f the royal power, to
hinder his coronation."

"It is false!" cried Charles. "False! I swear it before God!"

"Perjured dog! Do you deny that you sought the aid of your precious
uncle the Cardinal of Perigord to restrain the Pope from granting the
Bull required?"

"I do deny it. The facts deny it. The Bull was forthcoming."

"Then your denial but proves your guilt," the King answered him, and
from the leather pouch hanging from his belt, he pulled out a parchment,
and held it under the Duke's staring eyes. It was the letter he had
written to the Cardinal of Perigord, enjoining him to prevent the Pope
from signing the Bull sanctioning Andreas's coronation.

The King smiled terribly into that white, twitching face.

"Deny it now," he mocked him. "Deny, too, that, bribed by the title of
Duke of Calabria, you turned to the service of the Queen, to abandon
it again for ours when you perceived your danger. You think to use us,
traitor, as a stepping-stone to help you to mount the throne--as you
sought to use my brother even to the extent of encompassing his murder."

"No, no! I had no hand in that. I was his friend--"

"Liar!" Ludwig struck him across the mouth.

On the instant the officers of Ludwig laid hands upon the Duke, fearing
that the indignity might spur him to retaliation.

"You are very opportune," said Ludwig; and added coldly, "Dispatch him."

Charles screamed a moment, even as Andreas had screamed on that same
spot, when he found himself staring into the fearful face of death. Then
the scream became a cough as a Hungarian sword went through him from
side to side.

They picked up his body from the tessellated floor of the loggia,
carried it to the parapet as Andreas's had been carried, and flung it
down into the Abbot's garden as Andreas's had been flung. It lay in a
rosebush, dyeing the Abbot's roses a deeper red.

Never was justice more poetic.

XI. THE NIGHT OF HATE--The Murder Of The Duke Of Gandia

The Cardinal Vice-Chancellor took the packet proffered him by the
fair-haired, scarlet-liveried page, and turned it over, considering it,
the gentle, finely featured, almost ascetic face very thoughtful.

"It was brought, my lord, by a man in a mask, who will give no name. He
waits below," said the scarlet stripling.

"A man in a mask, eh? What mystery!"

The thoughtful brown eyes smiled, the fine hands broke the fragment of
wax. A gold ring fell out and rolled some little way along th