They were with him again, and many shouted:
‘Let him die! Let him die!’
Then suddenly, before I could speak, Phroso rose, and, stretching out her hands towards me, said:
‘Promise what they ask, my lord. Save your own life, my lord. If my cousin be guilty, heaven will punish him.’
But I did not listen even to her. With a sudden leap I was free from those who held me; for, in the ranks of listening women, I saw that old woman whom we had found watching by the dying lord of the island. I seized her by the wrist and dragged her into the middle, crying to her:
‘As God’s above you, tell the truth. Who stabbed the old lord? Whose name did he utter in reproach when he lay dying?’
She stood shivering and trembling in the centre of the throng. The surprise of my sudden action held them all silent and motionless.
‘Did he not say “Constantine! You, Constantine”?’ I asked, ‘just before he died?’
The old woman’s lips moved, but no sound came; she was half dead with fear and fastened fascinated eyes on Constantine. He surveyed her with a rigid smile on his pale face.