I paled and turned cold at the cry with which Ramiro rose to greet him, and the words he dropped, which told me that here was one of the riders of the party that, under Lucagnolo, had been ordered to search the country about Cattolica.  Had they found Madonna?

“Messer Lucagnolo,” the fellow announced, “has sent me to report to you the failure of his search to the west and north of Cattolica.  He has beaten the country thoroughly for three leagues of the town on those two sides, as you desired him, but unfortunately without result.  He is now spreading his search to the south, and not a house is being left unvisited.  By morning he hopes to report again to your Excellency.”

A wild wave of joy swept through my soul.  They had ransacked the country west and north of Cattolica without result.  Why then, assuredly, they had missed the peasant’s hut that sheltered her, and where she waited yet for my return.  Their search to the south I knew would prove equally futile.  I could have fallen on my knees in a prayer of thanksgiving had my surroundings been other than they were.

Ramiro’s eye wandered round to me and settled on me in a lowering glance.  By his face it was plain that the message disappointed him.

“I wonder,” said he, “whether we could make you talk?” And from me his eyes roamed on to the instrument of torture at the end of that long chamber.  I grew sick with fear, for if he were to do this thing, and maim me by it, how should I avail myself or her hereafter?

“Excellency,” I cried, “since you met me you have hinted at something that I am hiding from you, at something touching which I could give you information did I choose.  What it may be passes all thought of mine.  But this I do assure you:  no torture could make me tell you what I do not know, nor is any torture needed to extract from me such information as I may be possessed of.  I do but beg that you wilt frankly question me upon this matter, whatever it may be, and your Excellency shall be answered to the best of my knowledge.”

He looked at me as if taken aback a little by my assurance and the seemingly transparent candour of my speech, and in his face I saw that he believed me.  A moment he hesitated yet; then—­

“I am seeking knowledge concerning Madonna Paolo di Santafior,” he said presently, resuming, as he spoke, his seat at table.  “As I told you, the body, which was believed to be dead, was stolen in the night from San Domenico.  Know you aught of this?”

It may be an ignoble thing to lie, but with what other weapon was I to fight this brigand?  Surely if an exception can be made to the rule, and a lie become a meritorious thing, such an occasion as this would surely justify such an exception.

“I know nothing,” I answered boldly, unhesitatingly, and even with a ring of truth and sincerity that was calculated to convince, “nor can I even believe this rumour.  It is a wild story.  That the body has been stolen may be true enough.  Such things occur; though he was a bold man who laid hands upon the body of a person of such importance.  But that she lives—­ Gesu! that is an old wife’s tale.  I had, myself, the word of the Lord Filippo’s physician that she was dead.”