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 passed over her as he spoke of Este's danger. She dropped her head on her breast and drew Este towards the inner chambers with both hands.

'He is right,' she said. 'Come, oh my love! Come!'

Even in that moment of supreme peril and fear, the eyes of Este shone with a great triumph.

He glanced at Sanctis; then went.

Sanctis, left alone in the chamber of the Lucumo, heard the sound of their retreating steps as they passed across the other cells and began to ascend the rocks without.

Then he sat down on the stone bier where the Etruscan prince had lain in his golden armour, and placed his pistols beside him. He had received so great a shock that it seemed to him as if the very pulse of his life had stopped; but he was quite calm, and he listened for the sounds without with the fine ear that was his mountaineer's heritage,

As he had walked down through the woods that afternoon from Præstanella, he had overheard a scheme discussed between the father of Zefferino and two charcoal-burners of the oak forests below San Lionardo.