“Gone!” shouts Sancho, “without my leave? What does this mean? Is the Conde safe?” “Safe, indeed,” answers the officer; “but half an hour ago I carried him a meal, by special order, and a good one.” “A meal?” quoth the king, utterly amazed. “Could he eat?” “Surely,” is the answer, “and glad he seemed to get it.” “Did he not appear to suffer? Was he--well--did nothing ail him?” “Nothing, my liege. I never saw a prisoner more _débonnaire_, but he seems grown strangely short to my eyes; he certainly has dwindled.” “You are a fool!” cries the irritated king; “I must look into this matter myself. Bring him to my presence.” “By the rood, but he does seem strangely altered,” mutters the king, as the prisoner stands before him. “Surely”--and a suspicion shoots through his mind, to be dismissed at once as ridiculous, as they approach each other. “Well, Sir Conde, are the prisons of Leon better guarded than those of Narbonne?” he asks, with a sneer. “Much better, Sir King, one can escape more easily. For a sovereign so versed in plots and conspiracies--_murder_ even”--(at this word the king gives a great start)--“you are marvellously at ease.” King Sancho became so bewildered, his head was going round. Was he bewitched? Was this the Conde or not? And if not, _who_? Then Doña Ava, speaking in her own natural voice, broke out into peals of laughter. “Surely, Don Sancho, a bachelor like you cannot be so ungallant as to imprison a lady.” “A lady! A woman! God’s mercy! what does this mean? Who has dared to deceive me?” “I,” answered the Infanta. “Shower your wrath on _me_, your kinswoman. May I not be a deceiver when so many of my blood excel? The queen, for instance? Now look at me, Sancho, and let this folly end.” And the king did look, and into a most towering passion he fell, using more bad language than I care to repeat. “A curse upon you!” are his first intelligible words. “Where is that villain, your husband?” “In Castile,” she answers, “or far on the way. Never fear, he will soon return to settle accounts with _you_.” “False woman,” and the king, fuming with a sense of intolerable wrong at having been made such a fool of, lifts his hand as if to strike her, “learn to fear my vengeance!” “Not I,” is her answer, laughing again. “You dare do nothing to _me_, and my loved lord is free, skimming like a fleet bird over the plains. I fear you not, you dastard king!” * * * * * Consigning the Infanta into the hands of the palace guards, Don Sancho rushed off to the apartments of the queen. For once that wicked woman was powerless. No one dared harm Doña Ava, especially as rapid news soon spread of the wild joy with which Fernan had been received in Burgos, and that, at the head of his army, he was marching on Leon.