his
master to see that Caesar and he were about to share some terrible
enterprise.

He signed to him to shut the door. Michelotto obeyed. Then, after a
moment's silence, during which the eyes of Borgia seemed to burn into
the soul of the bravo, who with a careless air stood bareheaded before
ham, he said, in a voice whose slightly mocking tone gave the only sign
of his emotion.

"Michelotto, how do you think this dress suits me?"

Accustomed as he was to his master's tricks of circumlocution, the bravo
was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute,
and only after a few moments' pause was able to say:

"Admirably, monsignore; thanks to the dress, your Excellency has the
appearance as well as the true spirit of a captain."

"I am glad you think so," replied Caesar. "And now let me ask you, do
you know who is the cause that, instead of wearing this dress, which I
can only put an at night, I am forced to disguise myself in the daytime
in a cardinal's robe and hat, and pass my time trotting about from
church to church, from consistory to consistory, when I ought properly
to be leading a magnificent army in the battlefield, where you would
enjoy a captain's rank, instead of being the chief of a few miserable
sbirri?"

"Yes, monsignore," replied Michelotto, who had divined Caesar's meaning
at his first word; "the man who is the cause of this is Francesco, Duke
of Gandia, and Benevento, your elder brother."

"Do you know," Caesar resumed, giving no sign of assent but a nod and
a bitter smile,--"do you know who has all the money and none of the
genius, who has the helmet and none of the brains, who has the sword and
no hand to wield it?"

"That too is the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.

"Do you know;" continued Caesar, "who is the man whom I find continually
blocking the path of my ambition, my fortune, and my love?"

"It is the same, the Duke of Gandia," said Michelotto.

"And what do you think of it?" asked Caesar.

"I think he must die," replied the man coldly.

"That is my opinion also, Michelotto," said Caesar, stepping towards him
and grasping his hand; "and my only regret is that I did not think of it
sooner; for if I had carried a sword at my side in stead of a crosier in
my hand when the King of France was marching through Italy, I should
now have been master of a fine domain. The pope is obviously anxious to
aggrandise his family, but he is mistaken in the means he adopts: it i