Charles followed them, unresisting, to the fatal balcony where Andre had
been hanged. He was there asked if he desired to confess, and when he
said yes, they brought a monk from the sane convent where the terrible
scene had been enacted: he listened to the confession of all his sins,
and granted him absolution. The duke at once rose and walked to the
place where Andre had been thrown down for the cord to be put round his
neck, and there, kneeling again, he asked his executioners--

"Friends, in pity tell me, is there any hope for my life?"

And when they answered no, Charles exclaimed:

"Then carry out your instructions."

At these words, one of the equerries plunged his sword into his breast,
and the other cut his head off with a knife, and his corpse was thrown
over the balcony into the garden where Andre's body had lain for three
days unburied.




CHAPTER VII

The King of Hungary, his black flag ever borne before him, started for
Naples, refusing all offered honours, and rejecting the canopy beneath
which he was to make his entry, not even stopping to give audience to
the chief citizens or to receive the acclamations of the crowd. Armed
at all points, he made for Castel Nuovo, leaving behind him dismay and
fear. His first act on entering the city was to order Dona Cancha to be