocity of the monster who was wont to kiss his hand, but he stood his ground.

"She shall not go," he said.

"I say she shall," the black answered, and with his huge hand he dealt Robert a blow that beat him brutally to the earth. Perpetua sprang forward to prevent further cruelty, but the slave paid no further heed to the prostrate man. Catching Perpetua by the hands, they hurried her at full speed down the mountain-path to the place where a litter was waiting.

Robert lay alone on the summit of the hill, dizzy with pain and rage, beating the earth with his clinched fists and moaning to himself: "I am the King! I am the King! I am the King!"



VIII

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN

A little way from the city Lycabetta had found, dedicated to our Lady of Delights, a fitting shelter for herself and for her attendant nymphs. This was the palace of a dead and heirless duke, somewhile abandoned and now renewed with life and color by the gold of the Neapolitan. It stood apart in spacious gardens that were girdled so thickly with groves of cypresses that none save the initiated could dream of the wonders masked by the melancholy trees. But those initiated knew well that behind the solemn barrier there smiled a kind of earthly paradise—pleasances where even the flowerful soil of Sicily seemed extravagantly prolific of color, extravagantly prodigal of odors; thickets wherein the great god Pan might have delighted to lurk; fair colonnades thick-carpeted with the petals of roses and framed to greet all cool, benevolent breezes; temples to exquisite divinities; fountains lapsing, murmurous as the laughter of youth, into great basins whose smooth waters welcomed smooth bodies; grottoes deep and mysterious, affording shelter in the fiercest heats. To these enchanted privacies the young and rich who had followed Robert from Naples and had welcomed his coming to Sicily made pilgrimage, and day and night pleasure held there her pagan court as if the wild cry had never been heard by Thamus, the pilot, calling from the islands of Paxae and heralding the coming of the white Christ.

On this night the House of Pleasure was unusually quiet. Those who guarded the golden gates denied admission to all who could not conjure with the King's name, and Lycabetta was alone with her favorite women, fair, Greek-faced girls with fair, Greek names—Glycerium, Hypsipyle, Euphrosyne, Lysidice. The room that shrined her beauty was a marvellous medley of the styles of many architectures, of the arts of many lands, as if the streams of wealth and splendor flowing from all the sources of the world had carried thither its rarest treasures. Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the genius of the Saracen, and the vigor of the Norman had shared in the decoration of those walls, gorgeous with gold and color, hung with sumptuous tapestries woven with alluring figures from the legends of love. The floor, inlaid with iridescent tiles that Persian hands had painted, was strewn with costly stuffs and furs. Before a life-size statue in bronze of Venus, a copy of that Venus Callipyge given by Heliogabalus to Syracuse, a fire of shifting, many-tinted flames burned on a metal tripod, whose stems represented the figures of beautiful, nude women. The air was heavily scented from the burning woods and spices in the brazier, sandal and cinnamon and cassia. Hanging lamps, of strangely fantastic design, filled the wide room with delicate light.

Lycabetta, the triumphant jewel of all this gorgeous setting, reclined upon a golden couch that was made soft for her body with rare furs, and bright—to enhance her whiteness—with brilliant silks. Clad in thin, transparent webs, whose shifting shimmer recalled, whenever she stirred her limbs, the glitter of the serpent, Lycabetta lay with a look of weariness on her face, while Hypsipyle fanned her softly with a huge feather fan of black and white ostrich plumes. Glycerium, seated by the head of the couch, was busy in adorning her mistress's black hair with flowers. At her feet Euphrosyne nursed a kind of lute and sang the Venus song in a small, sweet voice:

"Venus whispered from her nest: 'White Adonis, bright Adonis! Love is better than the best, Heaven is hidden in my breast, Take delight and leave the rest, Blithe Adonis, lithe Adonis!'

"Venus stretched her arms and said: 'Shy Adonis, sly Adonis! Gather blooms and make a bed Of the scented petals shed By the roses, white and red, Brisk Adonis, frisk Adonis!'

"Venus murmured with a sigh: 'Dumb Adonis, numb Adonis! Fast the golden moments fly, Love and let the world go by, Be a god before you die, Child Adonis, wild Adonis!'"

Lycabetta yawned and lifted up her hand. Euphrosyne ceased in her singing.

"There, you have sung enough," Lycabetta said. "I am neither more sleepy nor more wakeful than I was, and your music wearies me. Have many knocked at our doors to-night?"

She looked at the girl Glycerium as she spoke, and Glycerium answered her.

"The young Duke Ferdinand of Etruria."

Lycabetta gave a little laugh of disdain.

"A handsome fool with a foolish hand. How did he carry himself when you put him by?"

"He was bright with wine," Glycerium answered. "He swore a Greek oath or two, but he left you this pearl."

Glycerium handed a great, round pearl to Lycabetta, who took it from her with indifference, weighing it lightly in the hollow of her hand.

"It is rare and fair," she commented, "but I will not wear it. There is no jewel in the world that is worth what it hides of my whiteness. Who else?"

Glycerium thought for a moment before she answered,

"Messer Gian Sanminiato."

Lycabetta sneered at the name.

"The court poet who would pay for favors with phrases and runs aside to rhyme a sonnet every time he wins the kiss of a lip. What did he say?"

"He seemed very downcast, and he sighed like a dromedary," Glycerium answered. "He charged me to deliver this ode to your loveliness."

She handed a scroll of parchment to Lycabetta, who took it and opened it contemptuously.

"Oh, ancient gods!" she sighed. "Let me see it. Yes, indeed; I am Venus and the Graces Three and the Muses Nine—all which I knew before ever he fumbled for rhymes; and he loves me as Ixion loved the Queen of Heaven. Well, he had better find a cloud of consolation to-night. Who else?"

"Casimir, the rich Muscovy merchant," Glycerium replied.

Lycabetta gave a shrug.

"He rains gold like Jove, but he smells of civet."

Glycerium ventured a protest.

"His money smells sweet enough," she said. "He flung me this purse on account."

Lycabetta took no notice of the gold.

"Is that all?" she asked.

Glycerium responded, with a slight air of constraint, "Sigurd Olafson, the young Varangian captain."

Lycabetta lifted herself on one elbow with a look of interest.

"I would have welcomed him, for he can hug like a bear and his blue eyes are as bright as the northern star. I could hate the King for swearing he would come to-night and so forcing me to keep my door shut. Did he leave me anything?"

"Nothing," Glycerium admitted; "but he lifted me, there in the moonlit street, to the level of his lips and kissed me."

Lycabetta leaned forward and gave Glycerium a playful box on the ear.

"You little thief," she cried, "to steal the best gift of the bunch. If I thought he cared for you, child, I would make you very unkissable. Oh, I wish the King would come!"

Glycerium gave a sigh of admiration.

"He is better than the best of them," she asserted.

Lycabetta nodded her head.

"He is the all-conquering lover, for he never yields an inch of his heart. If a goddess condescended from Olympus, he would woo her with hot blood and cold brain. His eyes are torches of desire, but there never is a tender light in them. If a woman died in his arms, he would leave her without a sigh. And yet he can speak the speech of love more eloquently than an angel. You will laugh when I tell you that I would give much to believe that he loved me."

"He is the King," Glycerium said, simply.

"If he were a shepherd on a hill-side, I should think the same thoughts. But he is alike with all women. I do not believe the woman is born of woman who could make gentle his cruelty. He is as pitiless as the plague, that never spares the fairest."

Glycerium shivered.

"Do not speak of the plague, dear lady. They say some have died of it in Syracuse."

"Or call it by some pretty name to placate it," Euphrosyne suggested. "Say that the blessing is abroad."

Glycerium shivered again.

"Oh, how I wish we had never left Naples!"

Lycabetta's face had grown pale and she gasped her words.

"Gods, how I fear it! But it will not creep in here. We stand high from the city. Our garden is wardered with medicinal herbs, and these odors and essences defend us. So we need not fear it. And yet, gods, how I fear it!"

Even as she spoke and shuddered the hangings of the portal parted, and one of her women entered and saluted reverentially. Lycabetta turned a little on the couch to look at her.

"What is it, Lysidice?" she asked.

"Zal and Rustum, the King's Moors, wait without," Lysidice answered. "They come with a charge from the King."

"What charge?" Lycabetta asked, attracted by any interruption in the monotony of her night.

"They say they have a woman with them," Lysidice answered.

Lycabetta struck herself upon the forehead with her open palm.

"A woman!" she cried, joyously. "Why, I had forgotten. Now I shall have sport in my loneliness. This is the girl who is to be my plaything. Admit them and tell them to leave the girl here alone. But bid them wait within call. I may have need of them. Fly away, love-birds."

Lysidice went out as she had come, to bear Lycabetta's bidding to the Moorish slaves. The others, fluttering like frightened doves before Lycabetta's dismissal, disappeared into the farther apartments of the palace. Lycabetta rose alertly, and, mounting the steps that rose behind the altar leading to another room, concealed herself behind the dividing curtains. In a few moments Zal and Rustum came in bearing between them a gilded litter curtained with crimson silk. Setting this upon the ground, they drew the curtains and bade Perpetua come forth. As Perpetua emerged from the litter the brightness of the light after her long journey through the night dazzled her, and for a moment she put her hands to her eyes to shield them from the unexpected light. In that moment Zal and Rustum had lifted up the litter and disappeared through the hangings.

When Perpetua removed her hands she found herself alone in the most wonderful room she had ever seen or dreamed of. She looked with astonishment at the gorgeous stuffs and furs, the gold and color, the glow of fire and gleam of jewels; she breathed in amazement the subtly perfumed air which seemed at first to make her feel giddy, her who could stand upon the brink of the grimmest precipice in Sicily and look down untroubled to its distant floor. Her senses were confused by the lights, the odors, by the long, strange journey through the night, closely mewed in a litter borne by black giants, who offered her no harm but answered her no word. Anxiety for her father had denied anxiety for herself and still denied her.

"What is this place?" she cried aloud to emptiness. "Is there no one here?"

Instantly the curtains in front of her divided, revealing Lycabetta in the pride of her whiteness, almost unclothed in her transparent drapery.

"I am here," she said, and, descending, advanced a little way towards the girl.

Perpetua stared at the woman who had come upon her so noiselessly, her white body shining through her thin, glittering robes.

"Where is my father?" she asked.

Lycabetta laughed a little, cruel laugh.

"This is a strange place to come and cry for a father," she answered, reading with amusement the wonder in the girl's eyes.

Perpetua caught her breath in sudden suspicion.

"Is not my father here?" she said. "They told me he was sick and had called for me."

Lycabetta shrugged her beautiful shoulders and her gleaming raiment rippled in little waves of changing color.

"Sick or well, living or dead, you will find no father here, nor mother neither; but I will be your sister, if you please, sweet simplicity."

She smiled alluringly.

Perpetua looked at her with brave, quiet eyes of dislike.

"Who are you?" she asked, holding her senses well together in the presence of unsuspected danger.

Lycabetta answered her, languidly amused.

"I am everything and nothing. There are poets who rhyme me the Rose of the World. There are priests who name me the Strange Woman. I am Lycabetta."

"Lycabetta!" Perpetua repeated the name almost unconsciously, and Lycabetta saw that it had no meaning to her ears.

"Has no love-wind ever blown my name to your sky-nest?" she asked. "Has your royal lover never named my name? For I, too, am one of the King's darlings."

Perpetua started at the mention of the King's name, and looked around again at the gorgeous cage.

"The King! the King! Is this the King's house?" she asked, with wider eyes and clinched fingers.

Lycabetta made her a mocking reverence.

"Every house in Sicily is the King's house, and my poor roof is as loyal as the best. This is my house and yours, for now you dwell in it at the King's pleasure."

"Then I will leave it at my own pleasure, instantly." She knew that she was snared, but she showed no sign of fear.

Lycabetta shook her head and smiled evilly.

"I think you will stay. Every door is guarded, every bolt driven home. My frightened bird, you cannot escape from this cage."

She knew that the girl was at her mercy and began to find stealthy delight in the thought. Perpetua faced her boldly, holding her head high. Pagan and Christian faced each other with bright eyes.

"I do not fear you," Perpetua said, calmly. "You dare not hold me here against my will. The King himself has no power over a free woman. If you restrain me, I will call for help, and every honest hand in Syracuse will be raised to set me free."

Lycabetta laughed again, and her laughter seemed to run over her in waves of colored fire as her thin garments trembled on her body.

"My gardens are deep and dim and quiet. No sound from here would reach the world outside. No, not the death-cry nor the shriek of tortured flesh."

Perpetua gazed at her as she might at some spirit of evil released at midnight to wreak its will upon the sinful. There was a great horror in her heart, but there was a great courage in her voice.

"Whoever you are, you cannot frighten me; you dare not keep me here."

Lycabetta thrust her head a little forward, like a snake about to strike.

"You silly wood savage, you will be very tame presently," she promised, in a low, hard voice.

"In the name of God I defy you, and I go," Perpetua said, and turned to go out by the entrance through which she came.

"In the name of the devil you stay where you are," Lycabetta cried, and clapped her hands.

Instantly the hangings that concealed the entrance parted, and the black giants entered and stood silently awaiting Lycabetta's orders.

Perpetua moved to them with a gesture of authority.

"Let me pass," she commanded.

The Moors stood motionless. Lycabetta called to her captive:

"Those slaves are as strong and merciless as wild beasts. Whatever I told them to do to you, they would do to you."

Perpetua moved back towards Lycabetta. Lycabetta gave a sign and the blacks disappeared behind the curtains.

Perpetua advanced to Lycabetta and looked her squarely in the face.

"Why have I been brought here?" she demanded, sternly, though despair was tugging at her heartstrings.

Lycabetta leaned back upon her couch and looked at her prisoner curiously. The Neapolitan recognized that there was beauty of a kind given to the girl—in her hair, red as the reddest sunset, in her candid eyes, in the strong, supple body, overbrown from mountain light and mountain air for Lycabetta's fancy. This was a raw taste of the King's, she thought, contemptuously; the girl would only be passable in a while, in a long while. What kind of passion was it that a king could feel for a country wench, while her gardens were thronged with shapes of loveliness, while she, Lycabetta, still lived? The passions of the great are mad fancies, but surely this was the maddest fancy greatness ever entertained. So she mused while Perpetua watched her. She was stirred from her meditations when the girl repeated her question.

"Why have I been brought here?"

"You are too idle in the forest," Lycabetta answered, "and so you are sent here to be apprenticed to my trade."

Perpetua moved a little nearer to her, questioning her with eyes and speech.

"What is your trade?"

Lycabetta turned to the bronze image of Venus and held out her hands to it.

"The oldest in the world. We were busy before Babylon was built or Troy burned. We shall be busy till the world grows gray."

Perpetua repeated her question.

"Speak plainly. What is your trade?"

Lycabetta answered her frankly.

"The trade of love. We sell smiles and kisses and sweet hours, and men buy them gladly, even at the price of their souls."

"I know you now," Perpetua said, crossing herself. "Though I dwell with innocence upon the heights, I am not ignorant of the world's depths. I know you now, and God knows I pity you. Let me go."

Lycabetta shook her head.

"Why should you pity me? You should rather envy me. I am the joy of life. I grasp and clasp all pleasures, heedless of the passing hour. I make the most of our little summer, our fleeting sunlight. To drink, to love, to laugh is the swallow flight of my soul. You shall be as wise as I am and as happy."

"Have you no fear of God?" Perpetua asked, in sad curiosity. Brought face to face with sin, her soul felt its pity stronger than its horror.

Lycabetta laughed, and her laughter sounded to Perpetua like the music of birds in a magic wood.

"I fear nothing but old age. Chilling kisses, the death of desire, the sands that overwhelm the altar of youth, the dying lights and fading garlands of life's waning feast—these things I fear, but these things are not yet for you or for me, and when they come there is always the hemlock."

"You speak despair," Perpetua insisted, eager with the eagerness of untainted youth. "I answer with God's mercy that can cleanse and save you. You are the Strange Woman—but you are a woman, born of a woman, made to bear the burden of women. Woman to woman, let me go."

"I love you too well to lose you," Lycabetta retorted. "You dream too much. I shall take great joy in teaching you realities. You do not know the value of your violet freshness. You will make a sweet priestess of love."

Perpetua thrust out her hands as if to ward off her enemy, while she cried:

"You are the Strange Woman! Were you a devil, do you think you could ever make me like you?"

Lycabetta nodded ominously.

"I will conquer your mad maidenhood, I promise you, and when you sleep in silk and shine in splendor you will thank me devoutly. Already your cheek flushes gratitude."

The girl's cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were unchanged in defiance as she answered:

"Your words sting me like blows, and my face flames at them. But you are not so wise as you think, if you hope to tempt me or terrify me."

Lycabetta watched her, catlike.

"Torture may change your mind, as shame shall change your body."

Perpetua crossed herself again.

"Nothing that you can do to me will change my soul. That I will carry with me pure to heaven."

"You may long for death ere I have done with you," Lycabetta whispered, sourly. She would have said more, but her speech was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Lysidice through the curtained portal. Lycabetta questioned her, frowning.

"Why do you come here?"

Lysidice answered, hurriedly:

"There is one outside muffled like oblivion, whose command is to see you in the King's name."

Lycabetta gave a cry of joy.

"It is the King! Admit him. Wait!" She turned to Perpetua. "You shall have leisure, my woodfinch, to grow wise in. School yourself into submission ere I send for you again."

Perpetua folded her arms across her breast.

"I am as changeless as the sun," she said, proudly.

"The sun sets," Lycabetta sneered.

"Ay," Perpetua answered, "to rise again in heaven."

Chafing at the girl's obstinacy, Lycabetta clapped her hands and the black slaves entered.

"Take her away," she commanded, pointing to Perpetua.

Zal and Rustum seized Perpetua, who, knowing herself powerless, offered no vain resistance, and drew her through the curtained space behind the statue of Venus, and thence to a more distant room, in which they left her in darkness and alone.

The darkness was full of strange perfumes—full of strange sounds. To a child of the mountains, bred in the perfect mountain air, the heavy odors of the House of Pleasure were nauseating, almost insupportable. Below in the garden a woman's voice sang softly in Sicilian the song of the "Two-and-Twenty Subtle Caresses." Women listened to it and laughed, for the only sounds that floated up were the sounds of women's voices. Perpetua put her hands over her ears and shuddered. She had come to womanhood sanely, sweetly, innocent, not ignorant, and she knew that the world of the valley was not the world of the hill. But it hurt her to the heart that any world could make such use of women, and she knew the fate that was meant to wait for her in the hateful place. But she knew no fear, not even the fear of death. She prayed once and no more; she was not one to weary Heaven with vain repetition. Then she waited in patience for the moment when she should hear again the footsteps outside the fastened door.



IX

THE LILY OF SICILY

As soon as Perpetua was withdrawn, Lycabetta turned to Lysidice. "Entreat the King to enter," she commanded. To her surprise Lysidice made no move, but stood staring at Lycabetta with bright eyes of wonder.

"Why do you linger?" Lycabetta shrilled at her minion. The slight child answered, timidly:

"Daughter of the gods, I am amazed."

Lycabetta frowned.

"What amazes you?"

Lysidice crept nearer to her mistress and whispered, "Though he says he is the King, though he commands kingly, he is wrapped in his mantle so closely that I could not see his face."

Lycabetta laughed derisively.

"Is that all? What of that? When great folk come to these gardens they sometimes ape invisibility."

Lysidice ventured a little closer to Lycabetta. Her tale was not all told.

"Ay," she said; "but the night wind fluttered his cloak a little and I saw something of his habit. It was more like the livery of a fool than the apparel of a king."

Lycabetta's dark eyebrows lowered a little; her red lips tightened.

"Indeed! Does he send his fool for an ambassador after keeping me close through the long dark? Well, bring him in. We shall see."

Lysidice saluted and passed from her presence. Lycabetta seated herself on her couch thoughtfully. She was not in her gentlest temper, for she was vexed at her failure to snare Perpetua, and she was restless after denying her door to so many friends for a king who did not come, and now perhaps sent his fool on love-errands. The King was the King; there was no one like the King; but was there a woman in Syracuse like herself, or worth her favors? Mentally she reviewed her rivals with a crafty eye; the pretty court peahens, her own skilled minions, none could please the King so well. As for Perpetua, the King's hot love and hot hate for the mountain maid earned only her contempt. The girl might prove enticing by-and-by, to a green palate, when she was pliant, but now she was rough country fare.

Her reverie was interrupted by the return of Lysidice, followed by a man so muffled in a rough cloak that he was impossible to divine. It might hide a king; it might hide a beggar; it covered both. Whoever he was, the man stood still within a few feet of Lycabetta. His eyes were watching her over his lifted arm, which draped the cloak about his body, but some of the stuff was wound so cowllike about his head that she could discover nothing of his face. Lysidice lingered, curiosity conquering her duty to depart, and Lycabetta did not heed her; she heeded only the silent, motionless man.

"Well?" she interrogated, sharply, as the man made no sign. At her word he cast his wrapping from him, and Lycabetta beheld with some irritation the twisted form and writhen features of the fool Diogenes. Lysidice crept round to the other side of her mistress and whispered to her:

"It is the fool."

Robert moved a little nearer to Lycabetta, with strange fear and strange hope in his heart. Through all the horrors and denials of the night, through all his consciousness of a conspiracy he could neither fathom nor baffle, his distraught mind carried some memory of Perpetua, and that memory had steered him to the gate of Lycabetta's garden of delight. At those gates he found no obstacle; his word was taken without question; no unbridled hand sought to draw the mantle from his face; unchallenged, untroubled, he had made his way through the sweet-smelling lawns and arbors to Lycabetta's door. Perhaps she was not in the conspiracy; perhaps she was loyal. These thoughts were racing through his mind as he stood before her and cast the mantle from him; these thoughts forced him towards her, forced him, with lips parted eagerly, pitifully, like the lips of a thirst-goaded man, to speak.

"Do you know me?" he gasped, hoarsely, and his voice sounded strange and unfamiliar in his ears, like the voice of a lost spirit.

Lycabetta smiled a little as she stretched herself carelessly on the couch.

"Surely I know you," she answered, and at her words the warm blood seemed to well back into Robert's heart, and he lifted up his hands in a rapture.

"Heaven," he cried, "I thank you that all the world has not gone mad."

He mouthed the world's madness so bitterly that Lycabetta propped herself on an elbow and eyed him curiously. She disliked Diogenes less than the courtier-creatures did, for she had less chance to counter his scathing phrases, and, besides, he was near the King, and it is ever well to be friends with kings' neighbors.

"You seem angry," she said.

Robert answered her almost in a yell.

"Angry! The rage of hell raves in me. The night is full of voices, but I will not hear them. The night is thick with terrors, but I will not fear them."

He was pacing up and down the room now, striking his hands together, trampling upon the rich furs that strewed the floor, as if they were his enemies grovelling at his feet, so possessed with the hysterical passion that he seemed to have forgotten the women who watched him and wondered.

Lysidice whispered in a low voice to Lycabetta, "He has gone mad."

Lycabetta nodded, tacitly agreeing. If the fool were mad, as in very deed he seemed to be, she wished him well out of her borders. Madness was one of the ugly things of life for which she had no pity; madness was one of the dangerous things of life, and of all dangers she was greatly afraid. The fool carried a dagger at his girdle, and it were well to pacify him. She could send for the Moorish slaves to cast him forth, but if he were indeed sent by the King, any ill-treatment of his messenger might offend Robert, and the anger of offended Robert might take uglier shapes than the fool's dagger. So she watched the figure uneasily. Suddenly he stopped in his pacing and turned to her.

"There is the strangest treason abroad in Sicily," he cried. "My creatures defy me; my friends deny me. They have set a sham king on my seat; they bow to a crowned pretender; they shall die to-morrow."

Lysidice whispered again to Lycabetta, "He thinks he is the King."

Lycabetta nodded. She had heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King's manner and earned the King's anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King's rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up and down the room.

"Give me a sword!" he shouted. "Syracuse will stand by me. We will crush this treason bloodily. Give me a sword! give me a sword!"

In that palace of pleasure there were no weapons of death, yet Robert ranged the room wildly as if dreaming that some soldier's friend might lurk behind silken curtains. Lycabetta turned to her comrade and whispered to her behind her hand:

"The poor ape is moon-crazed—clean out of his wits. He mimicked the King yesterday, and now the trick grows on him."

The sound of her voice seemed to arrest Robert in his search for a sword, for he turned and eyed them suspiciously.

"Do not anger him," Lysidice entreated, catching in her fear at her mistress's hand. Robert moved towards the women, frowning.

"Why are you whispering?" he asked, savagely. Lysidice shivered, but Lycabetta was less fearful. Serene in her beauty, she was confident of her power to flatter the fool according to his folly, and she gave him a deep salutation, mockingly reverential.

"We did but admire the thunder of authority, the lightning of royalty," she said; and then, thinking she had done enough to placate his passion, she turned to whisper to Lysidice, "Let us tickle this fool like a cracked lute."

Instantly Robert's rage blazed higher. His bemused senses snuffed treason everywhere. What might these two light women be plotting.

"If you whisper again," he shrieked at them, "I will have you whipped; I will have you crucified. Are you stained with treason?"

There was that in his voice which startled Lycabetta from her indifference. Again she mimed servility.

"Have I offended your Majesty?" she sighed. "I pray your royal pardon. I was but planning with this minion here some way to freshen your spirits. See, I do you obeisance."

She served him a sweeping salutation, in which her lithe body seemed to swoon at his feet in complete surrender. Then, straightening, she swerved and called to her women:

"Girls, girls, girls—Glycerium, Euphrosyne, Hypsipyle—all of you come hither."

Obedient to her voice, the girls came trooping in, from garden and gallery, fluttering like doves, murmuring like doves. Lycabetta held up her hand and they halted, wonder in their lovely eyes to see the priestess of Venus giving audience to the loathly fool.

"Dainties," Lycabetta cried, "his Majesty honors us with his presence to-night."

And as she spoke she pointed with extended arm to the deformed, dishonored man. Glycerium alone voiced the surprise of her fellows.

"His Majesty!" she repeated.

Lycabetta swooped in among her women, laughing and whispering, catching now one and now another of her pretty minions by the hand, as if seeking to choose the fairest.

"He is crack-brained, and calls himself the King," she murmured. "Let him believe it for our sport." Then she called aloud, gulling the suspicious visitor, "Do homage to the King, damsels, and perhaps he may fling his favor to the one of you that dances the most alluringly."

Instantly the girls made a rush towards Robert, a wave of flowing hair, of laughing faces, of fluttering, transparent dresses, a wave that rippled close to him and then receded as the women swayed wantonly into postures of impudent supplication.

"Long live the King!" piped Glycerium; and "God save the King!" altered Euphrosyne; and the others, catching up the cries, repeated them, a babble of merry blessings, while Lycabetta crowned the clamor with the cry of, "Hail to the Lily of Sicily!"

Robert waved his hands angrily to banish the bright eyes, the bright voices, the bright bodies. They were supple and servile enough, but he did not need them then.

"Dismiss these women," he ordered. "I do not come for them."

Lycabetta thanked him with a deep salutation, dropping her body almost to the ground in mocking reverence.

"You came for me, sire?" she asserted. Robert shook his head and beckoned her, and she glided towards him, while her women huddled together at the back of the hall, quivering with mirth at the sport of fool-baiting.

"No, sweeting," Robert said, gravely. "No. We have shared rose-red hours; you are made very comely; but there is one here more beautiful than you—than all the world."

Even from the mouth of a derided fool it is never delightful for loveliness to be told that it is outshone. Lycabetta's lips tightened a little as she asked, "Which is she, sire?"

In her heart she promised herself that when the King did come she would use her interest to gain master fool the grace of a score of stripes. But Robert, not noticing an irritation which he would not have heeded if he had seen it, went on in his most royal manner:

"The mountain maid we flung to you. I have somewhat turned my thoughts. Bring her to me. I think I will make her Queen of Sicily when I have overthrown my enemies."

Lycabetta found it hard not to laugh in the fool's face for his antic assumption of the regal carriage, but her mind seemed instantly illuminated with knowledge. Now she understood the presence of the fool in her palace. This was Robert's ugliest revenge. He had sent this hideous thing to prey upon Perpetua, and Lycabetta applauded. What degradation more cruel could be found for stubborn purity.

"Do, sire," she cried, delightedly, clapping her hands. Robert turned away from her and walked moodily up and down the room, his vexed brain a chaos of conflicting purposes. Lycabetta moved towards her women and beckoned to Hypsipyle, who hastened to her side.

"A brave jest," she said. "The King, whom Heaven preserve for us, his lovers, has sent this grimacing fool here to plague and shame the girl whom his Majesty once was pleased to love and now is pleased to hate. It is a dear revenge and worthy of a great king. The deformed evil thing will make the girl as evil as himself ere he be done with her. Bid the others begone and bring the girl here."

Hypsipyle glanced at the twisted figure limping across the hall. "I would not like her lover," she sneered; then, hurrying to her companions, she and they vanished through the curtains. Lycabetta turned to Robert.

"Sire," she said, "I will send your Majesty his mountain maid." Robert stopped in his shambling walk and stared at her. A thousand wild thoughts were warring in his burning brain, and the interruption irked him.

"Very well," he muttered. "Leave me. I have much to think of—how to meet this treason."

Lycabetta saluted deeply and left the room to join her women in the cool colonnades of the garden. She was willing enough that the King should wreak his revenge upon the captive in whatever fashion best pleased him. It might have been amusing to tame the girl herself, but it would certainly have been troublesome; and it was less trouble to wander in the rose-strewn galleries among the painted pillars, entwined with Lysidice or Hypsipyle, whispering strange songs and feeding on strange thoughts. There was even no desire in Lycabetta's mind to witness unseen through silken curtains the wooing of fool and maid. If Perpetua was passable for a nymph, Diogenes was too ugly for a satyr, and the sight of anything ugly was physically repulsive to Lycabetta. She would have beheld with composure any shame or suffering that could be inflicted upon Perpetua so long as those who inflicted shame and suffering were themselves fair to see, comely women or comely men. But since it had suited the King's pleasure to place the task of punishing Perpetua in the hands of a hideous fool, a crippled, twisted thing, there was no pleasure left in the sport for Lycabetta. By-and-by she would learn how the fool had fared; in the mean time the young moon rode high in heaven, the gardens were rich with a thousand odors, and the voices of her companions were very sweet.



X

THE TWO VOICES

Robert, left alone, went on muttering to himself, as he shuffled restlessly up and down. Through all the bewildering discord of his thoughts the face of Perpetua seemed to shine clearly, like the light on a pharos to a striver in an angry sea. Where so many had denied him, she had recognized him. Lycabetta had, indeed, done as much, but Lycabetta was the gift of the past; Perpetua was the promise of the future. She and he would go down hand in hand into the streets of Syracuse. They would rouse the people, who would surely fight for such a king, for such a queen. They would sweep the palace clean of their enemies and rule in Sicily forever.

As, body shambling, mind rambling, he drifted thus about the room, the curtains behind the statue of Venus parted, and Perpetua appeared in the opening, standing between the two Moorish slaves. Then the curtains fell, the slaves disappeared, and Perpetua was left alone with the seeming fool. She recognized him at once, and the fire of hope flickered higher in her heart as she came down the steps and ran eagerly to meet him. He was but a withered fool, but still he was a man and might have pity, might have generosity, might have courage.

"Help me," she cried, holding out her hands to him. To her surprise the thing she took to be the fool Diogenes advanced as eagerly to her.

"You are free, Perpetua," he cried. "Free, if you will be my queen."

Perpetua recoiled. "Your queen?" she gasped, but Robert gave her no chance of further speech, for he went on hotly, whipping his blood with the recital of his wrongs.

"Traitors have taken my throne, traitors have stolen my crown; traitors bar the gates of my palace in my face and laugh at me through the bars; there is a false king in Syracuse, but he shall not usurp unchallenged."

Perpetua's heart grew cold. "Heaven help me," she thought in her despair, as she watched the wild gestures and listened to the wild words of her companion. "He is crazed beyond all cure."

Robert, in the midst of his vehemence, saw the sorrow in her face, saw that she moved away as he advanced to her.

"Why do you shrink from me?" he asked. "I mean you no ill. You shall be queen; I swear you shall be queen. Come with me," and he held out his hand with an air of royal condescension which contrasted ridiculously enough with his grotesque outside. Perpetua turned away from him with a little moan. "Alas, poor wretch," she sighed, her pity for his plight for the moment overpowering her sense of her own peril. Robert did not catch her words, but he saw her trouble and wondered at it.

"What do you fear?" he questioned, tenderly. "I am the King."

Perpetua clasped her hands together in an agony of compassion for the unhappy fool, and for herself, more helpless and alone through his coming.

"Dear Heaven," she prayed, "help me to mend this madness."

"Do you still shun me?" Robert asked, angrily, fretted by the girl's resistance. "Am I young, smooth, strong, comely to so little purpose? Is it a light thing to be a king like me?"

Perpetua listened to his ravings in despair. It seemed so horrible to see the ugly fool stand there mouthing his own praises, his kingship. As she shrank from him, her averted eyes fell on the silver mirror which Lycabetta had left lying upon her couch. A sudden wild hope came into Perpetua's mind. Though the man's brain might be moonstruck, his eyes might still be honest, and a glance might bring him back to sanity. At least the test was worth trying. She sprang to the couch, caught up the mirror, and, turning to Robert as he followed her, thrust, with extended arms, the mirror before his face. Had he been struck by lightning his advance had not stayed more surely.

"God in heaven," he cried, in a dreadful voice, that made the girl shiver to hear. He snatched the mirror from her and stared into the shining field, reading there the hideous lineaments of the fool Diogenes. His wild eyes turned from the mirror to her and back again.

"What damnable trick is this? I am bewitched, for the fool's face leers at me. Some devil reigns in Sicily, who has put this stain upon me."

The tears came into Perpetua's eyes for the blighted wretch who could thus deny his own image. Robert saw the tears and guessed their meaning.

"Woman," he entreated. "Can you not pierce through this glamour? I am, indeed, the King. For holy charity believe me. Though it has pleased Heaven or Hell to change me thus, I am the King."

He held out his hands to her in piteous supplication, and for a moment for very pity's sake there came the temptation into Perpetua's mind to humor the poor ruin. But she thrust the temptation from her, and sadly turned her head. Robert, with a groan, flung himself upon the couch and sat there staring into the mirror, trying to understand the calamity that had come upon him and blotted out his form. In the shining glass the wrinkled, twisted face of Diogenes twitched viciously. Blind rage overswept him, and he shook his fist at the foul reflection, screaming madly:

"I am the King! I am the King!"

Perpetua suffered with him as she would have suffered with some wounded forest beast; even sorrowed more, for if the forest beast were a dumb thing and could not tell its woes, the fool could speak, and his speech was worse than silence. Her compassionate womanhood sent her to his side, and she touched him gently on the shoulder, trying to whisper some words of sympathy, of pity.

But at the touch of her hand, at the sound of her voice, Robert flung the mirror from him, and, springing to his feet, faced the girl with evil in his eyes. Ugly thoughts crowded upon him, wicked impulses pricked his blood. If he was thus deformed, thus degraded, thus stripped of his youth, his beauty, and his power, at least he would not suffer alone; at least he, the outcast, had one at his command. The girl who had denied the King was in the power of the fool.

"Do you sorrow for me," he cried—"for me, the great King, the fair King? Keep sorrow for yourself; for, if my body be blighted, yours is smooth and soft, and at my mercy."

He made a snatch at her, but his wild eyes had warned her, and she eluded his grasp. She felt herself indeed helpless, in such a place and at a madman's mercy, but she prayed and faced him with steadfast eyes. He moved slowly towards her, gloating over his purpose.

"Now you are mine," he said. "Doomed as I am, degraded as I am, you are mine; you cannot escape me. Cling to your bridegroom, bride."

Perpetua slowly drew back from him, and there was that in her steady gaze which, in spite of himself, restrained him.

"God, grant me the key to a madman's pity," she prayed; then to the fool she pleaded: "Sir, in all hearts Heaven has set some spot of gentleness. I am a woman set about by enemies, helpless but not hopeless. If ever any woman's face was sacred in your eyes, if ever any woman's speech was music to your ears, be gentle and befriend me."

Robert laughed a malign laugh. He seemed to revenge his own ruin in triumphing over the child.

"My heart is a harp in a tree, and it sings to women's voices," he said. "But you must whisper me love-words if you think to win me."

Perpetua answered him bravely, hoping for Heaven's help in the words she might choose to soothe the madman.

"I will not kneel to you, for my knees bend only to Heaven. But I will speak you fair. If you were shapely, strong, and beautiful, with the white fire of knighthood glowing in your soul, you would laugh at death to pluck the meanest woman in the world from such a snare as mine is."

Her speech stabbed Robert with a fresh fury at the thought of his transformation, and he answered her, grinning like a snarling beast:

"If I were shapely, strong, and beautiful, I would do as I will do. The powers that torture me have flung a jewel at my feet, and I will wear it till I weary of it. You are in my power, saintliness! Discrowned, deformed, dishonored, over you I can still be king."

Perpetua shook her head proudly.

"Do not cheat yourself. I am not in your power."

Robert laughed again.

"Am I deceived? I thought you were a prisoner here. I thought your jailers flung you to me for my pleasure. I thought just now you were my suppliant. Will these walls vanish at your wish? Will those hearts melt at your pleadings? Will I deny myself delight? You are in my power."

Perpetua watched him as calmly as a martyr of old days watched the advance of the doomsman.

"I am not in your power. I am young, and I love life, and would be glad to grow old in the world's way. But I would rather die than live with any stain of shame."

Robert retorted swiftly, mocking her, yet conscious, against his will, of unfamiliar admiration of opposition to his will.

"You foolish ermine, Death's angel does not come at a girl's call."

"She who finds life hateful will find the means to end it," Perpetua said, proudly.

"Is this your virtue?" Robert jeered. "May meekness do self-murder?"

Perpetua lifted her tearless eyes towards the painted roof, fretted with pagan emblems.

"When I appear before the court of Heaven," she answered, quietly, "I think I will find pardon for that sin."

All manner of strange thoughts were contending for the supremacy of Robert's reason. Was that an aureole, strangely luminous, about her head, or only the wealth of her red hair? Was she, indeed, as brave as her brave phrases?

"I take you at your word," he said, more mildly. "Here is that which can set you free from all of us."

He drew the fool's dagger from his girdle and held it to her by its blade.

"Have you the heart to drive this home?" he asked.

Perpetua seized the hilt eagerly.

"Ay, with all my heart, into my heart," she cried, with a confidence that he could not question. "You are the gentlest tyrant in the world, and I will pray for you in paradise." She pressed the weapon with both hands to her breast and bowed her head.

Robert felt certain that she would keep her word, yet the evil in him drove him to taunt her. "You do not strike," he said.

Perpetua lifted her bright eyes, and he read in them the joy of a white soul escaping shame. On his ears her words came like saintly music. "I do but commend my spirit to its Maker. When it is done, of your clemency say a prayer by me. Farewell!"

She raised the weapon in the air, and Robert's troubled soul assured him that she meant to strike, that she meant to die. Awful influences seemed to struggle around him, darkness striving with light. He caught at the light. Voices were calling in his ears, urging evil, urging good. He caught at the good.

"Stop!" he called. "I think your hand has driven a devil from my heart. You are a saint; you have a soldier's courage; you have conquered me. I am your servant."

Perpetua hid the knife in her bosom and came close to Robert. "Will you truly help me? Let me see your eyes. Yes, I believe you. How may we escape?"

Robert drew his withered body proudly up. "I will command them to set you free."

"Alas! poor soul, they will not obey you," Perpetua said, sadly.

Robert fell from his high estate in a second. "Oh, God, I had forgotten," he groaned. He clasped his hands; his lips murmured a prayer for strength to bear his cross, for strength to serve this woman. For the second time in his sinful life he was thinking of another than himself, and that other was Perpetua. He turned to her with what he meant to be a smile. "Then we are weak things, you and I, a fool and a woman, and we must fight force with craft. Do you trust me?"

"I trust you," Perpetua said, simply.

Robert came close to her and whispered in her ear. "Seem to consent to this cruel jest of theirs. I will say I have cast a spell upon you, and that you can refuse me nothing. When I command you to follow me, say that you obey. Once you are outside these gates, you will be safe. Do you understand?"

Perpetua looked at him with shining eyes. "I understand that I have found a friend."

The words seemed to burn Robert's heart with purifying fire. "A slave who will serve you faithfully," he whispered. "Hush, some one is coming."



XI

GLAMOUR

The hangings behind the image of Venus parted, and Lycabetta surveyed the strange pair. She had grown weary of the garden, grown curious to know how the fool had progressed with his wooing.

"Well," she asked, "are the lovers happy?"

Perpetua folded her arms in silence as Lycabetta descended the steps, but Robert danced up to the Neapolitan antically.

"A marvel, a marvel," he carolled; "I have won the mad maid's heart."

Lycabetta stared at him. "Does Andromeda dote on the monster? Does Beauty love the Beast?"

Robert jigged and skipped in front of her, almost singing his words. If he had the fool's shape, he would play the fool's part to save Perpetua. "Bah, the husk belies the kernel. I am skilled in philtres—I can cast love spells as well as the straightest and the smoothest."

"Love-making has mended your wits," said Lycabetta. "So you no longer think yourself the King."

Robert laughed wildly. "King or no king," he gibbered, "I sway a maid's heart." He was playing his part bravely, for the air seemed full of voices calling, "Save Perpetua!"

"Does the girl accept you?" Lycabetta questioned.

"Accept me?" Robert echoed, gleefully. "I have so overcome her that she will woo me in season and out of season. I shall boast the most loving, patient spouse in Christendom. Mark, now, how my bird flies to a call. Come hither, rusticity."

He beckoned, and Perpetua moved slowly towards him, outwardly calm. "Do you take me for your lord and master?" he asked her.

"Ay," Perpetua answered.

Lycabetta looked at the girl's grave face in amaze. "This is a wonder," she said; "she seems spellbound."

Robert nodded joyously. "Why, I have cast the glamour upon her, and she will listen to me as the fish listened to St. Anthony. Will you swear to obey me, maiden?"

Again Perpetua answered, "Ay."

"Are you in league with the devil?" Lycabetta asked, astonished at the girl's acquiescence.

Robert grinned impishly. "I will not sell my secret. I suppose you do not care how I conquer the maid, so long as I do conquer her."

"So long as you do what the King wishes," Lycabetta answered, contemptuously.

"I swear I will do what the King wishes," Robert retorted. "She shall be humble enough, she shall be wise enough when I am done with her. You are skilled in mischief; but I still could be your school-master. Did you ever hear of Orpheus and his magic lute?"

"What of it?" Lycabetta asked.

"He could pipe so divinely," Robert related, "that all things must needs follow him, not merely men and women, birds and beasts, but silly stocks and stones; and your phlegmatic stay-at-home tree would needs uproot itself and skip to his jingle. Well, you shall see this intractable virgin follow, lamblike, when I pipe, as I lead the way to my hovel."

"If you can do this, I shall be glad to be rid of her," Lycabetta confessed. "I have better use for my hours than the training of country girls."

Robert came nearer to her, confiding: "I know a spell my master mountebank taught me. A Greek fellow made it, a Roman rogue stole it, an Italian rascal gave a new twist to it; here is the pith of it. Oh, it sounds simple enough, but it will win a matron from her allegiance, a nun from her orisons, a maid from her modesty. See, now, how she will trip to my whistle. Mistress Modesty, Mistress Modesty, follow me home, follow me home, follow me home!"

He took up the lute Euphrosyne had laid down, and moved around the room slowly, playing a quaint little country-side air in a minor key, while he chanted his song, and, as he went, Perpetua moved slowly after him, as if compelled by the spell of the music:



"By the music of the morn, When equipped with spear and shield, Oberon, the elfin-born, Winding on his wizard horn, Calls the fairies to the field— I conjure thee, maiden, yield!

"By the magic of the moon, When Diana from her dome Wakes from slumber, woos from swoon All the folk who fear the noon, Dwarf and kobold, witch and gnome— I conjure thee, maiden, come!

"By the beauty, by the bliss Of the ancient gods who ride Eros, Phoebus, Artemis, Aphrodite, side by side, Through the purple eventide, On the cloudy steeds of Dis— I conjure thee, maiden, kiss."

Lycabetta watched, astounded, the submission with which Perpetua followed the incantation of the fool. "This is the black magic," she said; and then asked Perpetua, "Are you content to follow this fool?"

Perpetua paused in her patient following of the singer, and, looking Lycabetta full in the face, she answered, "Ay."

Lycabetta raised protesting hands. "And to go with him where he will?" she persisted.

Again Perpetua answered, "Ay."

Robert interrupted the colloquy with a sweep of the strings that drifted into a new tune with new words:

"Caper, sweeting, while I play; Love and lover, we will stray Over the hills and far away."

He beckoned to the girl and ambled backward towards the entrance, obediently followed by Perpetua.

As he was about to pass luting through the entrance, Lysidice parted the curtains and entered the room. Robert fell back to give her passage. With a reverence to Lycabetta, she said:

"The Lord Hildebrand waits without."

The news brought very different thoughts to the three hearers. Lycabetta, always willing to welcome the King's favorite, gave order gladly enough to admit him. In Robert's mind the name rekindled hopes that had died away. His heart's friend, his brother in arms, the companion of his vices, the flatterer of his follies, he surely would not be deceived by the fantastic transformation. Flinging aside his lute, he shouted, joyously: "Hildebrand! Surely he will know me."