"Nay—nor if His Holiness had had his will. I had the tale from a source to trust, though the story was kept hushed. It would take one like our Janus, with his royal ways, to scorn the flattering offers of His Holiness! There were also threats!"
"Nay; threats would never move him, except to see the comedy thereof and make his mood the pleasanter! But I had not dreamed him saint enough for the Holy Father to sue to him for an alliance."
"Ah, friend, the ways of those above us be strange! But it was for this, I take it, that His Holiness—who hath a temper most uncommon earthly—sent none to represent him at the Coronation of the King."
The other shrugged his shoulders. "It lacked for naught in splendor; it was a day for Cyprus and for Nikosia."
"Vanitas Vanitatum," droned a friar of the Latin Church who had been standing near enough to catch echoes of their speech.
Both men glanced towards him and instinctively moved away.
"Aye; little it matters now—coronation honors or splendors for him! But he had a way with him!"
"And he was one for daring!"
They crossed themselves and lapsed into silence, as their eyes sought the banners drooping, shrouded, before the palace-gates, near the statue of their dead King—a very Apollo for beauty—the pedestal heaped high with withered tokens of loyalty and mourning.
But the mass of the waiting crowd were silent, scarcely exchanging a whispered confidence;—so still that the long, low boom of the surf upon the shore reached them distinctly, like a responsive heart-throb. They could hear the storm-waves outside the port dashing wildly against the rock-bound coast, with fierce suggestions of strife. But they knew that within their sheltered harbor their waiting galleys rode at anchor, ready to sail at a moment's notice—for Venice, for Rome, for Egypt—though the flags they bore were still at half-mast, with their King but a month dead.