ad been planned,
on the arrival of the Emperor at Naples. Though Charles was greeted with
acclamations as the champion of the Church against the infidel, he
having put to flight Hayraddin, admiral of the Sultan, and taken the
city of Tunis, thus liberating thousands of Christian captives,--yet in
the midst of the festivities there lacked not those who saw a certain
inconsistency in the wedding of his sweet daughter to a man notorious
for his wickedness and of the very race which he professed to hold in
such abhorrence.

Duke Alessandro after his marriage refrained not one whit from his evil
ways, but rather exceeded his former profligacy, so that all Florence
was scandalised thereby and pitied his gentle Duchess. I mind me now,
however, that to my astonishment there was one who took another view of
the matter, for Lorenzino de' Medici affirmed that Margaret was
possessed of that dauntless courage which one sees sometimes in the
tamers of lions and other savage beasts; that Alessandro was a
mean-spirited creature cowed by his child wife; and that one had but to
note the haughty poise of her head and the hang-dog sullenness which he
maintained in her presence to guess the truth. Though I abhorred the
Duke, yet as he had made me master of the mint it was necessary that I
should have commerce with him, and on the first occasion upon which I
presented myself being made to wait in an ante-chamber, I overheard a
remarkable conversation which caused me to credit the opinion of
Lorenzino. The door was ajar between the room in which I sat and the
next in which the Duke and Duchess had just risen from breakfast.

What he had said to her I know not, but his face was one malignity as he
leaned toward her across the small table. She faced his snake's eyes,
her own dark with an intensity which should have warned him, and half
beneath her breath, as though she told him of some danger with which she
had nothing to do, as one might have said, "Provoke not that dog, or you
will inevitably be bitten,"--she very quietly uttered these words:

"Lay so much as your finger upon me and I will kill you."

"And what is to hinder my killing you first, my little tigress?" he
hissed.

I had gripped my sword in answer to that question, but there was no
need, for she blazed forth at him, the very daughter of her father.

"The Emperor!" she cried triumphantly, and there she had him; for though
Charles had sold her like a slave and lifted no finger