the
weight of fear and anguish on my already over-burdened mind, and to aid
in what almost seemed an infernal plot to utterly distract me, I had it
in fresh, wild conjectures touching Madonna Paola. Where indeed could
she be that Ramiro's men had failed to find her for all that they had
scoured that part of the country in which I had left her to wait for my
return? What if, by now, worse had befallen her than the capture with
which Ramiro's lieutenant was charged?

With such doubts as these to haunt me, fretted as I was by my utter
inability to take a step in her service, I lay. There for an hour or
so in such agony of mind as is begotten only of suspense. In my girdle
still reposed the treasonable letter from Vitelli to Ramiro, a mighty
weapon with which to accomplish the butcher's overthrow. But how was I
to wield it imprisoned here?

I wondered why Mariani had not returned, only to remember that the
soldier who had locked me in had carried the key of my prison-chamber to
Ramiro.

Suddenly the stillness was disturbed by a faint tap at my door. My
instincts and my reason told me it must be Mariani at last. In an
instant I had leapt from the bed and whispered through the keyhole:

"Who is there?"

"It is I--Mariani--the seneschal," came the old man's voice, very
softly, but nevertheless distinctly. "They have taken the key."

I groaned, then in a gust of passion I fell to cursing Ramiro for that
precaution.

"You have the letter?" came Mariani's voice again.

"Aye, I have it still," I answered.

"Have you seen what it contains?"

"A plot to assassinate the Duke--no less. Enough to get this bloody
Ramiro broken on the wheel."

I was answered by a sound that was as a gasp of malicious joy. Then the
old man's voice added:

"Can you pass it under the door? There is a sufficient gap."

I felt, and found that he was right; I could pass the half of my hand
underneath. I took the letter and thrust it through. His hands fastened
on it instantly, almost snatching it from my fingers before they were
ready to release it.

"Have courage," he bade me. "Listen. I shall endeavour to leave Cesena
in the morning, and I shall ride straight for Faenza. If I find the Duke
there when I arrive, he should be here within some twelve or fourteen
hours of my departure. Fence with Ramiro, temporise if you can till
then, and all will be well with you."

"I will do what I can," I answered him. "But if he slays me in the
meantim