Part 49

"I think he would not ask of whom thou speakest!" Eloisà tried to laugh and shake off the spell. "I will listen no more, Ecciva."

But the other paid no heed. "How if I knew of a bride for him?" she repeated; "of a most ancient house of Cyprus; noble enough to mate with him--for out of it came one of the queens of the land----. And if--and if she would not say him nay!--How then, Carina? For thou, 'being his friend,' wouldst wish to see him win such favor----?"

"It is not the Dama Margherita de Iblin," Eloisà asked with sudden eager interest.

"The Lady Margherita!" Ecciva echoed with a scornful toss of her head. "Doth one seek a bride no longer young when one is a man like that? Nor--nor beautiful?--She is not beautiful!"

"She is more rare than beautiful," Eloisà retorted, piqued. "For she is noble, like the Signor Bernardini: and her face is like her soul."

"They should not trust their secrets to so young a maid!" the Lady Ecciva cried tauntingly.

She had suddenly flushed and grown pale again. Then a new thought came to her. "But she also is a Dama di Maridaggio--she also. Thou mightest tell that for a bit of gossip to the Queen, who, perchance, hath influence with the Signor Bernardini." She had laid her hand again on Eloisà's, with an insistent touch.

"Why dost thou say, she also?"

"That is for thy puzzle--to amuse thee, carinissima; for verily thy brain is dull. It is no wonder with the gravity of this court! But happily to-morrow--thou shalt see to-morrow how the people shout to him, for Cyprus doth owe him honor--and Her Majesty more than life. It is the Bernardini who hath done it all--more than the Soranzo, or the Mocenigo--more even than our great Admiral of Cyprus. Thou shalt see!"

Eloisà fell easily into praises of her hero, and her tongue was unsealed. "To go at night, with only a poor fishing-skiff and a handful of men, to steal back the little king from the galley of Naples--it was not easy! But how should one think of peril when the Prince was in danger?--They are both like that--he and she."

"All knights are like that, or they would be craven: that was no honor to him. But what woman went with him from the palace? I watched them going; it was a night like some great poem!"

"That was our dear Lady of the Bernardini; lest the Prince should be strange without some loving face about him, and none can smile him into quiet, as she with her gracious ways; and they feared a sound, for the galley lay close under the fortress. So quietly they went, along the shore, lingering where the nets are thrown by the shallows, to take the galley by surprise--the Lady of the Bernardini shrouded in the mantle of a fisher-woman."

"And after?--When they had found him? For it was not told where they hid the child--or I heard it not."

"Yes--now it may be known; thanks be to our Mater Sanctissima!" Eloisà answered devoutly. "They floated about in the fishing skiff until they reached the private galley of the Signor Bernardini--so far around the coast that it would be safe for the Prince. And of the peril, the Lady of the Bernardini had no thought. The galley of His Excellency was dark and with no sign of action, yet it had been manned for a cruise the night before the treason--the poor Signor Bembo was to have gone therein"--her voice faltered and they both crossed themselves, the horror of that night was still so new.

"The crew were hidden within it," she continued after a moment's pause, "and if there had been pursuit, it would have started swiftly for Venice, to put the Prince in safety."

"How came this tale to thee?" Dama Ecciva asked with a sudden twinge of jealousy--"we both being of the court?"

"Nay, nay, Ecciva," Eloisà pleaded; "we both are here to do our duty, and in time of peril--thou knowest well--one may not ask counsel on the house-tops; and this was for life or death. How might they hope to surprise the galley of Naples, if it has been told to all the Court?"

"Thou, then?"

"Listen, Ecciva! Since it is past, thou shalt see how they are noble, this Mother and her son! They left with me that night a message for the dear Queen whom they might not reach with speech, to spare her greater anguish, if they came not back. For, oh my God, how she hath suffered!"

"It is yet more a poem," Ecciva exclaimed, stirred by the hope of further romance, and already half ashamed that she had shown her momentary feeling of jealousy. "The message--tell it!"

"'If we come not back, thou wilt tell our beloved Lady that we have sought to wrest the child from the galley of Naples; for rumor hath it that he is hidden there. And if he be there, we will bring him, or give our lives to save him. Tell her our galley waiteth far, to take the Prince to Venice if, from pursuit, there should be need to fly.'

"But--listen Ecciva--they said, 'if we come not again, and our galley should be found waiting on the coast, then tell her that our lives were little to express our love; and she shall not mourn that we have given them for her and for her child.'--Oh, Ecciva!" she ended with a long sigh of adoring appreciation.

Ecciva broke the tension with her exclamation: "No, Contarini mia, all knights are not like that: I said it but to tease thee. Tell it to the Dama Margherita with a face like that, and she will make it a second 'Kypria,' for she hath, verily the gift. I have not such a tale of knighthood to tell thee: yet, if thou carest for my tidings they would make a canto for the new Kypria of the Dama Margherita, in contrast to thine. And first of the traitor Saplana--of whom there is news."

Eloisà greeted the tidings with an exclamation of relief.

"He--and the precious group of noble villains--or of villain nobles--one's tongue takes twist in talking trash--the more when it is true; a precious group of traitors, all on the wild seashore--how the Dama Margherita would bring out the booming of the waves! These doughty villains fleeing because, forsooth, they feared the fleet of Venice!--tossing their reins on the necks of the steeds that brought them, and leaving them to wander at their will. A little gold and their arms and bucklers in the fishing skiff that brought them to the galley of the noble Ferdinand--the goodly King of Naples,--his well-beloved son, Alfonso, wore not for long the title of the 'Prince of Galilee!'--Is it a pretty tale for the poem of the Margherita? The tale of the fleeing villains!"

"But who went with the Commander?--Which others?"

"There was the nephew, Almerico--much in temper because thy noble uncle the Contarini would not yield up to his traitorous care the Castle of Cerines for the signature forced from the Queen. There was Fabrici--the very Reverend, the Primate of Cyprus. And then--and then--not last, but first, and deepest and darkest traitor of them all--the very darkest villain of them all--there was Rizzo!"

"Ecciva! Not Rizzo!--the land is free of him!"