“Then bless it, my boy; stretch forth your arms.”
As the boy loosened his hold of the parapet, the cunning Fakir seized him by the waist, and, with a sudden motion, flung him over the battlements. Every bone in his delicate body was broken ere it reached the rock where he lay, a little lifeless heap.
“How fares it with Julian’s son?” asks the voice of Alabor, as he appears on the platform of the keep.
“Well,” is the brief answer.
“Is he safe?” he asks again, looking round.
“He is safe,” answered Yusa; “behold!”
And the Emir looked over and saw the battered form, like a slight speck below, around it the seagulls and vultures already circling.
The following morning, at the break of day, in the great court of the castle, from which all the issues to the different towers open, Frandina is led out for execution.
That she knows her son is dead, is written in her eyes. No word passes her lips. Like a queen she moves, command in every gesture. With her the Christians of the garrison are brought forth to suffer. As the dismal procession passes round the court, the voice of the insatiable Alabor is heard:
“Behold, O men of Spain, the wife of your commander. See the ruin to which her treason would have brought you. Let every man take a stone and fling it at her till she dies. He that refuses shall have his head struck off. In the hand of God is vengeance. Not on our heads be her blood.”