“Magnificent,” he answered, with a shaky laugh. “He was certainly in need of it”--and he turned to me gratefully, but with a rather scared look. “Little agent of Providence, if thou hast ever a poor friend thou wouldst save in the dark time coming, ask of my Majesty’s mercy, and it will listen. There may be some who err through the mind’s nobility. Of that I know nothing; only--only, I would have something to balance my possible mistakes.” It was true enough, though the blood-lust was not long in mastering him, when once, without risk to himself, he could taste the spice of vengeance. Even while he spoke the depleting of the gaols and prison-ships was begun, and the hurried trials, and the false testimony, and the hangings. And the wail of the thousand doomed was already mingling itself in the streets with the roar of a grand State lottery, when at last we could venture ashore and to safe quarters in the reconsecrated palace. We were all triumphant then, or about to be. I remember the last night we spent on the _Foudroyant_. It was a full moon; and, seated under an awning on the upper deck, Lady Hamilton sang “Rule Britannia,” with a cockney fervour which must have pierced reassuringly to the ears of the poor wretches imprisoned behind the floating walls that surrounded us. She was always so much more than equal to the occasion, was Emma. XXX. I AM JUSTIFIED IN MY POLICY It was a dark and gusty night when I issued forth with de’ Medici from a side door of the palace. “She is condemned,” he had whispered to me a minute earlier. A needle of ice had seemed to enter my heart. The question my lips could not ask had flown to my eyes. Comprehending it, he had caught at his throat and lolled out his tongue grotesquely. To the same dumb inquisitors he had answered, as confidently as if I had spoken, “To-morrow.” Then I had found my voice, as if after a fit of choking-- “And she has not spoken?” “And she has not spoken.” He had hesitated, before suggesting deprecatingly, “There remains only to make your appeal to her in person.” I had struck my hands together, hearing that. “You might have forced her, had you chosen. Now, leaving it to me, our bargain is dissolved.” “Madonna, you will not so requite my faithful services?” “I will answer nothing till I have seen her.” “Then what time like now?” he had replied desperately, “when she sits buried alive in the darkness, with the spectre of to-morrow whispering in her ear.” “It is well spoken, then. I will go.”