“I hear the voice of my maidens,” exclaimed the queen impatiently, “expose not thyself to their observation.”
“Benedicite,” murmured the counterfeit priest, turning away to avoid the scrutiny of the approaching group.
But Procida was so determined to secure the approbation of the queen, that the following day he craved an audience at the palace.
“My royal mistress,” said he, “must permit me once more, to plead the rights of the illustrious house of Suabia, before I depart on my pilgrimage, that if I never return, she may justify my acts in the eyes of my daughter.”
“Speak,” said Eleanora, moved by the sorrowful earnestness of his manner.
“My royal master Frederic,” began the Jew, “had little cause to love the church. Hated by the pope, for that with a strong arm he claimed his hereditary possessions in Italy, he was excommunicated for refusing the pilgrimage, and again cursed for fulfilling his vow; and had not the honest pagan, Melech Camel, been more his friend than the christian troops by whom he was surrounded, he would have perished by treason in the Holy City itself.
“Freed from superstition, he looked upon all religions as formed to impose upon the vulgar; and it was through his instructions, that I learned the policy of conforming to the prejudices of mankind, and now avail myself of the privileges of an order, who wander everywhere, and are everywhere well received.
“The emperor, like thy brother Alphonso, was a man of science. He opened schools in Sicily, and maintained poor scholars from his own purse, and by every means promoted the welfare of his subjects; but he could not escape the toils spread around him by his great enemy the church.”
As he said these words the queen beheld in his eyes the same vengeful fire that once had before so startled and shocked her.
“Thy pardon, sovereign lady,” said he, recollecting himself, “but the wrongs of the master have well-nigh maddened the brain of the servant.