thing less than the Queen Emilia's word to content
you, my friend," her brother promised, eyeing me and breathing hard.
"Where is the crown, Stephanu?"

"In safe keeping, O Prince. I beg leave to say, too, that it was I
who found it in the Englishmen's camp and brought it to the
Princess."

"You shall have your reward, my good Stephanu. You shall put the
bearer, too, into safe keeping. Stand back, take your gun, and shoot
me this dog, here beside his grave."

The Princess stepped forward. "Stephanu," she said quietly,
"you will put down that gun."

Her brother rounded on her with a curse. For the moment she did not
heed, but kept her eyes on Stephanu, who had stepped back with musket
half lifted and finger already moving toward the trigger-guard.

"Stephanu," she repeated, "on my faith as a Corsican, if you raise
that gun an inch--even a little inch--higher, I will never speak to
you again." Then lifting a hand she swung round upon her brother,
whose rage (I thank Heaven) for the moment choked him. "Is it meet,
think you, O brother, for a King of Corsica to kill his hostage?"

"Is it meet, O sister," he snarled, "for you, of all women, to
champion a man--and a foreigner--before my soldiers? Shoot him,
Stephanu!"

Her head went up proudly. "Stephanu will not shoot. And you, my
brother, that are so careful--I sometimes think, so over-careful--of
my honour, for once bethink you that your own deserves attention.
This Englishman placed himself in my hands freely as a hostage.
From the first, since you force me to say it, I had no liking for
him. Afterwards, when I knew his errand, I hated him for your sake:
I hated him so that in my rage I strained all duty towards a hostage
that I might insult him. Marc'antonio will bear me witness."

"The Princess is speaking the truth before God," said Marc'antonio,
gravely. "She made the man a keeper of swine yonder." He waved a
hand toward the sty. "And he is, as I understand, a cavalier in his
own country."

"I did more than that," the Princess went on. "Having strained the
compact, I tempted him to break it--to shoot me or to shoot
Marc'antonio, so that one or other of us might be free to kill him."

She paused, again with her eyes on Marc'antonio, who nodded.

"And that also is the truth," he said. "She put a gun into his
hands, that he might kill me for having killed his friend.
I did not understand at the time."

"A pretty coward!" The young man fl