“I do not think he is a coward,” said she. (O, but those words were sweet! and for the first time I blessed her.) “But coward or no coward, he is our hostage, and you must not kill him.”

He turned to the priest, who all this while had stood with head on one side, eyes aslant, and the air and attitude of a stranger who having stumbled on a family squabble politely awaits its termination.

“Father Domenico, is my sister right?  And may I not kill this man?”

“She is right,” answered the reverend father, with something like a sigh.  “You cannot kill him consistently with honour, though I admit the provocation to be great.  The Princess appears to have committed herself to something like a pledge.”  He paused here, and with his tongue moistened his loose lips.  “Moreover,” he continued, “to kill him, on our present information, would be inadvisable.  I know—­at least I have heard—­something of this Sir John Constantine whom the young man asserts to be his father; and, by what has reached me, he is capable of much.”

“Do you mean,” asked the Prince, bridling angrily, “that I am to fear him?”

“Not at all,” the priest answered quickly, still with his eyes aslant.  “But, from what I have heard, he was fortunate, long ago, to earn the esteem of the good lady your mother, and”—­he paused and felt for his snuff-box—­“it would appear that the trick runs in the family.”

“By God, then, if I may not kill him, I may at least improve on my sister’s treatment,” swore the young man.  “Made him her swine-keeper, did she?  I will promote him a step.  Here, you!  Take and truss him by the heels!—­and fetch me a chain, one of you, from the forage-shed. . . .”

In the short time it took him to devise my punishment the Prince displayed a devilishly ingenious turn of mind.  Within ten minutes under his careful directions they had me down flat on my back in the filth of the sty, with my neck securely chained to a post of the palisade, my legs outstretched, and either ankle strapped to a peg.  My hands they left free, to supply me (as the Prince explained) with food and drink:  that is to say, to reach for the loaf and the pannikin of water which Marc’antonio, under orders, fetched from the hut and laid beside me.  Marc’antonio’s punishment (for bearing witness to the truth) was to be my gaoler and sty-keeper in my room.  He was promised, moreover, the job of hanging me as soon as my comrades returned.

In this pleasant posture they left me, whether under surveillance or not I could not tell, being unable to turn my head, and scarce able even to move it an inch either way.

So I lay and stared up at the sky, until the blazing sun outstared me.  I will dwell on none of my torments but this, which toward midday became intolerable.  Certainly I had either died or gone mad under it, but that my hands were free to shield me; and these I turned in the blistering glare as a cook turns a steak on the gridiron.  Now and again I dabbled them in the pannikin beside me, very carefully, ekeing out the short supply of water.