ssador, quietly determined to see fair play
or to be hurt himself in preventing murder.

"Back!" thundered Ruy Gomez, in a voice that was heard. "Back, I say!
Are you gentlemen of Spain, or are you executioners yourselves that you
would take this man's blood? Stand back!"

"Sangre! Sangre!" echoed the hall.

"Then take mine first!" shouted the brave old Prince, spreading his
short cloak out behind him with his hands to cover Mendoza more
completely.

But still the crowd of splendid young nobles surged up to him, and back
a little, out of sheer respect for his station and his old age, and
forwards again, dagger in hand, with blazing eyes.

"Sangre! Sangre! Sangre!" they cried, blind with fury.

But meanwhile, the guards filed in, for the prudent Perez had hastened
to throw wide the doors and summon them. Weapons in hand and ready, they
formed a square round the King and Mendoza and Ruy Gomez, and at the
sight of their steel caps and breastplates and long-tasselled halberds,
the yells of the courtiers subsided a little and turned to deep curses
and execrations and oaths of vengeance. A high voice pierced the low
roar, keen and cutting as a knife, but no one knew whose it was, and
Philip almost reeled as he heard the words.

"Remember Don Carlos! Don John of Austria is gone to join Don Carlos and
Queen Isabel!"

Again a deadly silence fell upon the multitude, and the King leaned on
Perez' arm. Some woman's hate had bared the truth in a flash, and there
were hundreds of hands in the hall that were ready to take his life
instead of Mendoza's; and he knew it, and was afraid.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

The agonized cry that had been first heard in the hall had come from
Inez's lips. When she had fled from her father, she had regained her
hiding-place in the gallery above the throne room. She would not go to
her own room, for she felt that rest was out of the question while
Dolores was in such danger; and yet there would have been no object in
going to Don John's door again, to risk being caught by her father or
met by the King himself. She had therefore determined to let an hour
pass before attempting another move. So she slipped into the gallery
again, and sat upon the little wooden bench that had been made for the
Moorish women in old times; and she listened to the music and the sound
of the dancers' feet far below, and to the hum of voices, in which she
often distinguished t