“You may begin at once,” said I. “neither five minutes nor five years will alter my determination.”

His brow grew black with anger.  “We shall see,” was all he said.

There was a silence now in which we waited, a storm of thoughts battling in my mind.  Presently Ramiro caught up one of the flagons and applied it to his cup.  It proved empty, and in a gust of passion he hurled it against the wall where it burst into a thousand pieces.  Clearly he was very angry, and it taxed my wits to account for the little measure of patience he was showing me.

“Beppo!” he called.  A page lounging by the buffet sprang to attention.  He was a slender, rather delicate lad, fair of hair and blue of eyes, not more than twelve years of age.  An elderly man who stood beside him—­one Mariani, the seneschal of Cesena—­stepped forward also, solicitude in his glance.

“Bring me wine,” bawled the ogre.  “Must I tell you what I need?  If you do not put those eyes of yours to better service, I’ll have them plucked from your empty head.  Bestir, animal.”

The old man caught up a beaker from the buffet and handed it to the boy.

“Here, my son,” said he.  “Hasten to his Excellency.”

The lad took the beaker from his father’s hands, and trembling in his fear of Ramiro’s anger, he sprang forward to serve him.  In his haste the poor youth slipped in some grease that had clung to the rushes.  In seeking to recover himself he tripped over the feet of one of the halberdiers that guarded me, and measured his length upon the floor at Ramiro’s feet, flooding the Governor’s legs with the wine he carried.

How shall I tell you of the horror that was the sequel?

For just one instant Ramiro looked down at the sprawling lad, his eyes glowing like a madman’s.  Then suddenly he rose, stooped, and set one hand to the boy’s belt, the other to the collar of his jerkin.  Feeling himself lifted, and knowing whose were the dread hands that held him, poor Beppo uttered a single scream of terror.  Then Ramiro swung him round with an ease that displayed the man’s prodigious strength.  For just a second he seemed to hesitate how to dispose of the human bundle that he held.  Then, as if suddenly taking his resolve, that devil hurled the lad across the little intervening space, straight into the heart of the blazing fire.

Beppo hurtled against the logs with a sickening crash, and a thousand sparks leapt up and vanished in the cavern of the chimney.  Ramiro wheeled sharply about, and snatching the pike from the hands of one of my guards, he pinned down the poor body of the boy to make sure of his victim’s entire destruction.