Low as the words were spoken, she heard them and turned pale. “My son, great Alabor, is with the dead. Let him rest in peace.”
“Wife of Don Julian,” cried the Emir, “you trifle with me. Where is he? Tell me, or torture shall make you.”
“Emir,” she spoke again, and her calm face showed no trace of fear, “if I have not spoken the truth, may everlasting fire be my portion. He is with the dead.”
Alabor was confounded by the composure of her answer. So great was her courage and the dignity with which she faced him, that he was just about to retire, when the Fakir again broke in:
“Let me deal with her, my lord,” he said. “The heart of the Emir is too tender. I will find the boy. Soldiers, search the vaults of the castle.”
No trace upon the countenance of Frandina betrayed alarm. She herself led the way to the different subterranean chambers within the citadel. When the searchers and the grim old Fakir, hideous and naked, save for a ragged cloth about his loins, but esteemed all the more holy from his filth, descended the winding stairs leading to the chapel, Frandina did not falter. In her presence every corner was ransacked by the aid of torches. Nothing was found. But as all were leaving, and she stood already under the arch of the door, to see them all file safely by, some gleam of relief, some
