"But, though they were the King's most trusted servants, we did not know if we could trust them." "I can understand that." "And you were there, not only to protect them from attack, but to protect them from thinking. When a Neapolitan thinks, he thinks treason. If they had stopped, or not taken the right road, you would have helped them to guide their unruly animals." "Of course," he said; "but I did not know what we were doing, or where we were going, or----" "You were under the orders of the priest. He was a real priest." "Oh, I had guessed that. No one else could have remembered all there was to do with the candles, chanting and halting for this or that. But, I say, Rusidda?" "What?" "How did it come that the priest was trusted more than any one else?" "Hush--that is he. He is the Queen's confessor, an Austrian." "Oh, a foreigner," said Will. "I understand." "And the coffin you took from the Palace did not contain a body at all, but the silver-gilt candlesticks of the Queen's chapel, and other objects too long to be packed in barrels." "I had guessed that." "But you did bury a body, and it was for him that they chanted all the way from the Palace." "Something was changed at the Embassy. I had guessed that; but I thought that they were burying iron or stones." "No,--you were burying a spy." Will, who had been in a great battle, and seen a hundred men knocked over by round shot in a few minutes, got up and staggered out into the fresh air: the crisp winter night had just closed round them. To Donna Rusidda, gentle as she was, the execution was not shocking,--the man was of low birth, and swift retribution was no novelty at the courts of Italian princes. But with a woman's quick wit she noted its effect on Will, and followed him out into the darkness. "I am cruel, W-Will, is it not?" she said, laying a hand on him and whispering in broken English. Then relapsing into Italian she added: "These things are not the same to us as they are to you English--it is fighting we dread, not death. A Neapolitan does not expect to fight, he expects to kill. The other man will be taken at a disadvantage, and sometimes defend himself desperately; but he will have a disabling blow, and when the Neapolitan's own turn comes, he would rather be killed with one blow than have the agony of defending himself, though he is very desperate." "How thankful I am that you are a Sicilian, Rusidda!" "The Sicilians are worse; they are more bitter, more revengeful. There is always the vendetta in Sicily. If you had been a Sicilian, and treated me as you did, even my brother would have sent a man to kill you. He would not have fought you: a Sicilian when he is injured does not wish to risk himself or give his enemy a chance--he wishes to be revenged." "And what should you have done?" "Perhaps have killed myself; for I loved you--then!" "Then why cannot you love me now?"