"A child?" said his majesty, gazing upon her superb form and strong womanly features. "Well! a child can see as far into the sky as the most learned and venerable; and your faith, my child, rests me more than all the earth-drawn assurances of my counsellors. Where have you learned so to trust? I would willingly spend my days in the convent of Athos or Monastir to learn it! But I fear me the holy monks have it not of so strong and serene a sort as yours."
"I have learned it, Sire, as my heart has read it from my own life. My years are scarcely more numerous than my rescues have been, when to human sight there was no escape from death, or what I dreaded worse than death. I have learned to hold a hand that I see not; and it has never failed. Nor will it fail the anointed of the Lord; for such thou art. But see! yonder comes my brother Constantine. I know him from his rowing. They who learn the oars on mountain lakes never get the stroke they have who learn it at the sea."
The Emperor turning in the direction indicated, frowned, and said angrily,
"Your brother has forgotten the regulations, and is in danger of discipline for rowing within the lines allowed only to the court."
The boat came nearer; not steadily, but turning to right and left, stopping and starting as if directed by something at a distance which the rower was watching.
The Emperor's attention was turned almost at the same instant to a light boat shooting toward them from an opposite direction. The occupant of this was a monk. His black locks, mingled with his black beard, gave a wildness to his appearance, which was increased by the excited and rapid manner of his propelling the craft.
"Something unusual has occurred, or they would wait the finding of another messenger than he," said the Emperor.
The monk's boat glided swiftly. When within a few yards of the barge in which the Emperor was the man stood up, his eyes flashing, and his whole attitude that of some vengeful fiend. "Hold!" shouted the rowers of the royal barge, endeavoring to turn the craft so as to avoid a collision.
"The man is crazed!" said Morsinia.
But at the instant when the two boats would have come together, another, that of Constantine, shot between them and received the blow. Its thin sides were broken by the shock.