And round about these openly contending factions there prowled, watchful and ruthless, Charles of Durazzo, seeking only the opportunity to make himself master of the situation. There were no lengths to which Duke Charles was not prepared to go in order to attain his aim and to satisfy the ambition that devoured him; no crime, however frightful, from the contemplation of which he shrank as a means to his end. Cost what it might, he would be King of Naples and of Jerusalem. The chroniclers describe him as a pale man with close-cropped hair and a thick beard; and, when agitated, he had a trick of frowning. Charles of Durazzo had felt greatly aggrieved at the bestowal of Joan’s hand in marriage upon Andrew of Hungary; for of all King Robert’s nephews he, Charles, had been the nearest in blood to the throne; and to him, as such, Joan ought to have been given. But never for an instant had he allowed so much as a glimpse of his disappointment to be seen by any one; never once had he suffered a breath of complaint to escape him. Nevertheless, his resolve was only the stronger for the iron self-discipline of the man; and, now that Joan was Queen, the hour was come for him to try the first of the two alternatives by which he was to achieve his object. He was still a bachelor, and Joan had found favour in his eyes by reason of her loveliness; therefore, before having recourse to the other expedient that he had laid out for himself in case of need, Charles had determined to attempt the enlistment of Joan’s co-operation in his designs. With this object he obtained a private audience of the Queen, and straightway proceeded to lay siege to her sympathies by every kind of flattery and the most skilful hints of the dangers that threatened her from the side of ungrateful and grasping favourites. Though he named no names, yet Joan understood only too well whom he meant, and could not help evincing signs both of her comprehension and of her agreement with him. From that he went on to speak more particularly of the popular rejoicing at her succession to the throne, and, finally, of the universal regret that she should be compelled by an unkind fate to share that throne with one in every way unworthy both of herself and of it. Seeing clearly who it was to whom he referred in these terms, Joan attempted feebly to protest; but was powerless to prevent him from continuing with what he had to say of the certainty he felt that, if Andrew of Hungary were ever to be admitted to an actual share in the government, the people of Naples would infallibly rise in arms against him and the detested Hungarians who surrounded him. It would, indeed, Duke Charles assured the unhappy Queen, be only another instance of the Sicilian Vespers; the Neapolitans would, of a surety, rise up as one man and exterminate their foreign oppressors, including Andrew himself and the monk whose mistaken counsels had inspired him with so suicidal an ambition.