The ogre turned his bloodshot eyes upon me, as with his hand he caressed his tawny beard.  He seemed to have cooled a little now, and to have regained some mastery of his drunken self.  Old Mariani tottered back to his buffet, and stood leaning against it, his eyes wandering, with the look of a man demented, to the fire that had devoured his child.  There, indeed, if he escaped the madness with which the poignancy of his grief was threatening him, was a tool that might turn its edge against this inhuman monster, this devil, this bloody carnifex of a Governor.

“Chance,” said Ramiro, “has designed that you should see something of how we deal with clumsy knaves at Cesena, Boccadoro.  To disobedient ones I can assure you that we are not half so merciful.  There is no such short shrift for them.  You have had more than the time I promised you for reflection.  The garments await you yonder.  Let us know—­”

The door opened suddenly, and a servant entered.

“A courier from the Lord Vitellozzo Vitelli, Tyrant of Città di Castello,” he announced, unwittingly breaking in upon Ramiro’s words, “with urgent messages for the high and Mighty Governor of Cesena.”

On the instant Ramiro rose, the expression of his face changing from cynical amusement to sober concern, the task upon which he was engaged forgotten.

“Admit him instantly,” he commanded.  And whilst he waited he paced the chamber in long strides, his chin thrust slightly forward, suggestive of deep thought.  And during that pause, I, too, was thinking.  Not indeed of him, nor vainly speculating upon such matters as might be involved in the message, the announcement of which seemed so deeply to engage his mind, but chiefly of my own and Madonna Paola’s concerns.

It was not fear of what I had seen that now sent my thoughts into a new channel and inspired me with the wisdom of obeying Ramiro del’ Orca’s behest that I should don the hateful motley and play the Fool for his diversion.  It was not that I feared death; it was that I feared what the consequences of my death might be to Paola di Santafior.

However desperate a position may seem, unlooked-for loopholes often present themselves, and so long as we live and have sound limbs to aid us to seize such opportunities as may offer, it is a weak thing utterly to abandon hope.

Was it, then, not better to submit to the shame of the motley once again for a little time, when by so doing I might perhaps live to work my own salvation, and Madonna’s should she suffer capture, rather than stubbornly to invite him to put me to death out of a feeling of false pride?

The very resolve seemed to lend me strength and to revive the hope that lay moribund in my breast.  And then, scarce was it taken, when the door again opened, and a man, who was splashed from head to foot with mud, in earnest of how hard he had ridden, was ushered in.

He advanced to Meser Ramiro, bowed and presented a package.  Ramiro broke the seal, and standing with his back to the fire, immediately in the light shed by one of the wax torches, he read the letter.  Then his eyes wandered to the man who had brought it, and to me it seemed that they dwelt particularly upon the hat the courier was holding in his hand.