ed me shrewdly.

"One of your candles fell over and awakened you," said I. "I feared you
might resent my presence, and so I hid."

"You came not near the table?" he inquired. "You saw nothing of the
paper that I held? Nay, by the Host! I'll take no risks. You were born
'neath an unlucky star, fool; for be your reason for your presence here
no more than you assert, you have come in a season that must be fatal to
you."

He set the candle on the table, then carrying his hand to his girdle he
withdrew it sharply, and I caught the gleam of a dagger.

In that instant I thought of Mariani waiting above, and like a flash it
came to me that if I could outpace this drunken brigand, and, gaining
the gallery well ahead of him, transfer that letter to the old man's
hands, I should not die in vain. Cesare Borgia would avenge me, and
Madonna Paola, at least, would be safe from this villain. If Mariani
could reach Valentino at Faenza, I would answer for it that within
four-and-twenty hours Messer Ramiro del' Orca would be the banner on
that ghastly beam that he facetiously dubbed his flagstaff; and he would
be the blackest, dirtiest banner that ever yet had fluttered there.

The thought conceived in the twinkling of an eye, I acted upon without
a second's hesitation. Ere Ramiro had taken his first step towards me,
I had sprung to the stairs and I was leaping up them with the frantic
speed of one upon whose heels death is treading closely.

A singular, fierce joy was blent with my measure of fear; a joy at the
thought that even now, in this extremity, I was outwitting him, for
never a doubt had he that the burnt paper he had found on the table was
all that was left of Vitelli's letter. His fears were that I might have
read it, but never a suspicion crossed his mind of such a trick as I had
played upon him.

So I sped on, the gigantic Ramiro blundering after me, panting and
blaspheming, for although powerful, his bulk and the wine he had taken
left him no nimbleness. The distance between us widened, and if only
Mariani would have the presence of mind to wait for me at the mouth of
the passage, all would be as I could wish it before his dagger found my
heart.

I was assuring myself of this when in the dark I stumbled, and
striking my legs against a stair I hurtled forward. I recovered almost
immediately, but, in my frenzy of haste to make up for the instant lost,
I stumbled a second time ere I was well upon my feet.

With a roa