Thereupon the duke blew the froth of his wine in the Abbot's face. "Purgatory!--A mere figure of speech!" The Abbot emptied his tankard. "The figures of speech are the pillars of the Church!" He beckoned to the custodian. "Poculum alterum imple!" The lean friar came and disappeared noiselessly. They drank for a time in heavy silence. After a time the Abbot sneezed, which caused Beelzebub, the Abbot's black he-goat, who had been browsing outside, to peer through the crescent-shaped aperture in the casement and regard him quizzically. The duke, who chanced to look up at that precise moment, saw the red inflamed eyes of the Abbot's tutelar genius, and, mistaking the goat for another presence, turned to his host. "Do you not fear," he whispered, "lest Satan may pay you a visit during some of your uncanonical pastimes?" "Uncanonical!" roared the Abbot. "I scorn the charge! I scorn it with my heels! Two masses daily,--morning and evening--Primes,--Nones,--Vespers,--Aves,--Credos,--Paters--" "Excepting on moonlight nights," the duke blinked. "Exceptis excipiendis," replied the Abbot. "Sheer heresy!" roared the duke. "The devil is apt to keep an eye on such exceptions. Does he not go about like a roaring lion?" "Let him roar!" shouted the Abbot, bringing his fist down upon the table, and looking about in canonical ire, when the door opened noiselessly and in its dark frame stood Francesco. He had waited at the camp for the return of the duke until his misery and restlessness had mastered every other sensation. Sleep, he felt, would not come to his eyes, and he craved for action. He should have liked nothing better than to mount his steed on the spot, ride single-handed into Anjou's camp and redeem his honor in the eyes of those who regarded him a bought instrument of the Church. The memory of Ilaria wailed through the dark chambers of his heart. He felt at this moment, more than ever, what she had been to him, and to himself he appeared as a derelict, tossed on a vast and shoreless sea. For a moment he gazed as one spellbound at the drinkers, then he strode up to the duke and shook him soundly. "To the rescue, my lord duke!" he shouted, in the excess of his frenzy, till the vaults re-echoed his cry from their farthest recesses. "Conradino has been betrayed by the Frangipani!" At the sound of the name he hated above all on earth, the duke's nebulous haze fell from him like a mantle. With a great oath he arose. "Where is the King?" "They have taken him to Rome,--or Naples,--or to some fortress near the coast," Francesco replied. "Into whose hands was he delivered?" "Anjou's admiral,--Robert of Lavenna!" The duke paused a moment, as if endeavoring to bring order into the chaos of his thoughts. He scanned Francesco from head to toe, as if there was something about the latter's personality which he could not reconcile with his previous acquaintance. At last Francesco's worldly habit flashed upon him.