Suddenly, at that very minute, with such weird effect that some of the little band dreamt they had died already, there pealed through the Castle square what seemed the enchanted answer of their shouting, not that savage cry of vengeance, but a yet stranger, a yet wilder tumult,--the blowing of a hundred horns with rattling hoof-beats to mark the measure. And forthwith from the great North Road poured into the square at full gallop, their horses foaming and steaming, a troop of cavalry in the radiant panoply of the Royal Alsandrian Frontier Guard. In the hush caused by their astounding entry their burly colonel put up a megaphone and bawled, "Cease fire in the name of the Princess! All fighting to cease!" However, without waiting for this command to take effect the troopers laid on with their long whips and drove back the rabble to one corner of the square, at the same time forming guard round Norman and their fellow soldiers of the Palace.
The Englishman and his followers leant back half dead against the blood-stained marble, stunned by this deliverance, too weak to ask one question of their rescuers. And then down into the midst of the square towards them, escorted by one whom many knew to be the old Count Arnolfo, on a great glistening black horse, rode the Princess Ianthe.
"And where," she cried, "is the King of Alsander?" and at the very moment of her asking her eyes lighted full on Norman.
She was bronze helmeted, a very Athena, and dressed in the gold and green uniform of the Alsandrian Riders, but it was Ianthe the woman who commanded the square, calling for her King. Her face indeed still looked boyish enough, with her hair half hidden by the flashing helmet; and her young body looked so slim in the handsome uniform that it might well have been a lad's. The large dark eyes, aglow with intelligence, had dominated the face of the boy; but as she caught sight of Norman she smiled gently: and it was the strange smiling of her perfect mouth that revealed Ianthe an enchantress among women. That smile, which da Vinci caught years ago and fixed in a picture whose destiny has proved as restless as its charm--the smile of the boy-like Renaissance women--of the women who knew art and history and secrets beautiful and tragic which have perished with their smiles--such a smile played over the face of Ianthe as she bent her eyes down to her wounded lover, leaning wearily on his dripping sword. And he, looking up, saw in amaze the new apparition of her splendour--that special and rare beauty of a woman whose life is ruled by passionate intelligence: and he cried out, "O Queen of Alsander!" and as she dismounted flung his sword on the ground before her.