stooped from his great
height, and signed in his great sprawling, clumsy, soldier's hand.

The clerk dusted the document with pounce, and handed it to the Duke.
Charles cast an eye upon the signature, then taking the quill himself,
signed under it, then bore the document to the half-swooning bride.

"Keep this secure," he bade her. "It is your marriage-gift from me."

Rhynsault's eyes gleamed. If his wife were to keep the deed, the thing
was none so desperate after all. But the next moment he had other things
to think of.

"Give me your sword," the Duke requested.

Wondering, the German unsheathed the weapon, and proffered the hilt
to his master. Charles took it, and a stern smile played about his
beardless mouth. He grasped it, hilt in one hand and point in the other.
Suddenly he bent his right knee, and, bearing sharply downward with the
flat of the weapon upon his thigh, snapped in into two.

"So much for that dishonourable blade," he said, and cast the pieces
from him. Then he flung out an arm to point to Rhynsault. "Take him
out," he commanded; "let him have a priest, and half an hour in which to
make his soul, then set his head on a spear above the Cloth Hall, that
men may know the justice of Charles of Burgundy."

With the roar of a 'goaded bull the German attempted to fling forward.
But men-at-arms, in steel and leather, who had come up quietly behind
him, seized him now. Impotent in their coiling arms, he was borne
away to his doom, that thereby he might complete the reparation of his
hideous offence, and deliver Sapphira from the bondage of a wedlock
which Charles of Burgundy had never intended her to endure.

X. THE NIGHT OF STRANGLERS--Govanna Of Naples And Andreas Of Hungary

Charles, Duke of Durazzo, was one of your super chess-players, handling
kings and queens, knights and prelates of flesh and blood in the game
that he played with Destiny upon the dark board of Neapolitan politics.
And he had no illusions on the score of the forfeit that would be
claimed by his grim opponent in the event of his own defeat. He knew
that his head was the stake he set upon the board, and he knew, too,
that defeat must inevitably follow upon a single false move. Yet he
played boldly and craftily, as you shall judge.

He made his first move in March of 1343, some three months after the
death of Robert of Anjou, King of Jerusalem and Sicily, as ran the title
of the ruler of Naples. He found his opportunity a