Bending over it, a moan broke from his lips, as he threw his arms about the lifeless clay of her he had loved in the days of yore, ere the honeyed treachery of the Frangipani had sundered and broken their lives. The woman of the Red Tower had expiated her guilt. He saw at once that no human agency might here avail. Death had been instantaneous. The arrow had pierced the heart. The duke knelt long by her side, and the strong man's frame heaved with convulsive sobs, as he closed the eyes and muttered an Ave for her untimely departed soul. When he arose, he looked into the pale face of Francesco, whose blood-stained sword and garments told a tale his lips would not. He understood without a word. Silently he extended his hand to the duke, then, taking off his own mantle, he covered therewith the woman's body. It was midnight when the Pisans and the duke's men groped their way cautiously down the steep winding path to the shore. The Pisans made for their ships and Spoleto's men for the dusk of their native woods, carrying on a hurriedly constructed bier the body of the woman of the Red Tower. Not many minutes had passed after their perilous descent when a sphere of fire shot from the clouds, followed by a crash as if the earth had been rent in twain, and the western tower of Astura was seen toppling into the sea. Bye and bye sea and land reflected a crimson glow, which steadily increased, fanned by the gale, until it shone far out upon the sea. Astura was in flames, the funeral pyre of the Frangipani. CHAPTER VII THE QUEST As the world grew gray with waking light, Francesco came from the woods and heard the noise of the sea in the hush that breathed in the dawn. The storm had passed over the sea and a vast calm hung upon the lips of the day. In the east a green streak shone above the hills. The sky was still aglitter with sparse stars. An immensity of gloom brooded over the sea. Gaunt, wounded, triumphant, Francesco rode up beneath the banners of the dawn, eager yet fearful, inspired and strong of purpose. Wood and hill slept in a haze of mist. The birds were only beginning in the thickets, like the souls of children yet unborn, calling to eternity. Beyond in the cliffs, San Nicandro, wrapped round with night, stood silent and sombre athwart the west. Francesco climbed from the valley as the day came with splendor, a glow of molten gold streaming from the east. Wood and hillside glimmered in a smoking mist, dew-bespangled, wonderful. As the sun rose, the sea stretched sudden into the arch of the west, a great expanse of liquid gold. A mysterious lustre hovered over the cliffs, waves of light bent like saffron mist upon San Nicandro.