With these words she yawned slightly, and, lying down
on the straw, fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed
as happy dreams as she had ever dreamed in her life.
On the morrow from break of day there was an immense
crowd on the sea front. During the night an enormous
palisade had been put up to keep the people away far
enough for them to see the accused without hearing
anything. Charles of Durazzo, at the head of a
brilliant cortege of knights and pages, mounted on
a magnificent horse, all in black, as a sign of mourning,
waited near the enclosure. Ferocious joy shone
in his eyes as the accused made their way through
the crowd, two by two, their wrists tied with ropes;
for the duke every minute expected to hear the queen’s
name spoken. But the chief-justice, a man of experience,
had prevented indiscretion of any kind by fixing a
hook in the tongue of each one. The poor creatures
were tortured on a ship, so that nobody should hear
the terrible confessions their sufferings dragged from
them.
But Joan, in spite of the wrongs that most of the
conspirators had done her, felt a renewal of pity
for the woman she had once respected as a mother,
for her childish companions and her friends, and possibly
also some remains of love for Robert of Cabane, and
sent two messengers to beg Bertram de Baux to show
mercy to the culprits. But the chief-justice
seized these men and had them tortured; and on their
confession that they also were implicated in Andre’s
murder, he condemned them to the same punishment as
the others. Dona Cancha alone, by reason of her
situation, escaped the torture, and her sentence was
deferred till the day of her confinement.
As this beautiful girl was returning to prison, with
many a smile for all the handsomest cavaliers she
could see in the crowd, she gave a sign to Charles
of Durazzo as she neared him to come forward, and since
her tongue had not been pierced (for the same reason)
with an iron instrument, she said some words to him
a while in a low voice.
Charles turned fearfully pale, and putting his hand
to his sword, cried—
“Wretched woman!”
“You forget, my lord, I am under the protection
of the law.”
“My mother!—oh, my poor mother!”
murmured Charles in a choked voice, and he fell backward.
The next morning the people were beforehand with the
executioner, loudly demanding their prey. All
the national troops and mercenaries that the judicial
authorities could command were echelonned in the streets,
opposing a sort of dam to the torrent of the raging
crowd. The sudden insatiable cruelty that too
often degrades human nature had awaked in the populace:
all heads were turned with hatred and frenzy; all
imaginations inflamed with the passion for revenge;
groups of men and women, roaring like wild beasts,
threatened to knock down the walls of the prison,
if the condemned were not handed over to them to take
to the place of punishment: a great murmur arose,
continuous, ever the same, like the growling of thunder:
the queen’s heart was petrified with terror.
