had been wanting to increase the weight of fear and anguish on my already over-burdened mind, and to aid in what almost seemed an infernal plot to utterly distract me, I had it in fresh, wild conjectures touching Madonna Paola.  Where indeed could she be that Ramiro’s men had failed to find her for all that they had scoured that part of the country in which I had left her to wait for my return?  What if, by now, worse had befallen her than the capture with which Ramiro’s lieutenant was charged?

With such doubts as these to haunt me, fretted as I was by my utter inability to take a step in her service, I lay.  There for an hour or so in such agony of mind as is begotten only of suspense.  In my girdle still reposed the treasonable letter from Vitelli to Ramiro, a mighty weapon with which to accomplish the butcher’s overthrow.  But how was I to wield it imprisoned here?

I wondered why Mariani had not returned, only to remember that the soldier who had locked me in had carried the key of my prison-chamber to Ramiro.

Suddenly the stillness was disturbed by a faint tap at my door.  My instincts and my reason told me it must be Mariani at last.  In an instant I had leapt from the bed and whispered through the keyhole: 

“Who is there?”

“It is I—­Mariani—­the seneschal,” came the old man’s voice, very softly, but nevertheless distinctly.  “They have taken the key.”

I groaned, then in a gust of passion I fell to cursing Ramiro for that precaution.

“You have the letter?” came Mariani’s voice again.

“Aye, I have it still,” I answered.

“Have you seen what it contains?”

“A plot to assassinate the Duke—­no less.  Enough to get this bloody Ramiro broken on the wheel.”

I was answered by a sound that was as a gasp of malicious joy.  Then the old man’s voice added: 

“Can you pass it under the door?  There is a sufficient gap.”

I felt, and found that he was right; I could pass the half of my hand underneath.  I took the letter and thrust it through.  His hands fastened on it instantly, almost snatching it from my fingers before they were ready to release it.

“Have courage,” he bade me.  “Listen.  I shall endeavour to leave Cesena in the morning, and I shall ride straight for Faenza.  If I find the Duke there when I arrive, he should be here within some twelve or fourteen hours of my departure.  Fence with Ramiro, temporise if you can till then, and all will be well with you.”

“I will do what I can,” I answered him.  “But if he slays me in the meantime, at least I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that he will not be long in following me.”

“May God shield you,” he said fervently.

“May God speed you,” I answered him, with a still greater fervour.

That night, as you may well conceive, I slept but little, and that little ill.  The morning, instead of relieving the fears that in the darkness had been with me, seemed to increase them.  For now was the time for Mariani to act, and I was fearful as to how he might succeed.  I was full of doubts lest some obstacle should have arisen to prevent his departure from Cesena, and I spent my morning in wearisome speculation.