No lancet then could save! Apoplexy had run much in the families of the enemies of the Visconti! The hour of the feast arrived,--the guests assembled.

There were the flower of the Neapolitan seignorie, the descendants of the Norman, the Teuton, the Goth; for Naples had then a nobility, but derived it from the North, which has indeed been the Nutrix Leonum,--the nurse of the lion-hearted chivalry of the world.
Last of the guests came Zanoni; and the crowd gave way as the dazzling foreigner moved along to the lord of the palace.

The prince greeted him with a meaning smile, to which Zanoni answered by a whisper, "He who plays with loaded dice does not always win." The prince bit his lip, and Zanoni, passing on, seemed deep in conversation with the fawning Mascari.
"Who is the prince's heir ?" asked the guest.
"A distant relation on the mother's side; with his Excellency dies the male line." "Is the heir present at our host's banquet ?" "No; they are not friends." "No matter; he will be here to-morrow." Mascari stared in surprise; but the signal for the banquet was given, and the guests were marshalled to the board.

As was the custom then, the feast took place not long after mid-day.

It was a long, oval hall, the whole of one side opening by a marble colonnade upon a court or garden, in which the eye rested gratefully upon cool fountains and statues of whitest marble, half-sheltered by orange-trees.