He laid the palm of his hand against his heart: then taking some crumb of the roll the steward had brought him, he rubbed it against his own face and offered it to the lapdog Giovan Andrea held under his arm. The little dog immediately ate it.
"What next?" thought the steward, in wonder. The Prior stood transfixed, curiously on the watch. Salviati's eyes had something imploring in them: the faithful fellow had not once left his master, and was now haggard with his long vigil.
The Jew silently took another piece of bread and rubbed the Cardinal's clammy face with it: then offered it to the little dog. The little dog smelt it, and resolutely refused to taste it.
"You see," said Bar Hhasdai, fixing the steward with his eye, "the Cardinal is poisoned." Then, to the Prior, "Let him have the sacraments of your Church."
Giovan Andrea reeled back, but recovered himself in time to escape falling.
"Wretch!" exclaimed Salviati, springing towards him in rage and despair; but Giovan Andrea glided like a serpent from beneath his grasp, and clapped the door after him.
"He will not escape justice," said the Prior. "I have given orders that he shall be watched."
Salviati cast himself on his expiring master in a paroxysm of grief. At the sound of his wild cry, others rushed in: and the Jew quietly passed out. Extreme unction was administered.
Thus perished the brilliant Ippolito de' Medici, who would deserve more pity if he had not designed some very similar end for his cousin Alessandro. He was abundantly regretted; for his companionable qualities and lavish bounties had endeared him to a very large circle of friends, who did not scan his faults too closely; while his death was hailed with intense satisfaction by his enemies. Paul the Third made a frivolous excuse for not sending him the specific he so urgently requested. Probably it would not have saved him; but the animus of his Holiness was not shown to his advantage on the occasion.
As for the wretched Giovan Andrea, he made straight for the outer gates when he quitted the Cardinal's chamber; but was there collared by a stalwart lay-brother, who, with the assistance of two of Ippolito's retainers, conveyed him to the lock-up room. Here he remained a short time, in full anticipation of being put to the torture; which too surely came to pass. At first he denied any guilt; but that most odious process being persisted in, his agony at length wrung from him the admission that he had administered poison to the Cardinal, having ground it between two stones, which he had afterwards thrown away.