l be librarian, go secretary to Rome or Florence. I'll have him
about my own person. By the Sons of Heaven, but he's as good as gold!
Ah, I hear him."

The Duke's gentlemen bowed themselves into the room, followed by the
dresser.

"Good morning, my friends," said Borso. "But where is my messenger?"

"Magnificence, he is at the door," said the usher.

"Bring him in, Foppa, bring him in," cried the Duke; "we know each other
by now."

Angioletto was introduced.

"Master Angioletto," the twinkling old tyrant said, "get you downstairs
to the Captain of the Archers. Say to him as follows: 'Captain, my lord
the Duke begs you to conduct me surely to the Castle, and keep me
prisoner there during his Grace's pleasure.' Will you oblige me so far?"

"I shall obey you exactly, my lord Duke," said Angioletto, making a
reverence.

He went at once and gave himself up. In some quarter of an hour's time
he was lodged in the Castle, in a cell upon the level of the moat. Next
door to him on either side (though he knew nothing of it) were two women
who had been brought in with a page-boy over night upon a charge of
murder. Their case, indeed, was one of the first matters which engaged
the attention of Duke Borso after mass.

X

ORDEAL BY ROPE

The prison chills made Olimpia shiver, the prison silences made her
afraid. The wavering moan of the page-boy, who had been tumbled on to a
straw bed after his first bout of the question, drove home the reality
of her situation, and made her sick. Olimpia was one of your snug pretty
women; she loved to be warmed, coaxed, petted; liked her bed, her fire;
liked sweetmeats, and to see people about her go smiling. Mostly, too,
she had had her way in these matters, for she was a beautiful creature,
smooth and handsome as a Persian cat. Jealousy, on this account, was a
new experience; she had never suffered it before, did not realise it
now. Besides, it was over; she had killed her faithless lover. But the
dark, the cold, the silence, the calm enmity of the dim walls--these
were but an intensification of familiar discomforts. She had always been
afraid of the dark, often cold, often quelled by quiet, made sullen by
indifference. She hated all this, and felt it all, in spite of the glory
of the Captain's killing. It seemed more awful now, more unendurable
than ever, because--she knew there was no good disguising it--because it
stood for something else. Ah, ah! she was in danger. So sure