A queenly figure, the friar said, yet
one he would so humble presently that never should she hold up her
head again.
As for the others, the men who had cloaked conspiracy with a woman's
smile, he would know how to deal with them. Indeed, when he scanned
their faces and began to remember the circumstances under which he had
met them before, his courage was strengthened, and he forgot that he
had ever reasoned with it.
He stood in the shadows; but the four, close in talk, and thinking
that a lackey had entered the room, did not observe him. They were
laughing merrily at some jest, and filling the long goblets with the
golden wine of Cyprus, when at last he strode out into the light and
spoke to them. His heart beat quickly; he knew that this might be the
hour of his death, yet never had his voice been more sonorous or more
sure.
"Countess," he exclaimed, as he stepped boldly to the table and
confronted them, "I bring you a message from Andrea, the lord of
Pisa!"
He had expected that the woman would cry out, or that the men would
leap to their feet and draw their swords; but the supreme moment
passed and no one spoke. A curious silence reigned in the place. From
without there floated up the gay notes of a gondolier's carol. The
splash of oars was heard, and the low murmur of voices. But within the
room you could have counted the tick of a watch--almost the beating of
a man's heart. And the woman was the first to find her tongue. She had
looked at the friar as she would have looked at the risen dead; but,
suddenly, with an effort which brought back the blood to her cheeks,
she rose from her seat and began to speak.
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