stopped his entrance. The prince, calling aloud the whole time and
imploring the protection of his friends, returned to the hall; but all
the doors were shut, and no one held out a helping hand; for the queen
was silent, showing no uneasiness about her husband's death.

But the nurse Isolda, terrified by the shouting of her beloved son and
lord, leapt from her bed and went to the window, filling the house with
dreadful cries. The traitors, alarmed by the mighty uproar, although
the place was lonely and so far from the centre of the town that nobody
could have come to see what the noise was, were on the point of letting
their victim go, when Bertrand of Artois, who felt he was more guilty
than the others, seized the prince with hellish fury round the waist,
and after a desperate struggle got him down; then dragging him by the
hair of his head to a balcony which gave upon the garden, and pressing
one knee upon his chest, cried out to the others--

"Come here, barons: I have what we want to strangle him with."

And round his neck he passed a long cord of silk and gold, while the
wretched man struggled all he could. Bertrand quickly drew up the knot,
and the others threw the body over the parapet of the balcony, leaving
it hanging between earth and sky until death ensued. When the Count of
Terlizzi averted his eyes from the horrid spectacle, Robert of Cabane
cried out imperiously--

"What are you doing there? The cord is long enough for us all to hold:
we want not witnesses, we want accomplices!"

As soon as the last convulsive movements of the dying man had ceased,
they let the corpse drop the whole height of the three storeys, and