While the words were on his lips the running footman returned, and after him another man came quickly, carrying a worn leathern bag. He was very tall and thin, and he stooped, he had the face of a corpse and there was no light in his eyes. Zoë did not see him, but he came and stood behind her, close to the Ethiopian, and he fumbled in his bag; and all around the uniforms of the guard were as red as blood in the twilight. 'I am not afraid to speak, since I am caught,' Zoë said, answering the Emperor's words, 'and what I say is true. For what you owe me, you owe to many and many more, and the name of that debt is blood!' 'She is raving!' cried Andronicus in an unsteady voice. 'No, I am not mad,' Zoë answered, speaking loud and clear. 'Your reckoning has been due these two years, and a man is coming within the hour to claim it, and you shall pay all, both to others and to me, whether you will or not!' 'Who is this creature?' asked the Emperor, but his cheeks were whiter now. Not a sound broke the silence, and the man with the leathern bag crept a little nearer to the defenceless girl, and the Ethiopian's grip tightened on her wrists. From somewhere beyond the walls of the courtyard the neighing of a horse broke the stillness. 'Who is this girl that dares me within my own gates?' Andronicus asked again, turning to his ministers and officers. The Greek with the fawning face bent in his saddle towards the young Emperor as if he were prostrating himself, and he spoke in a very low voice. 'Your Majesty would do well to have her tongue torn out before she says more.' 'Who is she, I say?' cried the sovereign, suddenly furious, as cowards can be. No one spoke. The corpse-faced man crept nearer to Zoë, his dull eyes fixed on her features. Beyond the wall and far off the unseen horse neighed again. It was growing darker, but all around the scarlet tunics of the guards were as red as blood. Then the answer came. The twisted lips of the tormentor moved slowly, and words came from them in a thin, harsh voice, like the creaking of the rack. 'She is Michael Rhangabé's daughter.' 'The Protosparthos?' The Emperor's voice shook again. The corpse-faced man nodded twice in assent, and his thin lips writhed hideously when Zoë's eyes fell on him. 'I saw her at the prison when I took him out to die,' he said. His bony hand, all knotty and stained from his horrid work, took the girl's delicate chin, forcing her to turn her full face to him; and she quivered from head to foot at his touch. He knew well the convulsive shiver that ran through the victim he touched for the first time; he could feel it in his fingers as the musician feels the strings; he was familiar with it, as the fisherman's hand is with the tremor and tension of his rod when a fish strikes; and he smiled in a ghastly way. 'Yes,' he said, 'it is she.' And he laughed. He held her by the chin and wagged her beautiful head to right and left.