r Ramiro must have hurled himself forward, for I felt my ankle
caught in a grip from which there was no escaping, and I was roughly and
brutally dragged back and down those stairs; now my head, now my breast
beating against the steps as I descended them one by one.

But even in that hour the letter was my first thought, and I found a way
to thrust it farther under my girdle so that it should not be seen.

At last I reached the hall, half-stunned, and with all the misery of
defeat and the certainty of the futility of my death to further torture
my last moments. Over me stood Ramiro, his dagger upheld, ready to
strike.

"Dog!" he taunted me, "your sands are run."

"Mercy, Magnificent," I gasped. "I have done nothing to deserve your
poniard."

He laughed brutally, delaying his stroke that he might prolong my agony
for his drunken entertainment.

"Address your prayers to Heaven," he mocked me, "and let them concern
your soul."

And then, like a flash of inspiration came the words that should delay
his hand.

"Spare me," I cried "for I am in mortal sin."

Impious, abandoned villain, though he was, he said too much when he
boasted that he feared neither God nor Devil. He was prone to forget
his God, and the lessons that as a babe he had learnt at his mother's
knee--for I take it that even Ramiro del' Orca had once been a babe--but
deep down in his soul there had remained the fear of Hell and an almost
instinctive obedience to the laws of Mother Church. He could perform
such ruthless cruelties as that of hurling a page into the fire to
punish his clumsiness; he could rack and stab and hang men with the
least shadow of compunction or twinge of conscience, but to slay a man
who professed himself to be in mortal sin was a deed too appalling even
for this ruthless butcher.

He hesitated a second, then he lowered his hand, his face telling me
clearly how deeply he grudged me the respite which, yet, he dared not do
other than accord me.

"Where shall I find me a priest?" he grumbled. "Think you the Citadel of
Cesena is a monastery? I will wait while you make an act of contrition
for your sins. It is all the shrift I can afford you. And get it done,
for it is time I was abed. You shall have five minutes in which to clear
your soul."

By this it seemed to me--as it may well seem to you--that matters were
but little mended, and instead of employing the respite he accorded me
in the pious collecting of thoughts which he