But he was too late.  Before he was answered by his followers, we heard the creaking of the hinges and the rattle of the running chains, ending in a thud that told us the drawbridge had dropped across the moat.  Then came the loud continuous thunder of many hoofs upon its timbers.  Paralysed by fear Ramiro stood where he had halted, turning his eyes wildly in this direction and in that, but never moving one way or the other.

It must be Cesare, I swore to myself.  Who else could ride to Cessna with such numbers?  But then, if it was Cesare, it could not be that he had seen Mariani, for he could not have ridden from Faenza.  Madonna had risen too, and with a white face and straining eyes she was looking towards the door.

And then our doubts were at last ended.  There was a jangle of spurs and the fall of feet, and through the open door stepped a straight, martial figure in a doublet of deep crimson velvet, trimmed with costly lynx furs and slashed with satin in the sleeves and shoulder-puffs; jewels gleamed in the massive chain across his breast and at the marroquin girdle that carried his bronze-hilted sword; his hose was of red silk, and his great black boots were armed with golden spurs.  But to crown all this very regal splendour was the beautiful, pale, cold face of Cesare Borgia, from out of which two black eyes flashed and played like sword-points on the company.

Behind him surged a press of mercenaries, in steel, their weapons naked in their hands, so that no doubt was left of the character of this visit.

Collecting himself, and bethinking him that after all, he had best dissemble a good countenance; Ramiro advanced respectfully to meet his overlord.  But ere he had taken three steps the Duke stayed him.

“Stand where you are, traitor,” was the imperious command.  “I’ll trust you no nearer to my person.”  And to emphasise his words he raised his gloved left hand, which had been resting on his sword-hilt, and in which I now observed that he held a paper.

Whether Ramiro recognised it, or whether it was that the mere sight of a paper reminded him of the letter which on my testimony should be in Cesare’s keeping, or whether again the word “traitor” with which Cesare branded him drove the iron deeper into his soul, I cannot say; but to this I can testify:  that he turned a livid green, and stood there before his formidable master in an attitude so stricken as to have aroused pity for any man less a villain than was he.

And now Cesare’s eye, travelling round, alighted on Madonna Paola, standing back in the shadows to which she had instinctively withdrawn at his coming.  At sight of her he recoiled a pace, deeming, no doubt, that it was an apparition stood before him.  Then he looked again, and being a man whose mind was above puerile superstitions, he assured himself that by what miracle the thing was wrought, the figure before him was the living body of Madonna Paola Sforza di Santafior.  He swept the velvet cap with its jewelled plume from off his auburn locks, and bowed low before her.