The burnt building--it had been the Genoese barracks--stood high on the right of the stairway. Its roof had fallen in upon the flames raging through its wooden floors, so that what had been but an hour ago a blazing furnace was now a shell of masonry out of which a cloud of smoke rolled lazily, to hang about the upper walls of the fortress. Through its window-spaces, void and fire-smirched, as now and again the reek lifted, I saw the pale upper-sky with half a dozen charred ends of roof-timber sharply defined against it--a black and broken grid; and while yet I stared upward another pair of monks crossed the platform above the archway. They carried a body between them--the body of a man in the Genoese uniform--and were bearing it towards a bastion on the western side, that overhung the sea. There the battlements hid them from me; but by-and-by I heard a splash. . . . By this time we were mounting the stairway. We passed under the arch--where a door, shattered and wrenched from its upper hinge, lay askew against the wall--and climbed to the platform. From this another flight of steps (but these were of worked granite) led straight as a ladder to a smaller platform at the foot of the keep; and high upon these stood my uncle Gervase directing half a score of monks to right an overturned cannon. His back was toward me, but he turned as I hailed him by name-- turned, and I saw that he carried one arm in a sling. He came down the steps to welcome me, but slowly and with a very grave face. "My father--where is he?" "He is alive, lad." My uncle took my hand and pressed it. "That is to say, I left him alive. But come and see--" He paused--my uncle was ever shy in the presence of women--and with his sound hand lifted his hat to the Princess. "The signorina, if she will forgive a stranger for suggesting it--she may be spared some pain if--" "She seeks her mother, sir," said I, cutting him short; "and her mother is the Queen Emilia." "Your servant, signorina." My uncle bowed again and with a reassuring smile. "And I am happy to tell you that, so far at least, our expedition has succeeded. Your mother lives, signorina--or, should I say, Princess? Yes, yes, Princess, to be sure--But come, the both of you, and be prepared for gladness or sorrow, as may betide."