He caught her beautiful white hand and spread it tenderly out upon his own—a hand that it had taken generations to fashion—made to command, yet knowing when to yield—modelled with exquisite lines of grace, goodness, courtesy, power—a hand of character, yet with delicate flushes of pink in finger tip and palm, with a touch as tender as strong.
"It is too hard for thee, Madre mia, away from thine old home," he said tenderly. "There is room in the brig for thee to-morrow, if thou wilt: and Marco for thine escort."
She shook her head: "It would be harder to live without my boy," she said resolutely. "Now think on sleep, of which thou hast need—and——" She half-framed the name of Margherita, yet would not utter it.
He smiled at the wistful look in her face; for he understood. "Nay, Madre mia; such thoughts are not for me. I am a general in an alien camp, with scarce wit enough for my tangled duty."
Then he bent his knee, and kissed her hand, in knightly fashion of the time, as doing her reverence, whom in his heart he loved, and left her—a little comforted by his long confidential talk.
But the Lady Beata stood for a while motionless where her son had left her, before the long window that faced the splendid peristyle of the palace. Between the great spaces of the columns she saw the Piazza beyond them flooded with moonlight—white and still and absolutely deserted. There were no human sounds save the monotonous tread of the sentinels pacing to and fro before the palace; and across the Piazza, those of the guard before the closed entrance of the Fortress of Famagosta where their Queen and the infant Prince were in residence, echoed them back. From the Duomo San Nicolò shone the faint twilight glimmer of the tall candles that were ceaselessly burning about the tomb of Janus—each pale flame wafting a prayer for absolution from the broken heart of the Queen, who before her illness had brought them daily with her own hands: and far down upon the shore was dimly heard the ceaseless flow of the waves, keeping rhythmic beat to the passing moments in the mystery of the night.