[CHAPTER IV.]
MOORISH SLAVES.
A clatter of horses' feet in the court-yard announced the arrival of new guests; and when these proved to be noble kinsmen and friends of the Duchess, who had hastened to rally round her in her danger, the Cardinal inly congratulated himself on having been the first comer and the recipient of her first thanks.
The old feudal castle, lately the nest of a few defenceless women, now resounded with the clank of arms. Nothing could be more graceful than the Duchess's reception of her guests. There was just enough of danger past, and possibly impending, to give zest to present safety and sociality. The feast was spread in the old ancestral hall, where the family plate shone in beaufets ten feet high, music breathed from the gallery amid the pauses in conversation, and the cobwebbed banners waved heavily overhead in the cool evening air from the Mediterranean, that stole through the open windows. Giulia's little cloud had entirely disappeared: it was simple and even needful that she should just now only seek to embellish the passing hour; and the Cardinal, as the noblest dignitary present, fully seconded her as leader of the feast, or rather took the initiative in entertaining and pledging the rest, while she had only to sit by, smile, and enjoy it all. The Moorish girl, with splendid jewels in her ears, stood behind the Duchess with a feather fly-flapper.
Barbarossa's enormities were the favourite theme; there was plenty of red put in the brush. The streams of blood he had shed would float a squadron; his beard was bright scarlet. He was even worse than his brother Horuc had been; and now that he was Dey of Tunis, as well as of Algiers, and the ally of Solyman the Magnificent, the world would not hold him! He would swallow Italy, some of these nights, at a snap.
Yet it was astonishing what some of the company were ready to do, single-handed, against him! Only let him come on! They'd show him something. The Duchess need not be afraid. Not a hair of her head should he touch.
The next day or two these bold spirits scoured the neighbourhood, and—as Barbarossa was out of sight—they did not spare their bragging. They only wished he would come back, that they might give him his deserts. The Cardinal grudged these vapourers their share of Giulia's ear. True, he sat at her right hand; and none of them were younger, braver, handsomer, or wittier than himself. And it was sweet, with all its mixture of bitter, to be here at all; but then, how soon it would end! How soon pass into that hungry, never-satisfied abyss of vanished, irreclaimable joys! And then his old feeling of blank, gnawing dissatisfaction returned.
"That Mauritanian slave of yours," he said one day to Giulia, as they returned from a reconnoitering party, "is singularly beautiful. She would make a good study for Sebastiano. How I wish you knew that remarkable man! You would delight in his musical attainments. He touches the lute and viol with rare perfection, and has composed some exquisite motets. As a portrait painter he is unrivalled. The Pope is so pleased with the likeness he has painted of him, that he has conferred on him the office of keeper of the papal signet. His verses are charming, and he is a most excellent companion."
"You excite my curiosity," said the Duchess. "Cannot you invent some excuse to bring him here?"