d have
seen the betraying arms upon the ring of his masked visitor--fled also,
nor could be induced to return save under a safe-conduct from the Holy
Father, expressing conviction of his innocence.

Later public rumour accused others; indeed, they accused in turn every
man who could have been a possible perpetrator, attributing to some of
them the most fantastic and incredible motives. Once, prompted no doubt
by their knowledge of the libertine, pleasure-loving nature of the dead
Duke, rumour hit upon the actual circumstances of the murder so closely,
indeed, that the Count of Mirandola's house was visited by the bargelli
and subjected to an examination, at which Pico violently rebelled,
appealing boldly to the Pope against insinuations that reflected upon
the honour of his daughter.

The mystery remained impenetrable, and the culprit was never brought to
justice. We know that in slaying Gandia, Giovanni Sforza vented a hatred
whose object was not Gandia, but Gandia's father. His aim was to deal
Pope Alexander the cruellest and most lingering of wounds, and if he
lacked the avenger's satisfaction of disclosing himself, at least he
did not lack assurance that his blow had stricken home. He heard--as all
Italy heard--from that wayfarer on the bridge of Sant' Angelo, how the
Pope, in a paroxysm of grief at sight of his son's body fished from the
Tiber, had bellowed in his agony like a tortured bull, so that his
cries within the castle were heard upon the bridge. He learnt how the
handsome, vigorous Pope staggered into the consistory of the 19th of
that same month with the mien and gait of a palsied old man, and, in a
voice broken with sobs, proclaimed his bitter lament:

"Had we seven Papacies we would give them all to restore the Duke to
life."

He might have been content. But he was not. That deep hate of his
against those who had made him a thing of scorn was not so easily to be
slaked. He waited, spying his opportunity for further hurt. It came a
year later, when Gandia's brother, the ambitious Cesare Borgia, divested
himself of his cardinalitial robes and rank, exchanging them for
temporal dignities and the title of Duke of Valentinois. Then it was
that he took up the deadly weapon of calumny, putting it secretly about
that Cesare was the murderer of his brother, spurred to it by worldly
ambition and by other motives which involved the principal members of
the family.

Men do not mount to Borgia heights without