By this time we were mounting the stairway.  We passed under the arch—­where a door, shattered and wrenched from its upper hinge, lay askew against the wall—­and climbed to the platform.  From this another flight of steps (but these were of worked granite) led straight as a ladder to a smaller platform at the foot of the keep; and high upon these stood my uncle Gervase directing half a score of monks to right an overturned cannon.

His back was toward me, but he turned as I hailed him by name—­ turned, and I saw that he carried one arm in a sling.  He came down the steps to welcome me, but slowly and with a very grave face.

“My father—­where is he?”

“He is alive, lad.”  My uncle took my hand and pressed it.  “That is to say, I left him alive.  But come and see—­” He paused—­my uncle was ever shy in the presence of women—­and with his sound hand lifted his hat to the Princess.  “The signorina, if she will forgive a stranger for suggesting it—­she may be spared some pain if—­”

“She seeks her mother, sir,” said I, cutting him short; “and her mother is the Queen Emilia.”

“Your servant, signorina.”  My uncle bowed again and with a reassuring smile.  “And I am happy to tell you that, so far at least, our expedition has succeeded.  Your mother lives, signorina—­or, should I say, Princess?  Yes, yes, Princess, to be sure—­But come, the both of you, and be prepared for gladness or sorrow, as may betide.”

He ran up the steps and we followed him, across the platform to a low doorway in the base of the keep, through this, and up a winding staircase of spirals, so steep and so many that the head swam.  Open lancet windows—­one at each complete round of the stair—­ admitted the morning breeze, and through them, as I clung to the newel and climbed dizzily, I had glimpses of the sea twinkling far below.  I counted these windows up to ten or a dozen, but had lost my reckoning for minutes before we emerged, at my uncle’s heels, upon a semi-circular landing, and in face of an iron-studded door, the hasp of which he rattled gently.  A voice answered from within bidding him open, and very softly he thrust the door wide.

The room into which we looked was of fair size and circular in shape.  Three windows lit it, and between us and the nearest knelt Dom Basilio, busy with a web of linen which he was tearing into bandages.  His was the voice that had commanded us to enter; and passing in, I was aware that the room had two other occupants; for behind the door stood a truckle bed, and along the bed lay my father, pale as death and swathed in bandages; and by the foot of the bed, on a stool, with a spinning-wheel beside her, sat a woman.

It needed no second look to tell me her name.  Mean cell though it was that held her, and mean her seat, the worn face could belong to no one meaner than a Queen.  A spool of thread had rolled from her hand, across the floor; yet her hands upon her lap were shaped as though they still held it.  As she sat now, rigid, with her eyes on the bed, she must have been sitting for minutes.  So, while Dom Basilio snipped and rent at his bandages, she gazed at my father on the bed, and my father gazed back into her eyes, drinking the love in them; and the faces of both seemed to shine with a solemn awe.