Eckhardt's envoy prostrated himself before the King.
"I crave the King's pardon—it was my Lord Eckhardt's command to carry straight and unannounced the tidings to the King's ear—your hosts have stormed Castel San Angelo! Your enemy is no more!"
"Rise!" thundered Otto, while Stephania had rushed with a pitiful moan of anguish from her retreat, and was gazing at the messenger, as if life and death sat on his lips. "What do you mean?"
But ere the man could answer, a terrible shriek by his side caused Otto to start. Stephania had rushed to the window. Following the direction of her gaze, his heart sank within him with the weight of his own despair.
A body was seen swinging from the ramparts,—it needed neither soothsayer nor prophet to explain what had befallen.
Eckhardt had kept his oath.
"When the imperial Chamberlain told him that you were here with the King," Haco addressed the woman, who stared with wide-eyed despair from one to the other, "Crescentius charged in person the invading hosts. Struck down twice, he staggered again to his feet, fighting like a madman in the face of certain death and against fearful odds. When he fell the third time, Eckhardt ordered him suspended from the battlements—to save him the trouble of rising again!" the captain concluded in grim humour.
"What of my pardon for the Senator?" gasped Otto.
"I know of no pardon," replied Haco.
"The pardon of which Benilo was the bearer," Otto repeated.