"These will tell it thee," she went on hurriedly, "for I must be returned to my chamber ere the change of guard—lest he be called on duty and fail to respond with this full toggery of steel, because he hath shown me this favor."
"The Queen?" he gasped.
"The Queen still liveth; but—oh, my Lord, Aluisi!"—her voice broke and her lips quivered, she stretched out her hands to him, the nervous fingers interlaced in a passion of pleading—"they have stolen the baby-Prince: she will go mad if they keep him from her!"
"They shall not!" he thundered with a terrible oath: he—whose speech was fair as a woman's. "Tell her we pledge our lives to find him—to save them both—all these and many more."
With a gesture he included all the company.
"Heaven hear us!" they swore in deep, angry, concert.
She turned her face to them, a great light shining in her eyes.
"I carry Her Majesty the strength of your loyalty, dear friends," she said. "The Madonna be praised—for her need is sore!"
Then, quite silently, and as with a solemn act of consecration, she made the sign of the Cross before the Leader who was to save the Queen, and with quick footsteps passed under the peristyle.
"Margherita!"