“How did you come here, Martina?” I asked.

“I still have the signet, Olaf, which Irene, who begins to mistrust me, forgets.  Only this morning I learned the truth on my return to the palace; yet I have not been idle.  Within an hour Jodd and the Northmen knew it also.  Within three they had blinded every hostage whom they held, aye, and caught two of the brutes who did the deed on you, and crucified them upon their barrack walls.”

“Oh!  Martina,” I broke in, “I did not desire that others who are innocent should share my woes.”

“Nor did I, Olaf; but these Northmen are ill to play with.  Moreover, in a sense it was needful.  You do not know what I have learned—­that to-morrow Irene proposed to slit your tongue also because you can tell too much, and afterwards to cut off your right hand lest you, who are learned, should write down what you know.  I told the Northmen—­never mind how.  They sent a herald, a Greek whom they had captured, and, covering him with arrows, made him call out that if your tongue was slit they would know of it and slit the tongues of all the hostages also, and that if your hand was cut off they could cut off their hands, and take another vengeance which for the present they keep secret.”

“At least they are faithful,” I said.  “But, oh! tell me, Martina, what of Heliodore?”

“This,” she whispered into my ear.  “Heliodore and her father sailed an hour after sunset and are now safe upon the sea, bound for Egypt.”

“Then I was right!  When Irene told me she was dead she lied.”

“Aye, if she said that she lied, though thrice she has striven to murder her, I have no time to tell you how, but was always baffled by those who watched.  Yet she might have succeeded at last, so, although Heliodore fought against it, it was best that she should go.  Those who are parted may meet again; but how can we meet one who is dead until we too are dead?”

“How did she go?”

“Smuggled from the city disguised as a boy attending on a priest, and that priest her father shorn of his beard and tonsured.  The Bishop Barnabas passed them out in his following.”

“Then blessings on the Bishop Barnabas,” I said.

“Aye, blessings on him, since without his help it could never have been done.  The secret agents at the port stared hard at those two, although the good bishop vouched for them and gave their names and offices.  Still, when they saw some rough-looking fellows dressed like sailors approach, playing with the handles of their knives, the agents thought well to ask no more questions.  Moreover, now that the ship has sailed, for their own sakes they’ll swear that no such priest and boy went aboard of her.  So your Heliodore is away unharmed, as is her father, though his mission has come to naught.  Still, his life is left in him, for which he may be thankful, who on such a business should have brought no woman.  If he had come alone, Olaf, your eyes would have been left to you, and set by now upon the orb of empire that your hand had grasped.”