All Philip’s promises, all Philip’s flatteries had amounted to nothing. While he was useful he was caressed; when he grew too great he was forsaken, left without arms, without money, without men, left with Farnese watching him night and day. And they had killed the man he loved, his friend, his confidant Escovedo. That fact rose up horrid, insistent, burning his heart with rage. He could not forgive Perez; he could not forgive Philip. In discomfort of mind and body he tossed from side to side. One of the gold cushions slipped from beneath him, and he was too weak to recover it; he lay with his eyes vacantly on it, and presently sat up with sudden strength and pointed at it with a quivering finger. On the gold brocade was a round black hole where the stuff had been burnt away. Don Juan began to laugh; he remembered the yellow drop of liquid that had gleamed on the rich fabric; he shouted for some one to come. There was no answer; he supposed that they, thinking he suffered from the plague, would not through fear approach him. He waited; his attention wandered from the cushion; he heard the trumpets without and smiled. Presently a party of horsemen galloped past; he could catch a glimpse of them through the aperture in the wall; one carried his flag–a cross on the royal standard with the proud legend: “In hoc haereticos signo vici Turcos; in hoc signo vincam haereticos.” The heavy silk folds recalled these words to the Prince’s mind; he thought of his success at Gembloux. “I could defeat them now,” he murmured, “if I was–on horseback–with a thousand men–behind me—” The Lowland sun was creeping across the floor and glimmering in the armour in the corner, showing the dints and marks in it, the worn straps, the beautiful gold inlay and the long pure white plumes floating above the helmet. Juan of Austria shivered at the sight of the pale sky, the pale sunlight; he longed passionately for the South, for all the purple heat, the violet shade, the soft hours of noonday silence in a marble chamber overlooking the sea, the glossy darkness of laurel and ilex. “I will not die here,” he said in his throat. Presently his confessor came, a slow-footed priest, and asked him if he would not make his will. “No, for I have nothing to leave,” he answered, “so I am spared that trouble.” Francisco Orantes then asked if he would have the canvas drawn over the broken roof and wall, for the sun was creeping very near his face. He answered yes, and it was done; the barn was now only lit by the glimmer from the one small window. “Father, I am not dying,” said Don Juan. “When I die it will be in Spain or Italy; tell the King so–tell him I know that he wants me dead–but that I will not die like this.” The priest, seeing he was out of his wits, made no answer, but approached and felt his wrist and brow.