a. He laid what
he had left of hands upon her shoulders; he pulled her from the wall; he
set her before him and hugged her close to his breast. Thus he made her
back a shield against the long knife, and with her he fenced and held
off his enemy for minutes more. Olimpia, horribly busy, scorched the
girl's neck with her breath--but she never made to hurt her.

Then came the end. Olimpia made a lunge at his right side. The Captain
hugged Bellaroba there. At the next moment the long knife was below his
left arm, buried to the hilt, and defender and defence rolled heavily to
the floor. Olimpia walked to the table and helped herself to the
Captain's Val Pulicella.

The watch (whom the page had roused after Mosca's first cry) broke in by
the window, disentangled Bellaroba, bound the hands of both prisoners
behind their backs, and marched them and the boy off to the Castle.
Count Guarini, coming in an hour later, found his murdered lieutenant
for his only guest.

IX

SECOND MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION

In that same night of mine and countermine Duke Borso, who had broken up
the circle early by reason of his toothache, went wandering the long
corridors of the Schifanoia under the sting of his scourge. He found his
spacious pleasure-house valueless against that particular annoy, but (as
always) he was the more whimsical for his affliction. Nothing works your
genuine man of humour so nearly as himself. The sight of his own image,
puffed and blinking in nightcap, bed-gown, and slippers, when he came
upon it in a long mirror, set him chuckling. He paused before the absurd
epitome to apostrophise, wagged a finger at it, and got wag for wag. "We
might be two drolls in a pantomime!" said he to his double. "Your arm,
gossip:" he crooked an elbow. "It seems," he continued, "that we are
both sufferers, my poor fellow! Magnificence goes drooping; a swollen
estate does not forbid a jowl of the same proportions; and give me leave
to tell you, brother, that we have each of us been better dressed in our
day. Fie, what a pair of quills below your gown; and what a sorry diadem
to stand for two duchies and a marquisate of uncertain age! Duke and my
brother, if we were to be spied upon by any of our Court just now, what
sort of a reverence should we get, think you? Eh, you rogue, as much as
we deserve! I will tell you, good Borso, my own poor opinion of these
things. A Duke who cannot be dukely in his shirt, a Pope who is but an
afflicted