"But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower."
"So it is. The Queen - she built it."
"What Queen?"
"What Queen? Why, the Queen - the Queen the German professor was talking
about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which we found
(sotto voce) in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the poor dead
folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the criminals were
hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times! And this tower is the
Queen's tower."
"But you called it the King's tower just now."
"Just so. That is because the King built it."
"What King?"
"Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I haven't
so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some round
sling-stones which we excavated (sotto voce) in a subterranean crypt - - "
One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal
museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable
collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint
early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved
in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion - one
of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius,
prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria - has sought a refuge here, as
well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection
of modern rubbish.
