nished from his pallid face. Even the sharply cut
nostrils of the long nose, which usually moved swiftly, were perfectly
still. The heavy chin, framed by a thin, closely clipped beard, had sunk
upon the high ruff as if for support, and the thick, loosely hanging
lower lip appeared to have lost its elasticity.

In this hour of rest and relaxation this tireless and successful
sovereign, utterly exhausted, had even relinquished seeming what he was;
his brown hair framed his brow and temples in a tangled, disordered mass;
the lacings of his velvet doublet were loosened; a shabby woollen
coverlet of anything but imperial appearance was wound around his lower
limbs, and the foot in which the gout throbbed and ached rested on his
sleeping hound, and was wrapped in the cloths which his valet Adrian
found at hand after the Venetian ambassador, the confessor, and the leech
had left his master.

It pierced his sister to the heart to see her mighty brother, upon whose
dominions, it was said, the sun never set, in this guise.

Her glance rested sorrowfully upon him a long time, but even when she
moved several paces nearer he retained the same motionless rigidity which
had seized upon him and even communicated itself to the dog. The animal
knew the regent, and did not let her disturb its repose.

Then a terrible fear assailed her, and the image of the Cid Campeador
who, mounted on horseback, went swaying on his steed to meet the foe,
rose before her.

"Your Majesty," then again "Your Majesty," she called in a low tone, that
she might not startle him; but the answer for which she waited in
breathless suspense did not come, and now the anxious dread that filled
her sisterly heart forced from her lips the cry, "Carlos!" and once more
"Carlos!"

The dog stirred, and at the same time the Emperor raised his bowed head
and turned toward his sister.

Drawing a long breath, as if relieved from a heavy burden, she hastened
to his side, and, clasping his delicately formed hand, kissed it with
passionate tenderness; but the Emperor withdrew it, saying with a
mournful smile, which gave his rigid countenance a new and more winning
expression, in the Castilian language in which he always addressed her:

"Why are you so agitated, Querida? Did the sight of the silent brother
alarm the sister? Ay, darling, there are some things more terrible than
the wild boar at which the brave huntress hurls her spear. Our mother's
bequest----"

Queen Mar