This piece of treachery on the part of Don Velerio would not have been a very serious matter, for the jester was a good swimmer, had not the victim of it struck an abutment of the bridge as he went down, which stunned him and prevented him from making any effort to save himself. He would have drowned had not two men in a rowboat not far away succeeded in dragging the unconscious fool into their boat. * * * * * When he returned to his senses he was in his own room, and a nun, with a kind and gentle face, was sitting beside him. "Why do you come here to watch me sleep?" he asked, and was surprised to find that his voice was so weak. "You must be quiet; you have been very ill," said she. "I ill? Now that is a queer thing, a very queer thing! What made me ill?" "Do not trouble your head about it. It is best for you to remain perfectly silent." "I will not be quiet until you have answered my questions. If anybody ought to be interested in this affair, it seems to me I ought to be the one." The nun reflected a moment, then she said thoughtfully, "Perhaps it might be better to tell you, after all. You fell off of the bridge into the river. You were saved by two boatmen, but you seemed to be in a stupor." "I remember all about it now," cried the jester. "It was that old black spider of a doctor who pushed me in. Let me up and I will break every bone in his body!" The sister put her hand to his breast and pushed him back to his pillow again, and he was astonished to find how easily this delicate woman could manage him. "You must not grow excited," she said gently. "He came there and talked to me about his old elixir of life," said Le Glorieux. "Did it of his own accord; I never invited him; then he said I doubted him, which I did, and he pushed me over." "Don Velerio is very sensitive about his discovery," said the nun, "but he did not intend really to harm you." "He did a queer thing for a man who did not intend anything by it." "Don Velerio is flighty at times, and he was sorry for what he had done. He has sent you a vial of his elixir of life." "Send it straight back to him and tell him, with my compliments, to take it himself and see if it will make him----" The door opened before he had finished the sentence, and the princess entered, followed by a page who bore a torch to light the way along the corridors. She was dressed as if for a grand fete. A coronet rested on her hair, gems flashed about her throat, her arms, and her slender waist. In all her gorgeous array she knelt on the floor and took in both her own the hand of the jester. "Little Cousin," said he. "Oh, he is conscious!" she cried. "I am so rejoiced to know it! Now you are going to recover right away, are you not, my poor Le Glorieux?" "The sight of you, as you look now, ought to make even the broken statue of a man pull himself together," he replied, smiling faintly.