Suddenly the indignant cries of the whole listening company mingled in confusion with the inspired voice of the improvisatrice and the descriptive music of the lutes.
Caterina sprang to her feet, not knowing what she did: "Bring back the Lord of Iblin!" she cried. "Bring the noble Joan back! Save this people of Cyprus!"
At the sound of her voice the lords and ladies of her court came crowding up the steps of the loggia from the terrace, clinging around her, kissing her hands with fervent words of loyalty and pleasure, before she realized that she was in the Now, or that she had cried out in her excitement. But this was the Cypriotes' story of stories, and her unconscious action had bound them to her.
But Dama Margherita, still in her trance of song, waved them to quiet again as they stood grouped about the Queen, in the very mood of the closing scene, creating an atmosphere of restrained passion, through which the voice of the improvisatrice throbbed and pulsated like their own hear-beats.
But now the tones of the improvisatrice are low and quiet, and her motions assert the dignity of a life nobly lived. For Joan of Iblin has returned from Crusade, has conquered the intruders and restored quiet to the realm. But, thereafter, siege is laid to his own castle and fief of Beirut, and now, gray-haired and full of honors, his time of service drawing to a close, his trust fulfilled and the young monarch come to his majority, he implores his royal ward to assemble his full court, and kneeling in their presence before the youth whom he had served from tenderest infancy, he prays:
"If I have served thee well, my nephew and my monarch—now come to thine own—because I loved thee well, yet loving honor more:
"If I have fought for thee in keeping of my trust, and dared the enmity of the Emperor our Suzerain,—and for thy sake:
"Now, by my love for thee—for I am old and the cities of my fiefs are doomed;
"Send, if it seemeth good to thee and to these, the knights and barons of thy realm, and save my lands—that they be not wrested from me when my strength is spent!"
The true-hearted Prince threw loving arms about him, with words of comfort and with promises, and would have raised him. But the Lord of Iblin would bring his speech to its conclusion and have his say before them all, thus kneeling—as if it were a rendering of his trust, a fitting close to a so loyal life.