Zoë had closed her eyes to bear the pain better, and a tiny drop of blood slowly trickled from the lip she had bitten in the first moment of the torture. It made a thin, dark line from her mouth downward, a little on the left side, over her white chin. Her breath came in deep and quivering sobs, drawn through her clenched teeth, but no other sound escaped her in those awful seconds. She was praying that death might come soon, but she did not ask for strength to be silent; that she had, for Carlo Zeno's sake, and for the sake of the just vengeance that would overtake Andronicus when she was dead, if only he were not warned of what was perhaps so near. She thought she might die of the pain only; she was sure that she must faint away if it lasted many moments longer. The Emperor bent down in his saddle to see her agonised white face more clearly in the gathering gloom, and to catch the least syllable she might speak; and his loose lip moved, for he was counting to himself, counting the ten score, after which she would be able to bear no more and would tell him where the danger was. For the corpse-faced man knew his business, and his experience had been wide and long, and the Emperor knew that he never made a mistake. Moreover, the Greek minister smiled with sheer pleasure at the sight, and hoped that his master would command them to put the girl to death by very slow torments. The guards, too, crowded upon each other to see, but they were not all silent now; for there were brave men amongst them, savage adventurers from the wild mountains beyond the Black Sea, who feared neither God, nor Emperor, nor man; and they did not like the sight they saw, and they said words one to another in strange tongues which the Greeks could not understand. Andronicus counted slowly to twenty, and then still more slowly to forty, and the tortured girl's sharp breathing irritated him. 'Speak!' he cried, in a tone that was low and angry. 'Tell me where the danger is, or the thing shall eat out your heart!' Then the answer came, but not in Zoë's voice, nor by one voice, but by many, loud and deep; and though the words were confused, some could be heard well enough; and they told the loose-lipped cowardly youth where the danger was, for it was upon him. 'Johannes! Johannes reigns! God and the Emperor! Emperor Johannes!' That was what the voices shouted from the gate, as the multitude swept in, driving the sentinels and guards before them as the gale drives dry leaves. With but one breathing-space for thought and resolve, the guards in their scarlet tunics closed round Andronicus like waves of blood in the deep dusk, and he went down under them, and heard them answer the coming people-- 'Johannes reigns! Emperor Johannes!'