The hangings behind the image of Venus parted, and Lycabetta surveyed the strange pair. She had grown weary of the garden, grown curious to know how the fool had progressed with his wooing.

“Well,” she asked, “are the lovers happy?”

Perpetua folded her arms in silence as Lycabetta descended the steps, but Robert danced up to the Neapolitan antically.

“A marvel, a marvel,” he carolled; “I have won the mad maid’s heart.”

Lycabetta stared at him. “Does Andromeda dote on the monster? Does Beauty love the Beast?”

Robert jigged and skipped in front of her, almost singing his words. If he had the fool’s shape, he would play the fool’s part to save Perpetua. “Bah, the husk belies the kernel. I am skilled in philtres—I can cast love spells as well as the straightest and the smoothest.”

“Love-making has mended your wits,” said Lycabetta. “So you no longer think yourself the King.”

Robert laughed wildly. “King or no king,” he gibbered, “I sway a maid’s heart.” He was playing his part bravely, for the air seemed full of voices calling, “Save Perpetua!”

“Does the girl accept you?” Lycabetta questioned.

“Accept me?” Robert echoed, gleefully. “I have so overcome her that she will woo me in season and out of season. I shall boast the most loving, patient spouse in Christendom. Mark, now, how my bird flies to a call. Come hither, rusticity.”

He beckoned, and Perpetua moved slowly towards him, outwardly calm. “Do you take me for your lord and master?” he asked her.

“Ay,” Perpetua answered.

Lycabetta looked at the girl’s grave face in amaze. “This is a wonder,” she said; “she seems spellbound.”

Robert nodded joyously. “Why, I have cast the glamour upon her, and she will listen to me as the fish listened to St. Anthony. Will you swear to obey me, maiden?”

Again Perpetua answered, “Ay.”

“Are you in league with the devil?” Lycabetta asked, astonished at the girl’s acquiescence.

Robert grinned impishly. “I will not sell my secret. I suppose you do not care how I conquer the maid, so long as I do conquer her.”

“So long as you do what the King wishes,” Lycabetta answered, contemptuously.

“I swear I will do what the King wishes,” Robert retorted. “She shall be humble enough, she shall be wise enough when I am done with her. You are skilled in mischief; but I still could be your school-master. Did you ever hear of Orpheus and his magic lute?”

“What of it?” Lycabetta asked.

“He could pipe so divinely,” Robert related, “that all things must needs follow him, not merely men and women, birds and beasts, but silly stocks and stones; and your phlegmatic stay-at-home tree would needs uproot itself and skip to his jingle. Well, you shall see this intractable virgin follow, lamblike, when I pipe, as I lead the way to my hovel.”

“If you can do this, I shall be glad to be rid of her,” Lycabetta confessed. “I have better use for my hours than the training of country girls.”

Robert came nearer to her, confiding: “I know a spell my master mountebank taught me. A Greek fellow made it, a Roman rogue stole it, an Italian rascal gave a new twist to it; here is the pith of it. Oh, it sounds simple enough, but it will win a matron from her allegiance, a nun from her orisons, a maid from her modesty. See, now, how she will trip to my whistle. Mistress Modesty, Mistress Modesty, follow me home, follow me home, follow me home!”

He took up the lute Euphrosyne had laid down, and moved around the room slowly, playing a quaint little country-side air in a minor key, while he chanted his song, and, as he went, Perpetua moved slowly after him, as if compelled by the spell of the music:

Lycabetta watched, astounded, the submission with which Perpetua followed the incantation of the fool. “This is the black magic,” she said; and then asked Perpetua, “Are you content to follow this fool?”

Perpetua paused in her patient following of the singer, and, looking Lycabetta full in the face, she answered, “Ay.”

Lycabetta raised protesting hands. “And to go with him where he will?” she persisted.

Again Perpetua answered, “Ay.”

Robert interrupted the colloquy with a sweep of the strings that drifted into a new tune with new words:

He beckoned to the girl and ambled backward towards the entrance, obediently followed by Perpetua.

As he was about to pass luting through the entrance, Lysidice parted the curtains and entered the room. Robert fell back to give her passage. With a reverence to Lycabetta, she said:

“The Lord Hildebrand waits without.”

The news brought very different thoughts to the three hearers. Lycabetta, always willing to welcome the King’s favorite, gave order gladly enough to admit him. In Robert’s mind the name rekindled hopes that had died away. His heart’s friend, his brother in arms, the companion of his vices, the flatterer of his follies, he surely would not be deceived by the fantastic transformation. Flinging aside his lute, he shouted, joyously: “Hildebrand! Surely he will know me.”

Perpetua’s heart grew cold at this proof of renewed madness, and she caught him by the arm. “Do not abandon me,” she entreated.

Robert shook her off in his eagerness to greet Hildebrand. “No, no, have no fear—” he promised, hurriedly, pressing forward towards the entrance. The hangings parted and Hildebrand entered, exquisite, debonair, radiant.

“Salutations, sweet lady,” he said, gayly, advancing towards her, but his advance was interrupted by Robert, who rushed forward, exclaiming: “Hildebrand! Hildebrand! do you not know me? Do you not know my voice?”

Hildebrand frowned resentfully on the intruder. “Why are you here, fool!” he grumbled. “Your head and your hump are like to part company.”

Robert gave a great groan and turned away. His last hope had withered. The spell under which he suffered was too potent for his dearest friend to resist; even the eye of comradeship could not pierce through that fleshly mask; even the ear of affection could not discern a familiar voice. Perpetua stood where she was, full of dread at this untimely interruption. Lycabetta tapped her forehead mockingly as she looked from Diogenes to Hildebrand.

“The crazy zany thinks he is the King,” she said.

Hildebrand nodded. “He mimicked the King so pertly yesterday morn that the King doomed him, and fear has so addled his weak wits that he believes himself to be his master.”

“Yet he is a cunning rogue,” Lycabetta added, “for he has won the heart of the woodchuck.”

Hildebrand caught at her words. “I came on that business. Have you obeyed the King?”

“Bravely,” Lycabetta replied. “I flung her to this fool for a marriage morsel, knowing him to be as cruel as he is crooked, and, by our Lady of Lesbos, he has bewitched her, and she follows his songs like a lamb to the sacrifice.”

At the sound of her words, Robert roused himself from his lethargy. “Ay, ay,” he chirped, “you shall see. She will follow where I call. Come, sweetheart, come!”

Again he began to move, and again he was followed by Perpetua. Now, for the first time, Hildebrand caught sight of her and moved forward, captured by her loveliness.

“Is this the King’s fancy?” he asked.

Lycabetta answered: “This is the girl the King sent me to tame and shame for him. Could I do it better than by giving her to this limping devil?”

Hildebrand struck his hands loudly together in protest. “Ay, by the gods, much better. She is far too fair for the first sweetness of her youth to be wasted on a clumsy clown. We are ourselves indifferent good at this taming and the rest, and, like a loyal subject, I will gladly serve the King in this.” He advanced towards Perpetua, but Robert instantly came between them.

“The girl is mine,” he asserted. “You shall not take her from me.”

Hildebrand grinned maliciously. “Gently, beast, gently,” he purred. “You shall have your turn by-and-by. You must give place to your betters, bowback.”

Robert glared at him in hate. “I say you shall not have her!” he repeated.

Lycabetta burst into a fit of laughing. “Have a care, my lord,” she warned; “the fool’s eyes roll horridly, and his mouth twitches. He will do you hurt if you steal his leman.”

“You shall not have her!” Robert insisted, fiercely.

Hildebrand’s affability vanished. “Out of the way, monkey!” he ordered; then, catching Robert lightly by the collar, he cast him aside as easily as he might have cast a kitten. Robert staggered and fell on his knees. Unheeding him, Hildebrand went towards Perpetua. “You lithe idol of the heights,” he asked, smiling, “would you not choose me for your paramour?”

Perpetua looked steadily at her new danger, and her heart was glad to think of the knife that lay hidden in her bosom. “I will go with the fool,” she said.

In the corner where he knelt unnoticed Robert was muttering confused, disjointed prayers to Heaven. The passionate desire to save the girl revived within him, and he implored the Heaven that he had wronged for help.

At Perpetua’s speech, Lycabetta clapped her hands derisively. “I said he had bewitched her.”

“We will exorcise her,” Hildebrand laughed back, and advanced towards the girl. Perpetua drew away a little, regarding Hildebrand with a steadiness that puzzled him, resolved to drive the knife into her heart before he could lay hand on her. To Robert, where he lay huddled, the spinning seconds seemed to be beating against his ears like the booming of great bells, and through their clangor came a babble of brisk voices reproaching him, mocking him. “Now for one hour,” they seemed to say, “of that royal power which you have used so ill, and now might use so nobly.” Again his agony spurred him to supplicate Heaven to send him some thought that might save her, but no thought came; he was weak, helpless, dishonored, and through the darkness of his soul the voices of his enemies stabbed him like many arrows.

Lycabetta, seeing how Hildebrand paused for a moment in his advance upon Perpetua, stung him with a sneer.

“Lord Hildebrand, for a lover of ladies you are at a loss. She clings to her cripple.”

Hildebrand, irritated, made a step forward, and again Perpetua moved a step away. Hildebrand frowned, accustomed to conquest.

“You shun me, child,” he protested, “as if I had the plague.”

The plague!

At those words the booming bells ceased, the babbling voices ceased; Robert’s darkness became light; an inspiration told him what to do. He sprang to his feet and advanced towards Hildebrand, barring his way to Perpetua. With outstretched palms, with cringing shoulders, he appealed to Hildebrand, to Lycabetta.

“Sweet lord, sweet lady, I entreat a sweet word with you.”

Perpetua, who had lifted her hand to clasp the handle of the knife, let it fall again. Hildebrand, who had forgotten the fool’s existence, scowled and snarled at him.

“To heel, sirrah, to heel!”

Lycabetta shook with mirth. “You forget, my lord,” she suggested, “that it is the King who addresses you.”

“I’ll wring his majesty’s neck,” Hildebrand answered, savagely, “if he vexes me further.”

“Nay, if he vexes you, there be others for that task,” and Lycabetta struck sharply with a golden hammer upon a golden gong. Immediately the curtains parted and Zal and Rustum entered. At their heels came several of Lycabetta’s women, wondering at the summons.

Lycabetta pointed to Robert.

“Cast the fool forth,” she commanded.

The black slaves descended the steps. Robert turned a mocking, mouthing face towards Lycabetta.

“Wait, wait,” he said; “I have a tale to tell that should divert you much.”

Something in the fool’s fantastic manner, in his grotesque attitude, in his promise of diversion, took Lycabetta’s fitful fancy. She held up a hand and the slaves halted. Robert, who had edged a little nearer to where Perpetua stood, wondering what strange purpose urged the fool, was making singular gestures with his hands, as one inviting, even commanding attention.

“Listen,” he said, and his voice had a strange sound in it of defiance, of dominion, of frightful triumph, that jarred horridly on his hearers. “It was cold on the hills to-night and the wind chilled me. By the road-side near the city’s gate I found one who slept or seemed to sleep. Wait, wait, my tale is wonderful and worth your patience. The sleeper was wrapped in a great mantle. Why should he lie snug while I shivered? I would have killed him sleeping to steal his cloak, but I was spared the pains, for as I twitched at a corner of it the fellow rolled in a lump before me and lay there dead. Wait, wait, your patience shall not be strained to breaking, and my adventure is good hearing. My man lay on his back in the moonlight, staring stupidly, and I who looked saw that his face was drawn and twisted, as if he had died in great pain; his teeth were dropping from their livid gums and his skin was stained and mottled and discolored, blue and black and green, and he seemed to rot as I watched him. But I was cold and I fear nothing, being a fool, so I went my ways, warm in his mantle. What do I care for the plague?”

The plague!

At that name the listeners shivered as if a wind of death had blown through the heavy scented air. Hildebrand drew back in horror, gasping the dreaded words, “The plague!” Lycabetta grew white with fear. “Oh, gods, the plague!” she moaned, groping for support which none gave her. Her women fluttered together paralyzed with terror, and the black slaves recoiled from the one enemy their courage dared not face.

Robert, lifting his hands as if in a kind of hideous benediction, gibbered at their fear.

“The very plague!” he screamed. “The plague is in the port, the plague is on the city, the plague is at your gates! What care I if all Syracuse dies of it! My mantle reeks with its sweat.”

With a rattle of damnable laughter Robert clutched at his mantle, which lay where he had cast it down when he entered, now near his feet. Fluttering it in the air so that its folds seemed to quiver like the pinions of a fiend, he flung it upon Perpetua and swathed it tightly about her unresisting body. To her the plague was better than self-slaughter, as self-slaughter was better than pollution. Still the others cowered, spellbound by their dread.

“Who will woo her now?” Robert screamed, folding her in his arms. “Who now will draw death from her lips? If she dies, she dies mine, and I will sit hunched by her side and watch her white flesh wither.”

While he shrieked he was dragging Perpetua towards the entrance, and now he caught at the silken hangings, while his voice, swelling in volume of malignant imprecation, yelled at his terrified enemies, “The plague! the plague! make way there for the plague!”

There was no one to say him nay. With a scream Lycabetta fell fainting to the floor. Hildebrand was trying to cross himself with nerveless fingers, the women were sobbing hysterically, and the slaves had fled.

Robert and Perpetua passed unchallenged from the room and from the house.