"Halt! Declare for whom thou standest. That password is already outworn: for they of the Queen's Council be of two minds."
As if from a sense of suffocation the cloak was torn off showing a suit of armor too heavy for the slight limbs; and the helmet was loosened with supple, nervous fingers, disclosing a face pale, strong and soulful. The face might have been that of a man—an artist, or a poet; but the hair, lying in loose, dusky waves about the brows, and low, in rich clinging coils at the back of the shapely head, could only belong to a woman.
A sudden wrath flamed in her deep eyes.
"If they of the Queen's Council be of two minds they are craven, though I, a woman say it! But the Queen's guard, in the Queen's palace, can have but one mind—to uphold her cause!"
There was no other voice in all Cyprus so tender, so compelling, so magnetic, so all-convincing; the voice revealed her.
"Dama Margherita de Iblin!" was echoed about the court in surprise. The news spread. The men-at-arms came thronging about her with reiterated assurances of loyalty; it was good to confess their faith to her.
"We hold this palace for our Queen," they said, "and for no traitorous Council. May the holy Saints in Heaven curse them roundly who forced us to do their bidding, when we thought ourselves serving Her Majesty!"
"How came ye so many here?" she asked in astonishment, as they still gathered from the farther courts—a number far greater than the usual Palace-guard—chiefly a company of knights and men entitled to bear arms, but among them many of the more peaceful citizens.
"Whom serve ye all?" She looked keenly from face to face: her words seemed a challenge.
"Caterina Regina!" they cried in concert, with every man's right hand upraised, calling Heaven to witness.