"Poverina, thou art lonely for thy Venice, and thy people," the Queen murmured in her own soft Italian tongue, while her fingers strayed caressingly through the glory of red-gold hair which fell unbound about the maid, in the fashion of those days for one of noble birth and tender age.
But presently she withdrew her hand and motioned Eloisà to a corner among the cushions on the curving marble slab, grotesquely wrought with talismanic symbols, which outlined the end of the loggia where they sat. "Thou art come à-propos: for the Lady Margherita hath promised us a tale of ancient Cyprus, and we of Venice wish to know these legends of our beautiful island."
"Nay, beloved Sovereign Lady;—it is not legend but simple historic truth, which your Majesty hath granted me permission to narrate—a tale of love and loyalty of the annals of our house; and out of it hath come this Cyprian proverb: 'Quel che Iblin è non si può trovar.' 'Such an one as Iblin may no man find!'" Dama Margherita, usually so pale and grave, was flushed and eager; her deep eyes sparkled; her breath came fast.
The name of Joan of Iblin was revered in Cyprus and the Queen turned towards Margherita with some comprehension of her pride in the nobility of this ancestor who had spent himself in loyal service for the early Kings of Cyprus, touching her hand with a light pressure, smiling her approbation.
No feast at any court in those days was complete without this diversion of recitation, when the nation's heroes, or some passage from its greater classics, furnished the theme; or when some improvisator wove a tissue of myth and legend, embroidered with fact, which won its way through confiding ages as historic truth, till the time, growing sophisticated, laid it heroically aside for a curio. And Cyprus stood high among the Eastern nations in literary reputation. Was not its poet Enclos earliest among the Greek prophetic singers? Was not the "Cypria" celebrated among the epics of antiquity, a precursor to the Iliad itself? Was any land more fertile than Cyprus in food for poets?
The Cypriotes no longer knew whether Cinyras were god, or man, or myth; whether he were the son of Apollo, or of Pygmalion and the bewitching ivory image of the sculptor's dead wife; or, in very truth, that splendid prince of Agamemnon's time, as sung by Homer in the Iliad, winning laurels at the siege of Troy. This hero of the "Cypria," was he, in verity the great High Priest of the island and chief of the stately race of the Cinyradæ who had ruled the people long in State and Sanctuary, and filled their realm with stately temples? The Cypriotes drew breath in an atmosphere of myth and poetry and felt the recital of the feats of their heroes to be no less a duty than a delight.
The improvisatorial faculty so often bestowed upon this imaginative people was greatly prized, and not infrequently it descended from father to son, as an inheritance, winning for its possessor something of the reverence granted to a prophet.
Dama Margherita de Iblin possessed this gift, though only in moments of deep feeling was she willing to exercise it: but to-night she was strangely moved out of sympathy for the Queen, whose evident anxiety filled her with foreboding and whom she eagerly longed to divert.
"Since your Majesty hath graciously commanded the story of Joan of Iblin, Lord of Beirut and Governor of Jerusalem—a tale of our dear land when it was young—I will tell it after the fashion of my people," she said, rising with her sudden resolve, her strong, dark face grown beautiful from the play of noble emotions.
She stood for a moment, her tall figure in its sweeping folds swaying in slow rhythmic cadence—her attitude and gesture full of grace and dignity—irresistibly compelling—as in low, penetrating monotone she began her chant.