words of the tempter
reached their consciousness, quivering through them, as if they
themselves were guilty of this treachery:

"_Ye are more in number than the hosts of the Emperor--kill him while he
sleepeth! For we will see that his guards wake not._"

Then fell a deep, throbbing silence, tingling with a sense of shame,
broken by a sudden discord of the lutes and the wild burst of ringing
scorn.

"_Shall we, Christian men of Cyprus, do this iniquity!_"

Again, the whispered voice of the tempter: "_Aye! for the Emperor is
false; he hath taken thine own sons for hostages and keepeth not his
promise but in his camp entreateth them shamefully; and in the courts,
which shall judge of this thy cause, doth seek to malign thee._"

Once more came the voice of Joan of Iblin, invincible:

"_We have sworn fealty to the Emperor--we are true men--be others
untrue._"

And then in unison--swift, sure, triumphant--the words vibrated on the
air: "_We have sworn fealty to the Emperor--we are true men--be others
untrue._"

The voices in the garden had long since ceased, and one by one the
wanderers had gathered on the terrace, waiting in responsive silence the
conclusion of the tale they loved. Among them the Bernardini stood
entranced. He had been strolling alone, filled with anxious thoughts
which had brought him to a mood easily wrought upon, and from the
silence of the garden to come suddenly upon this scene of picturesque
action was a surprise that gave it added power.

He stood as if fascinated, never moving his gaze from the lithe figure
of Margherita, whose every motion revealed new grace and unsuspected
depths of feeling. Margherita, whom he had thought so grave and cold! So
intently was he watching her that he realized no others in the vivid
pantomime until the music maidens had gathered closely about her with
hushed lutes and a mysterious silence fell--as of night upon the
plain--spreading with the slow movement of the down-turned palms of all
that girlish throng--the graceful, swaying figures scarce advancing, yet
seeming to encompass the plain.

Between these interludes of dramatic rendering, the thread of the story
was held in a quick, clear monotone easily followed. The hushed tramp of
a great army withdrawing in the night--not from fear, but to honor their
vows--the words of Iblin: "_We will not fight our Emperor, for our men
are more than his: which having seen, it will now perchance please him
to accept o