From this terrace one can overlook both Foggia and Castel
Fiorentino--the beginning and end of the drama; and one follows the
march of this magnificent retribution without a shred of compassion for
the gloomy papal hireling. Disaster follows disaster with mathematical
precision, till at last he perishes miserably, consumed by rage and
despair. Then our satisfaction is complete.

No; not quite complete. For in one point the stupendous plot seems to
have been imperfectly achieved. Why did Roger de Lauria not profit by
his victory to insist upon the restitution of the young brothers of
Beatrix, of those unhappy princes who had been confined as infants in
1266, and whose very existence seems to have faded from the memory of
historians? Or why did Costanza, who might have dealt with her enemy's
son even as Conradin had been dealt with, not round her magnanimity by
claiming her own flesh and blood, the last scions of a great house? Why
were they not released during the subsequent peace, or at least in 1302?
The reason is as plain as it is unlovely; nobody knew what to do with
them. Political reasons counselled their effacement, their
non-existence. Horrible thought, that the sunny world should be too
small for three orphan children! In their Apulian fastness they
remained--in chains. A royal rescript of 1295 orders that they be freed
from their fetters. Thirty years in fetters! Their fate is unknown; the
night of medievalism closes in upon them once more. . . .

Further musings were interrupted by the appearance of a shape which
approached from round the corner of one of the towers. It cams nearer
stealthily, pausing every now and then. Had I evoked, willy-nilly, some
phantom of the buried past?

It was only the custodian, leading his dog Musolino. After a shower of