Another effort and he had reached the stone. The water was so cool, so clear, so pure and still, it seemed impossible that it should harm him. He reached his hand out, then convulsively resisting the impulse, drew it back, and sank again upon the grass. At a flutter of white from the boughs near, Count Conrad lifted his eyes, and saw a dove that flew past him to rest upon the rim; he watched it eagerly. The bird preened itself, shook its feathers daintily, stooped and drank. Conrad drew himself a little nearer. Suddenly with a cry the bird whirled up into the air, beat its wings together vainly, and fell back into the water, dead! Poisoned! All the water poisoned! Desperation giving him a moment's strength, Count Conrad rose and regarded the dead dove with greedy eyes, but steeling himself against the impulse to devour his own death, he crawled on with the vague thought to reach the gate. Some instinct of remembrance guiding his stumbling steps, he came upon it. It was twice his height, and all its elaborate tracery offered no single aperture through which a child could thrust his hand. Sick and blind he clung to it; he tried to shout, to scream, his voice died in his throat. In helpless rage, his wild face pressed against the iron, his eyes starting, his tongue lolling out of his dry mouth, he gripped and shook the lock. Two children running by, stopped, gazed, came nearer, and then at what they saw, fled, screaming. No one else approached. The world seemed empty. Twilight began to fall. Then in his half-delirium Count Conrad thought again of the dead bird, and laughed wolfishly to himself, making with tottering steps back toward the hollow. To search coherently for food or drink or succor was now beyond his power. Presently again he sank across the grass and lay there crying like a child, whimpering and whispering. Once or twice he made an effort, snatched at the long grass, fell back again, and lay now in silence. After a time, but while it was still light, he seemed to wake as from a trance, and saw a figure moving down the glade toward him. Was he still living? He could scarcely tell. Was this Visconti come again to mock him? The thought spurred the man, though dying, almost to strive to rise and meet his fate standing. But sky, grass, trees, and stone reeled about him in a chaos of green and blue. He strove to speak, but his tongue refused. The dark figure came nearer, stopped beside him, stooped and spoke, but Count Conrad did not see nor heed. He lay, a woeful spectacle, as if dead indeed. He awoke, as he thought never to wake again, with moistened lips, and water on his forehead, and a face that was not Visconti's bending over him; a dark face with strange brown eyes that looked at him with sombre interest. "Thou comest from the Duke?" gasped Conrad. Francisco shook his head. "I am no emissary of Visconti." "Then thou comest to save me?" whispered Conrad eagerly, hope dawning in his eyes.