ater. These men had looked carefully about, as if to make
sure that they were not being observed. Seeing no one astir, they made a
sign, whereupon a man well mounted on a handsome white horse, his heels
armed with golden spurs, rode out of that same narrow street. Behind
him, on the crupper of his horse, Giorgio beheld the body of a man, the
head hanging in one direction and the legs in the other. This body was
supported there by two other men on foot, who walked on either side of
the horseman.

Arrived at the water's edge, they turned the horse's hind-quarters to
the river; then, taking the body between them, two of them swung it well
out into the stream. After the splash, Giorgio had heard the horseman
inquire whether they had thrown well into the middle, and had heard
him receive the affirmative answer--"Signor, Si." The horseman then sat
scanning the surface a while, and presently pointed out a dark object
floating, which proved to be their victim's cloak. The men threw stones
at it, and so sank it, whereupon they turned, and all five departed as
they had come.

Such is the boatman's story, as related in the Diarium of Burchard. When
the Pope had heard it, he asked the fellow why he had not immediately
gone to give notice of what he had witnessed, to which this Giorgio
replied that, in his time, he had seen over a hundred bodies thrown into
the Tiber without ever anybody troubling to know anything about them.

This story and Gandia's continued absence threw the Pope into a frenzy
of apprehension. He ordered the bed of the river to be searched foot by
foot. Some hundreds of boatmen and fishermen got to work, and on that
same afternoon the body of the ill-fated Duke of Gandia was brought up
in one of the nets. He was not only completely dressed--as was to
have been expected from Giorgio's story--but his gloves and his purse
containing thirty ducats were still at his belt, as was his dagger, the
only weapon he had carried; the jewels upon his person, too, were all
intact, which made it abundantly clear that his assassination was not
the work of thieves.

His hands were still tied, and there were from ten to fourteen wounds on
his body, in addition to which his throat had been cut.

The corpse was taken in a boat to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, where it
was stripped, washed, and arrayed in the garments of the Captain-General
of the Church. That same night, on a bier, the body covered with a
mantle of brocade, the fa