"Naught!" repeated Hugh. "Perchance it meant the Lady Edith's life. But come. Let us have her forth of the cabin." He pounded the door with his sword-hilt. "Open, Edith! 'Tis Hugh!" There was a noise of shifting bars, and the door was thrown back. Edith stood in the low portal, starry-eyed, cheeks aflame, her hair in tumbled masses. "Is it you, in sooth, Hugh?" she whispered. "Ay, sweet friend," he answered, and knelt before her. But she placed her hands under his arms and raised him to his feet. "Kneel not to me," she said. "I am not worthy. No woman may be so proud as I am of you, for none was ever served so nobly. Art my own knight and lord, faithful and always true." For the second time she raised her lips to his, and Hugh's heart hammered so that it seemed it must burst through gambeson and hauberk. The domes and towers of Constantinople danced before his eyes. But he cast down his sword and caught her to him, straining her in his mailed arms until she sobbed: "Oh, Hugh, have done! Prithee! I may not breathe." As he let her go, a cold voice sneered close by: "A touching sight! Ay, by the Panagia! The parted lovers meet at last!" Helena Comnena swept out of the cabin, her lithe figure erect in a clinging gown of apple-green, her eyes blazing with a venom that belied her calm, still face. Behind her shambled her father, cringing and fearful, despite his fur-trimmed garments and the jewels that flashed in cap and chain and rings. Hugh drew back to the rail. "In you we are not interested," he answered civilly. "You have most foully wronged me and mine, lady. Certes, you deserve death. But we do not war on women. You are free to go whither you will outside of Constantinople. Here you may not stay. But as for you--" he turned upon Comnenus--"you, knave that you are, base-born for all your high estate, ingrate who turned against the hand that saved him, coward withal, you shall we deliver up to the lords of the host for judgment. Perchance they will see that you taste of the torment you devised for others." Comnenus waved his hands before his face. "No--no--no!" he screamed. "Never that! Save me--save me--save me--save me! I cannot! I----" The words seemed to stick in his throat; he beat the air with his clenched fists, choked and crumpled in a motionless heap of silk and satin on the deck. "He hath fainted from fright," said Sir James contemptuously. "Nay," said Matteo, stooping to feel the man's heart. "He hath died of it." There was a pause. Helena Comnena did not look at her father. From the time he had emerged from the cabin until he sank almost at her feet her eyes were fastened upon the face of Hugh. "You think that you have won!" she mocked him now. "You think that you have beaten Helena Comnena--scorned her! You think that all hath been done, all hath been said! You fool! I do not know whether I pity you or hate you or love you most! But you shall not exult in your victory!"