Maria saved my life at the peril of her own.
She has no more devoted servant than I am. Trust me to prove it."

"Chiesa! Chiesa! Madonna! Heed the Duke!" cried the mob. And then, "Let
the Duke go up and win us our lady."

"That he shall never do," said Grifone, and came down from the window.

Molly, seeing the cunning in his eyes, backed to the wall.

Time does not serve, and pity forbids, that I should dwell upon this
misery. What she may have wailed, what he withstood who loved her once,
I have no care to set down at large. He strangled her with cruel,
vivacious hands, and then (since time had pressed, and all his passion
not been pent in one wicked place) fell to kissing the flouted clay.
Getting up from this tribute, he was faced by Cesare Borgia and his men;
by Cesare who, used to such stratagems as this of late, had had the
whole story out of Ludovic at Milan, and forestalled Nona by buying up
the troop of "Centaurs" before ever he entered the city. Thus had
Amilcare been sold by his own purchase, and thus Grifone griped in his
own springe. Cesare found him, I say, and Grifone knew in the first
crossing of their eyes that his hour had come.

He bore it without a wink, and lucky he might think it that for Cesare
also the time was short. He was sooner dead than he dared to hope, and
died cursing the name of Borgia. But that was a seasoned name.

"The populace is on fire, Highness," reported a breathed captain. "It
clamours for the Duchess of Nona. We can hardly hold them much longer,
strong as we are. We must show her, though I perceive that her
Excellency has fainted."

"She is dead, man," said Cesare shortly, wiping his pair of daggers.

"It is a pity, Highness. _Ma----!_" He shrugged the end to his period.

Cesare looked at the girl and shrugged in his turn.

"Luckily it is dark. We must play them that trick they played on Borgo
San Domino. She must be put in a litter, and at the palace see to it
that the lights are behind her before ever you set her up in the window.
Do what you can for us, Ercole."

They worked their best to compose that pitiful dead. She had suffered
much, and showed it. Her wide eyes were horrible. And there was little
time for more than to order her dress and neck-jewels, and to smooth out
her brown hair.

"H'm," said Cesare, "you have made little of it; but at a distance it
may serve our turn until the troops arrive. Is the litter below? Good.
_Avanti!_"

The church bells ra