The priest was silent.  Two minutes passed, and these four persons, each absorbed in his own thoughts, stood motionless as statues carved at the four corners of a tomb.  Marie was thrice tempted to throw herself into the sea.  But a confused distant sound suddenly struck upon her ears:  little by little it drew nearer, voices were more distinctly heard; women in the street were uttering cries of distress—­

“Fly, fly!  God has forsaken us; the Hungarians are in the town!”

The tears of Marie’s children were the answer to these cries; and little Margaret, raising her hands to her mother, expressed her fear in speech that was far beyond her years.  Renaud, without one look at this touching picture, drew his son towards the door.

“Stay,” said the princess, extending her hand with a solemn gesture:  “as God sends no other aid to my children, it is His will that the sacrifice be accomplished.”

She fell on her knees before the priest, bending her head like a victim who offers her neck to the executioner.  Robert des Baux took his place beside her, and the priest pronounced the formula that united them for ever, consecrating the infamous deed by a sacrilegious blessing.

“All is over!” murmured Marie of Durazzo, looking tearfully on her little daughters.

“No, all is not yet over,” said the admiral harshly, pushing her towards another room; “before we leave, the marriage must be consummated.”

“O just God!” cried the princess, in a voice torn with anguish, and she fell swooning to the floor.

Renaud des Baux directed his ships towards Marseilles, where he hoped to get his son crowned Count of Provence, thanks to his strange marriage with Marie of Durazzo.  But this cowardly act of treason was not to go unpunished.  The wind rose with fury, and drove him towards Gaeta, where the queen and her husband had just arrived.  Renaud bade his sailors keep in the open, threatening to throw any man into the sea who dared to disobey him.  The crew at first murmured; soon cries of mutiny rose on every side.  The admiral, seeing he was lost, passed from threats to prayers.  But the princess, who had recovered her senses at the first thunder-clap, dragged herself up to the bridge and screamed for help,

“Come to me, Louis!  Come, my barons!  Death to the cowardly wretches who have outraged my honour!”

Louis of Tarentum jumped into a boat, followed by some ten of his bravest men, and, rowing rapidly, reached the ship.  Then Marie told him her story in a word, and he turned upon the admiral a lightning glance, as though defying him to make any defence.

“Wretch!” cried the king, transfixing the traitor with his sword.

Then he had the son loaded with chains, and also the unworthy priest who had served as accomplice to the admiral, who now expiated his odious crime by death.  He took the princess and her children in his boat, and re-entered the harbour.