But not Robert the King, the young, the comely, the radiantly clad. His fair features had withered to the foul features of the fool Diogenes; his body had warped to the crooks and hunches of the fool's body; his raiment had faded from its regal pomp to the stained livery of the mountebank. But it was with no knowledge of his metamorphosis that the changed man stared at the church and shuddered in the warm air.

"What a horrible dream!" he muttered to himself, drawing his hand across his damp forehead. "I must have dozed in the warm air; yet I did not think I slept. The storm seemed so real, and the spirit with the flaming sword--"

At the thought of the spirit he scrambled to his feet and limped across the grass to the church. The bronze image of the archangel stood in its niche, its hands resting as of yore on the hilt of the great sword.

Robert peered at it with eyes still dazzled, and he babbled to himself weakly.

"That image seemed to quicken, but now it is no more than motionless bronze. I slept; I dreamed, and the lying vision has shaken me. I am wet with sweat and my knees tremble. I will go into the chapel and pray."

He moved a little farther to ascend the steps, conscious of an unfamiliar heaviness, unconscious of transformation. But as he made to set his foot upon the lowest of the steps leading to the church, its doors were thrown wide open, and to Robert's astonishment the congregation began to issue forth, headed by the archbishop of Syracuse, and ranged themselves in a double rank on the semicircle of the steps as if forming a lane for one who was yet to come.

For a moment, in his rage, speech seemed denied to Robert as he glared at the many-colored crowd before him--the fair ladies of honor, butterfly bright; the slim, Italianate youths, fantastically foppish; the smooth, eager priesthood; the soldiers weary of ceremonial but indifferent to fatigue; the sturdy bulk, blue eyes, and yellow hair of the Northern Guards. They paid no heed to Robert, standing there below them; their glances were all for the open portal of the church and its depths beyond of cool twilight.

Rage overcame amazement and gave Robert back his speech.

"How is this, my lord archbishop?" he cried out in a great voice--"I bade you wait within the church till I came."

The archbishop, hearing this sudden appeal to him, turned for a moment his wrinkled, astute face in the direction of the speaker, and, following his example for the moment, all the others turned their indifferent eyes upon Robert. Some of the pretty she-things whispered and tittered. The archbishop spoke in a voice of gentle petulance.

"Peace, fool!" he said, and waved his jewelled hand in gentle reproof of importunacy. If the jewelled hand had struck Robert brutally in the face it could not more have staggered him. All the air seemed to glow red around him; his reason surrendered itself to fury at this unmeaning, indecent affront.

"Are you mad, priest?" he gasped, pointing a hand that trembled with passion at the prelate, who had turned away from him and was again gazing reverentially into the church. The women now were laughing outright, but most of the men had only frowns for the unseemly license of a court buffoon. Sigurd Blue Wolf, the captain of the Varangians, moved leisurely down a step.

"Stand aside, fellow!" he said, placidly, in his large voice of Northern command. He had some pity in his heart for the misshapen thing.

"Where did the buffoon spring from?" Faustina whispered behind her fan to Messalinda.

Robert had no eyes for the laughing, frowning faces; no ears for the bidding of Sigurd. He mouthed at the archbishop, foam on his lips and blood in his eyes.

"You shall hang for this were you ten times archbishop!" he cried. He could not understand the madness, the audacity of his people; his anger could not pause in its gallop to make coherent question, to frame coherent answer. A slim, courtier creature, a thing of jewels and feathers, perched on the lowest tier of the steps, admonished him with a shake of scented fingers. Through his frenzy Robert remembered that only last night he made this same courtier serve him as a foot-stool.

"Do you dare to speak thus to your King?" he gasped, tearing at the breast of his jerkin in a new-felt difficulty of breathing, a new-felt longing for air.

Messalinda turned to those about her as one who held the key to the riddle.

"This is how he played the King yesterday," she said, "and earned the King's displeasure."

The others nodded. They knew Diogenes' pertinacity with a joke. Yolande gave voice to the general feeling:

"It is ever the worst of these mountebanks, that they will harp on a dull jest."

The archbishop, irritated at the continuance of the talking and brawling, averted his eyes a moment from the interior of the church, and turned them again upon Robert, who stood as if rooted to his place, the image of a fighting beast at bay.

"You presume too much upon our patience," he said, sharply. "You will vex the King again." As he spoke he glanced in the direction of Sigurd Blue Wolf, a significant glance, suggesting that it was time these interruptions should be ended. Sigurd moved leisurely a little nearer to Robert, who did not heed him, heeding only the archbishop. Through his bewildered mind bewildering thoughts were flitting. What was the meaning of this strange jest at his expense? Could the archbishop believe that he would ever pardon so preposterous an enormity? Yet now a kind of fear crept in upon his rage, as he heard the priest use the name of the King.

"I am the King," he asserted, hotly. "What ribaldry is this? I am the King!"

A chorus of derisive laughter came from his spectators, amused at the insistence of the fool. After all, if Diogenes chose to jeopardize his head, what was it to them? Robert glared at all those familiar faces that dared to regard him so familiarly. Every contemptuous glance of their eyes, every mocking note of their voices were so many arrows, stinging his tortured mind beyond endurance. Was this some sick dream from which a mighty effort of will should set him free?

"This is dangerous sport, to tease the lion!" he yelled. "Now, by my royal word--"

He made a stride forward as if to advance upon his tormentors. Sigurd Blue Wolf advanced, caught him by the arm and whispered to him, not unkindly:

"His Majesty is at his prayers within. You were wise to slip away ere he comes out, for the sight of you may anger him. Quick, fool, into the wood."

Robert tried in vain to shake off his mighty grasp. He beat ineffectually at the Northman's breast as he might have beaten at a gate of brass.

"Insolent fool!" he screamed. "How can the King be within when I stand here? I am the King!"

But even as he spoke he stiffened as a man suddenly struck with catalepsy. For again all eyes were turned away from him to the doorway of the church, and there, framed in that doorway, Robert's haggard eyes saw his own image, his royal likeness, his very self. So had he seen himself that morning in his Venetian mirror--the familiar smooth face and waved hair, the familiar carriage, the chosen robes and gold and jewels. All present, save only Robert, saluted Robert's double reverentially, Sigurd released his grasp of Robert's arm, and then on Robert's stricken ears came the sound of his own voice from the threshold of the church.

"Who says he is the King?" his own voice asked. The archbishop turned to him who spoke and answered, "Sire, your fool in a most unseemly humor plagues us."

Into Robert's distraught brain there leaped some wild idea of conspiracy, of intrigue to supplant him by the means of some pretender fashioned like himself.

"Who is this impostor?" he cried, and, turning to Sigurd, he commanded, "Seize him, soldiers!"

Sigurd answered with a blow like the butt of a ram.

"Silence, dog!" he shouted, now out of all patience. Robert reeled under an insult bitterer than the blow, and insanity overswept his senses.

"Traitors! villains!" he cried, and clapped his hand to his girdle, where his sword-hilt should have been. But no sword-hilt answered to his eager fingers. Mad, confused thoughts of treachery mastered him. "Where is my sword?" he cried. "Who has disarmed me while I slept?" A wild sense of defied kingship flooded his spirit. "With my naked hands I will overthrow this treason."

Blindly, idly, he flung himself forward, meaning to scale the steps and grapple with his parallel, but in a moment the strong arms of Sigurd held him in the grip of a bear. Then he who stood at the summit of the steps, and wore the likeness of the lord of Sicily, lifted his hand and spoke, and his voice was as the voice of King Robert in the ears of all men there save only one, save only Robert the King, struggling in the grip of Sigurd Blue Wolf, and to him, through the cruel echo of his own speech there seemed to ring some note of tones heard in a dream, a dream of a bronze image that quickened and spoke words of doom.

"Do him no hurt," said the kingly presence, gently. "He is mad, and madness needs compassion. Let him be in peace, and those of you who are pitiful may well pray for him. Let us go hence, friends."

"You hear what the King says," Sigurd growled in Robert's ear. "To your knees, fool!" Robert struggled helplessly to release himself, crying, "I am the King!" whereat Sigurd, dropping his strong hands on his captive's shoulders and repeating, angrily, "To your knees, fool!" forced him ignominiously to the ground, first tottering on his knees and then collapsing in a huddle on the ground.

The kingly presence on the steps surveyed the grovelling, abject thing in the fool's livery with an implacable smile.

"Remember," he said, softly, and the word beat upon Robert's brain like the blow of a hammer. Then he came slowly down the steps through the lane of adoring faces. As he came to the last, Sigurd, as if fearing some further attempt on the part of the fool, set his heavy foot on Robert's back where he sprawled, and pinned him to the ground. But Robert made no struggle. Unchallenged, his presentment passed to the edge of the mountain-path, and, descending, disappeared, followed by whispering courtiers, full of the King's mercy to a brawling fool.

Sigurd lifted his foot from the fallen man and headed his Varangians.

Ladies and youths, priests and soldiers, all in their turn and order descended the slope of the hill, and Syracuse swallowed them up in time.

But the man in the fool's motley lay on his face on the grass and made no sign of life.

VII

DISCROWNED, DISHONORED

The red shield of the sun had slipped into the sea, the warm twilight had glided into warm night, and the yellow circle of the perfect moon glowed in a sea-blue sky. To your Sicilian the moon is ever a marvel, a mystical influence, now generous, now maleficent, always portentous. One salutes in her the spirit of Diana; another sees on that yellow disk only the awful face of Cain; to yet a third the moon is nothing more nor less than a baker's daughter; while a fourth will swear that she is the sister of the sun, who loved her brother too well and is condemned, in punishment for her sin, to drift forever in solitude through the skies.

But whatever the moon meant to each, all paid the moon homage. Lovers in Syracuse, wandering in grove or garden, looked up at it, thinking sweet thoughts, uttering sweet words, and then, looking into each other's eyes, forgot the world as their lips met. Poets in Syracuse, catching sight of the moon through their open casemates, abandoned lamp and parchment, and, propping their chins on their hands, stared at that enigmatic field of silver and believed themselves to be inspired.

Philosophers in Syracuse, pacing quiet streets, smiled at the ancient of days and sighed over their flying shadows, symbolical of much. Needy folk, greedy folk, showed pieces of silver to it, singing: