"Good night, Monsieur le Marquis," returned the officer with due deference, and accompanied his noble visitor to the door.
At first, without the barracks, the Marquis walked easily on, but soon the steepness of the narrow road, becoming more marked as it approached the commanding structures at the top of the Mount, caused his gait gradually to slacken; then he paused altogether, at an upper platform.
From where he stood, by day could be seen, almost directly beneath, the tiny habitations of men clinging like limpets to the precipitous sides of the rocks at the base; now was visible only a void, an abysm, out of which swam the sea; so far below, a boat looked no larger than a gull on its silver surface; so immense, the dancing waves seemed receding to a limit beyond the reach of the heavens.
"You found him?" A girl's clear voice broke suddenly upon him. He wheeled.
"Yes! why not? You found him? The commandant?"
"It is reported at the castle that the man escaped!" quickly.
"It is true. But," in a voice of languid surprise, "I believe you are glad--"
"No, no!" She shook her head. "Only," a smile curved her lips, "Beppo will be so disappointed! Now," seating herself lightly on the low wall of the giant rampart, "tell me all you have learned about this Black Seigneur."
The Marquis, considered; with certain reservations obeyed. At the conclusion of his narrative, she spoke no word and he turned to her inquiringly. Her brows were knit; her eyes down-bent. A moment he regarded her in silence; then she looked up at him suddenly.
"I wonder," she said, her face bathed in the moonlight, "if--if it was this Black Seigneur I danced with?"
"The Black Seigneur!" My lord started; frowned. "Nonsense! What an absurd fancy! He would not have dared!"
"True," said the girl quickly. "You are right, my Lord. It is absurd. He would not have dared."
But guests come and guests go; pastimes draw to a close, and the hour arrives when the curtain falls on the masque. The friends of my lady, however reluctantly, were obliged at last to forgo further holiday-making, depart from the Mount, and return to the court. An imposing cavalcade, gleaming in crimson and gold, they wended down the dark rock; laughing ladies, pranked-out cavaliers who waved their perfumed hands with farewell kisses to the grim stronghold in the desert, late their palace of pleasure, and to the young mistress thereof.