And she grovelled on the ground, hiding her face with her hands.
“Then am not I thy son?”
Suddenly she looked up fearfully. “Yes—yes, boy, thou art my son—my own dear son.”
“And yet thou didst say—”
“Ne’er heed what I say, son, for am I not sometimes daft? Thy mother—have I not been a tender mother to thee all thy life?”
“There’s not a day that I recall when thou wast otherwise.”
“Did I not save thy life, my son—my own dear son? When they said you lay dead on Pelilla’s field, did not I seek thee—find thee—cure thee? Thinkest thou I would do all that for the stranger?”
“A noble wound! If, when Di Luna rushed upon me with his score of men, I fell—I fell as falls a soldier, mother.”
“Di Luna! And so he rendered thee reward for the life thou gavest him, when he stood before thee in a duel, and was conquered. Thou shouldst love Di Luna, e’en as thy brother; Di Luna, whom thou, my son, hast spared.” And she laughed scornfully.
“I may not know wherefore, but when my sword was pointed at him—when the next moment I should have slain him—some power held back my sword, and I heard whispered in mine ear the word, ‘Mercy!’”