only
being who was devoted to him in this world was Michelotto, and he had
heard that Michelotto had been arrested near Pisa by order of Julius II.
While Caesar was being taken to prison an officer came to him to deprive
him of the safe-conduct given him by Gonzalvo.

The day after his arrest, which occurred on the 27th of May, 1504,
Caesar was taken on board a ship, which at once weighed anchor and set
sail for Spain: during the whole voyage he had but one page to serve
him, and as soon as he disembarked he was taken to the castle of Medina
del Campo.

Ten years later, Gonzalvo, who at that time was himself proscribed,
owned to Loxa on his dying bed that now, when he was to appear in the
presence of God, two things weighed cruelly on his conscience: one was
his treason to Ferdinand, the other his breach of faith towards Caesar.

CHAPTER XVI

Caesar was in prison for two years, always hoping that Louis XII would
reclaim him as peer of the kingdom of France; but Louis, much disturbed
by the loss of the battle of Garigliano, which robbed him of the kingdom
of Naples, had enough to do with his own affairs without busying himself
with his cousin's. So the prisoner was beginning to despair, when one
day as he broke his bread at breakfast he found a file and a little
bottle containing a narcotic, with a letter from Michelotto, saying that
he was out of prison and had left Italy for Spain, and now lay in hiding
with the Count of Benevento in the neighbouring village: he added that
from the next day forward he and the count would wait every night on the
road between the fortress and the village with three excellent horses;
it was now Caesar's part to do the best he could with his bottle and
file. When the whole world had abandoned the Duke of Romagna he had been
remembered by a sbirro.

The prison where he had been shut up for two years was so hateful to
Caesar that he lost not a single moment: the same day he attacked one
of the bars of a window that looked out upon an inner court, and soon
contrived so to manipulate it that it would need only a final push
to come out. But not only was the window nearly seventy feet from
the ground, but one could only get out of the court by using an exit
reserved for the governor, of which he alone had the key; also this key
never left him; by day it hung at his waist, by night it was under his
pillow: this then was the chief difficulty.

But prisoner though he was, Caesar had a