Like a figure carved in stone stood Frandina, but when she saw her son her mother’s heart gave way. With a shriek, so piercing that it woke the echoes in the prisons underneath, she dashed forward and cast herself upon the child. “Mercy, O Emir! if you have ever known a mother’s care! Mercy! mercy! This is my only child--the joy of my life--my little son! Take me for him!” and raising herself on her knees with frantic passion, the boy clinging round her neck, she tries to grasp his hands. Wrenching himself from her as if she were some noxious animal, Alabor thunders to the guards: “Take this woman’s son from her, and bear her hence to the deepest dungeon.” The boy stood alone before the Emir, big tears rolling down his face, not from fear, but for the sake of his mother, whose frantic screams were heard long after they had dragged her away. If Alabor had but a spark of human pity, he would have melted to the pretty boy, who faced him so bravely, but he had sworn the destruction of Don Julian’s race, and his heart hardened within him as he gazed on the innocent eyes. With a keen searching glance he measured the slight figure of the child, and smiled to see how frail he was and small. “Yusa,” he said to the Fakir, “be you the keeper of Julian’s son. Guard him as you love me.” And so he and his guards departed, leaving them alone. “I pray you,” said the boy, undaunted by the looks of his grim companion, who stood holding a torch and watching him under his overhanging eyebrows, “to give me air. I have lain three days in this close tomb, and I am faint.” Without a word they mount the winding stair, until they reach the platform of the keep. Through the high turrets was a wondrous view across the Straits, lined by broad currents of varying blues and greens, to where, dim in the distance, lay the lowlands of Spain. Round and round flew the seagulls, below the waves beat, thundering on the rocks which guard the harbour, cresting back in foam. As the child stood near the battlements, the sea wind raising his curly hair, he gave a cry of joy and clapped his hands. “Do you know what land that is opposite?” asks the Fakir, pointing to the dim coast line, an evil leer upon his lips. “It is my country,” is the answer, “we come from Spain; my mother told me.” “Then bless it, my boy; stretch forth your arms.” As the boy loosened his hold of the parapet, the cunning Fakir seized him by the waist, and, with a sudden motion, flung him over the battlements. Every bone in his delicate body was broken ere it reached the rock where he lay, a little lifeless heap. “How fares it with Julian’s son?” asks the voice of Alabor, as he appears on the platform of the keep. “Well,” is the brief answer. “Is he safe?” he asks again, looking round. “He is safe,” answered Yusa; “behold!” And the Emir looked over and saw the battered form, like a slight speck below, around it the seagulls and vultures already circling.