'One after the other! one after the other!' sighed d'Arborea; 'to-day strong and well, to-morrow——'
All became silent. From the next room entered a fresh crowd of courtiers marshalled by Don Rodriguez Borgia, the Pope's nephew. A murmur ran through the room.
'The Holy Father! The Holy Father!'
The crowd parted, the doors were thrown open, and into the audience-chamber came Pope Alexander VI.
III
He had been singularly handsome in his youth. It was said then that he had only to look at a woman to inspire her with the wildest passion, as if in his eyes a force was concentred which drew women like a magnet. Even now his features, though blunted and coarsened by age and fat, retained an imposing beauty of line. His skin was bronzed, his head bald, with a few tufts of grey hair at the nape. The nose was large and aquiline, the chin receding, the eyes vivacious. The full protruding lips showed sensuality, yet had something simple and naïve in their expression.
Giovanni could see nothing terrible or cruel in his face. Alexander Borgia possessed in the highest degree the gift of taste; he had that attractive exterior which made whatever he said or did appear said or done in the only right way.
'The Pope is seventy,' said the ambassadors, 'but he grows daily younger. His heaviest cares last but twenty-four hours. His temperament is cheerful; everything to which he puts his hand turns out well. He thinks of nothing but the reputation and the happiness of his children.'
The Borgias were descended from Moors of Castile; it was, indeed, not difficult to recognise in the Pope the bronze skin, the full scarlet lips, the flashing eyes of the African Arab.