“Angry! The rage of hell raves in me. The night is full of voices, but I will not hear them. The night is thick with terrors, but I will not fear them.”
He was pacing up and down the room now, striking his hands together, trampling upon the rich furs that strewed the floor, as if they were his enemies grovelling at his feet, so possessed with the hysterical passion that he seemed to have forgotten the women who watched him and wondered.
Lysidice whispered in a low voice to Lycabetta, “He has gone mad.”
Lycabetta nodded, tacitly agreeing. If the fool were mad, as in very deed he seemed to be, she wished him well out of her borders. Madness was one of the ugly things of life for which she had no pity; madness was one of the dangerous things of life, and of all dangers she was greatly afraid. The fool carried a dagger at his girdle, and it were well to pacify him. She could send for the Moorish slaves to cast him forth, but if he were indeed sent by the King, any ill-treatment of his messenger might offend Robert, and the anger of offended Robert might take uglier shapes than the fool’s dagger. So she watched the figure uneasily. Suddenly he stopped in his pacing and turned to her.
“There is the strangest treason abroad in Sicily,” he cried. “My creatures defy me; my friends deny me. They have set a sham king on my seat; they bow to a crowned pretender; they shall die to-morrow.”
Lysidice whispered again to Lycabetta, “He thinks he is the King.”
Lycabetta nodded. She had heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King’s manner and earned the King’s anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King’s rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up and down the room.
“Give me a sword!” he shouted. “Syracuse will stand by me. We will crush this treason bloodily. Give me a sword! give me a sword!”
In that palace of pleasure there were no weapons of death, yet Robert ranged the room wildly as if dreaming that some soldier’s friend might lurk behind silken curtains. Lycabetta turned to her comrade and whispered to her behind her hand:
“The poor ape is moon-crazed—clean out of his wits. He mimicked the King yesterday, and now the trick grows on him.”