A singular, fierce joy was blent with my measure of fear; a joy at the thought that even now, in this extremity, I was outwitting him, for never a doubt had he that the burnt paper he had found on the table was all that was left of Vitelli’s letter.  His fears were that I might have read it, but never a suspicion crossed his mind of such a trick as I had played upon him.

So I sped on, the gigantic Ramiro blundering after me, panting and blaspheming, for although powerful, his bulk and the wine he had taken left him no nimbleness.  The distance between us widened, and if only Mariani would have the presence of mind to wait for me at the mouth of the passage, all would be as I could wish it before his dagger found my heart.

I was assuring myself of this when in the dark I stumbled, and striking my legs against a stair I hurtled forward.  I recovered almost immediately, but, in my frenzy of haste to make up for the instant lost, I stumbled a second time ere I was well upon my feet.

With a roar Ramiro must have hurled himself forward, for I felt my ankle caught in a grip from which there was no escaping, and I was roughly and brutally dragged back and down those stairs; now my head, now my breast beating against the steps as I descended them one by one.

But even in that hour the letter was my first thought, and I found a way to thrust it farther under my girdle so that it should not be seen.

At last I reached the hall, half-stunned, and with all the misery of defeat and the certainty of the futility of my death to further torture my last moments.  Over me stood Ramiro, his dagger upheld, ready to strike.

“Dog!” he taunted me, “your sands are run.”

“Mercy, Magnificent,” I gasped.  “I have done nothing to deserve your poniard.”

He laughed brutally, delaying his stroke that he might prolong my agony for his drunken entertainment.

“Address your prayers to Heaven,” he mocked me, “and let them concern your soul.”

And then, like a flash of inspiration came the words that should delay his hand.

“Spare me,” I cried “for I am in mortal sin.”

Impious, abandoned villain, though he was, he said too much when he boasted that he feared neither God nor Devil.  He was prone to forget his God, and the lessons that as a babe he had learnt at his mother’s knee—­ for I take it that even Ramiro del’ Orca had once been a babe—­but deep down in his soul there had remained the fear of Hell and an almost instinctive obedience to the laws of Mother Church.  He could perform such ruthless cruelties as that of hurling a page into the fire to punish his clumsiness; he could rack and stab and hang men with the least shadow of compunction or twinge of conscience, but to slay a man who professed himself to be in mortal sin was a deed too appalling even for this ruthless butcher.

He hesitated a second, then he lowered his hand, his face telling me clearly how deeply he grudged me the respite which, yet, he dared not do other than accord me.