They uttered appropriate sentiments, and again the old man changed the subject and broke new ground.

“There was a prince—­not your old dog—­but a royal lad of the East—­Prince Djem, the brother of the Sultan Bajazet.  Do you know that story?  Possibly not—­it is unimportant enough, and to this day the sequel of the incident is buried in a mystery as profound as that of the Grey Room.  Our later historians whitewash Alexander VI. concerning the matter of Prince Djem; but then it is so much the habit of later historians to whitewash everybody.  A noble quality in human nature perhaps—­to try and see the best, even while one can only do so by ignoring the worst.  Certainly, as your poet says, ‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder’; or, at any rate, softer.  There is a tendency to side with the angels where we are dealing with historic dead.  Nero, Caligula, Calvin, Alva, Napoleon, Torquemada—­all these monsters and portents, and a thousand such blood-bespattered figures are growing whiter as they grow fainter.  They will have wings and haloes presently.  Yet not for me.  I am a good hater, my friends.  But Prince Djem—­I wander so.  You should be more severe with me and keep me to my point.  Sultan Bajazet wanted his younger brother out of the way, and he paid the Papacy forty thousand ducats a year to keep the young fellow a prisoner in Italy.  It was a gilded captivty and doubtless the dissolute Oriental enjoyed himself quite as well at Rome as he would have done in Constantinople.  But after Alexander had achieved the triple tiara, Bajazet refused to pay his forty thousand ducats any longer.  The Pope, therefore, wrote strongly to the Sultan, telling him that the King of France designed to seize Prince Djem and go to war on his account against the Turks.  This does not weary you?”

“No, indeed,” declared Mary.

“Alexander added, that to enable him to resist the French and spare Bajazet’s realms the threatened invasion, a sum of forty thousand ducats must be immediately forthcoming.  The Sultan, doubtless appalled by such a threat, despatched the money with a private letter.  He was as great a diplomat as the Pope himself, and saw a way to evade this gigantic annual impost by compounding on the death of Djem.  Unfortunately for him, however, both the papal envoy and Bajazet’s own messenger were captured upon their return journey by the brother of Cardinal della Rovere—­Alexander’s bitterest enemy.  Thus the contents of the secret letter became known, and the Christian world heard with horror how Bajazet had offered the occupant of St. Peter’s throne three hundred thousand ducats to assassinate Prince Djem!

“Time passed, and the Pope triumphed over his enemies.  He prepared to abandon the person of the young Turk to Charles of France, and effectively checkmated the formidable Rovere for a season.  But then, as we know, Prince Djem suddenly perished, and while latest writers declare that he actually reached France, only to die there, ruined by his own debaucheries, I, for one, have not accepted that story.  He never reached France, my friends, for be sure Alexander VI. was not the man to let any human life stand between his treasury and three hundred thousand ducats.”