breathed in it a spirit of content
such as he had never known before. Those solemn pillars, those gloomy
spaces, those narrow staircases set in the thickness of the walls, were
the landmarks, were the confines of his home. The colored light that
poured through the windows of painted glass, mottling the stone flooring
with splendid patches of yellow and blue and red, gave the gray place to
his sad eyes a pomp beyond the pride of courts. Here and there in the
darkness dim lamps burned, the beacons for him of inexpressible havens.
Portions of the walls were covered with votive offerings--little models
of ships that had been set there by sailors, grateful for succor in
storm and escape from shipwreck, wreaths and pictures and crosses and
images of saints, emblems all of a simple piety that his racked spirit
was slowly learning to understand. In front of him was the altar with
its image of Our Lady of the Sea, curiously and beautifully wrought in
silver, the figure of the Divine Woman on a space of tumbling sea. At
the left of the altar, in a niche in the wall hard by, stood the most
precious relic of the church, a huge iron cross more than seven feet in
height, which had been carried on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by the
founder of the church. On the right of the altar was the golden railing
and gateway on which the eyes of Robert always rested in joy, for behind
it lay the space of sanctuary, the spot where Perpetua had found a
shelter from her enemies. Yet close to this railing rose a pillar, the
sight of which always had power to banish any joy from Robert's eyes.
Down its length hung a thick rope running through iron rings set in the
stone-work. That rope conducted to a bell on the roof of the church.
That bell had been set there in the spring of the reign of King Robert
the Good for this purpose, that if any man in his kingdom thought he was
wrongly used by its King, he had but to drag at the rope to set the
great bell ringing, whose sound, tolling over the city, called all good
citizens together to hear and decide upon the complaint of the subject
against the King. In such a benignant spirit had Sicily been ruled in
the days of Robert the Good.

One white rose remained in his fingers. He lifted it to his lips and
kissed it reverently. Then he laid it down before the gilded gateway of
the sanctuary, with the thought in his mind that perhaps her foot might
touch it as she passed and make it sacred. Then he lit a taper at a