Part 29 (1/2)

”There was the nephew, Almerico--much in temper because thy n.o.ble uncle the Contarini would not yield up to his traitorous care the Castle of Cerines for the signature forced from the Queen. There was Fabrici--the very Reverend, the Primate of Cyprus. And then--and then--not last, but first, and deepest and darkest traitor of them all--the very darkest villain of them all--there was Rizzo!”

”Ecciva! Not Rizzo!--the land is free of him!”

”Aye, _Rizzo_, child. Did I tell thee I had news? And for their absences may Heaven be praised!--though, truly, they have deserved worse.”

”They have deserved _death_,” said Eloisa solemnly: ”death between the columns of the Piazzetta--death and confiscation.”

”So, my Venetian, thou never wilt remember that we are Cyprians! The drama of confiscation will surely follow upon their deserts, and there will be fiefs the more for their Cyprian betters. But as for death--'death between the columns'--I could almost be glad that Rizzo hath escaped. How shall one not admire the masterful scheming of the man, and the insolence and power of him?--he is fairly great in wile.--Have I not told thee news enough, and of a quality to make thy hair stand on end--the comely hair of a most decorous young Venetian maid?--and thou hast never a word of admiration. Verily, thou art tiresome!”

”It is so terrible, Ecciva: I cannot jest, nor gloat on it for news.”

”There, there, sweet child!” Ecciva had slipped easily back into her old, mocking, taunting way--”go look out thy tire for the morrow and try on thy jewels, for the pageant will be fine: and, do thy best, I shall outs.h.i.+ne thee--thee and the Dama Margherita! One pageant in six months of woe--it is not over much.”

XXVI

The pageant had been brilliant, as one may read in the chronicles of the time.

Even the Queen of the Adriatic, in all her pride, could offer little to surpa.s.s the splendor of this great esplanade by the sea where the review had been held. The pavement of costly mosaic stretched along the coast, guarded by the lofty tower which jutted out upon the sea; while the other side of this unusual piazza was dominated by the famous Citadel which climbed the steep acclivity with intricate windings of crenellated walls, dotted with sentry towers where banners were floating. In that clear atmosphere distance was not appreciable, and the castellated slopes seemed to lead up to the highest peak of the Troodos, whose snow-crowned summit flashed its crystal against the deep blue of the Cyprian sky.

The ma.s.sive walls of modern Famagosta skirted the esplanade, and above their mighty bulwark rose the domes and pinnacles of her palaces and churches--a city of delight. There were strange monuments breaking the sky-line; there were statues and fountains gleaming in the sunlight; there were hedges of rose and myrtle outlining the terraced gardens on the hill-slopes, where rioted all manner of fruits and bloom: back of them the vineyards of Varoschia--lemons, burning like topaz against the dark thatch of their glossy leaves, and near them the thin gray of the olive-trees, outlining with pale shadow the forests that spread to the mountains.

Vast vases of stone looked down from the heights in grotesque shapes--serpents coiled, thrusting out their tongues tipped with rubies, with glaring emeralds for eyes: and below them, deep cut in the living rock and blazoned so that one might read them from afar, the arms of the kingdom--as if sacred pythons, terrible and fierce, kept watch above the harbor for the honor of the realm.

And far off, against that wonderful mountain background, a colossal marble lion stood guard over the ruins of the city that slept upon the coast below--with demoniac, fiery eyes of flas.h.i.+ng jewels, striking terror to the souls of mariners who might have wandered with sacrilegious feet among those crumbling tombs and temples in search of buried treasure.

For this buried city on the coast was the ancient city of Salamis, and famed for her magnificence--the _Famagosta Vecchia_ which had furnished many a stately column and intricately wrought carving to enrich the modern city to which Ja.n.u.s had transferred the capital of his kingdom.

Half-buried fragments of palaces and tombs and temples reached far along the coast, giving the touch of pathos and historic interest: and about them swept the broken circles of the splendid aqueduct which, in the days long past, had gathered the waters of the mountain streams to furnish the countless fountains and cisterns of Salamis. Great palms had sprung up in the fissures of the ma.s.sive, gra.s.s-grown arches, and vines trailed draperies of beauty over their decay--and so they stood, a monument to the past, challenging the dwellers of the modern city to a labor so needful for the public weal.

The port was gay with trading s.h.i.+ps and colors of many lands; but Mutio di Costanzo studied it with frowning brows, noting only the absence of his own galleys of Cyprus, which lay, unmanned in the dock-yards by order of King Ja.n.u.s the Second! And before them, where he turned his gaze, still frowning, on the silver of the sea rode the galleys of the fleet of Venice--decked with the banners of San Marco and of Cyprus.

Caterina, under her canopy, with all her court about her in fullest state, had received the homage of the people, as she pa.s.sed her forces in review, her cheek tingling with honest pleasure at their enthusiastic greeting. The little Prince had been beside her, crowing his delight at the music, the motion, the noise, the color, in most unkingly fas.h.i.+on, quite unconscious that the storied jewel of his realm--the great ruby that Peter the Valiant had received as the tribute of a conquered Eastern city, glittering in the lace of his infant-cap, by way of royal insignia--demanded a regal bearing.

The presentation to the Mocenigo of the golden s.h.i.+eld, richly inlaid with the arms of Cyprus, had made a pretty scenic episode, quite worthy of dramatic Venice.

For Mutio di Costanzo also, and for the Bernardini, there had been demonstrations, as Dama Ecciva had foretold: but the Lady Margherita de Iblin had noticed with uneasiness, that whereas it was a time when the people, high and low, should have a.s.sembled to testify their loyalty and affection, the crowd was chiefly composed of burghers and peasants from the hamlets in city neighborhoods, and that many of the old Cyprian n.o.bles with their tenantry were conspicuously absent. And since the death of Ja.n.u.s, some of those who had formerly been in attendance at court, had rarely shown themselves there.

Dama Margherita spoke of this afterwards to the Admiral, for he had asked for some private conversation with her in her boudoir, when the ceremonies should be over.

”What mean these absences?” she asked, when they had bemoaned the situation.

”Venice is feared, not loved,” he answered her.

But she was unwilling to confess that she understood him, having a pride in her land and love for her Queen.

”Pardon, your Excellency,” she said, ”we were speaking of Cyprus.”

He pa.s.sed the interruption by as unworthy, being greatly in earnest.