He obeyed with great alacrity, and, when I was once more in the fiacre, prepared to loosen his horse.
"No, no! Peppino," I said, smiling; "the ghosts can't hear us here, so tell me the story of the Morone."
Peppino cast a doubtful glance in the direction of the burial-ground, and then, seating himself on the step of the carriage, began his story. His Italian, as I have said before, was very good, so, making him speak slowly, I was easily able to understand the strange legend he related.
"Signore," he began, with a solemn look on his usually merry face, "the Morone were very famous in Verona four hundred years ago. Dio! they fought with the Scaligers, and afterwards with the Visconti. They were Podestas of the city before the Della Scala, and several of them were great Cardinals. One would have been his Holiness himself, but the Borgia asked him to supper and he died of their poison. About two hundred years ago Mastino Morone wedded the Donna Renata della Moneta, who was said to have been descended on the wrong side from Donna Lucrezia herself."
"You mean that this Renata was an illegitimate descendant of Lucrezia Borgia?"
"Yes, Signore. Ah! she was a devil of a woman, that Madonna Lucrezia. Ebbene! Signore. This Donna Renata wedded with Count Mastino Morone, and a pleasant life she led him, for she loved all other men but him. Cospetto! he would have strangled her, but he was afraid of her many lovers. There was a room in the Palazzo Morone, without any windows, where Donna Renata supped with those she favoured."
"And the room is there still?" I said, thinking of that mysterious chamber.
"Of a surety, Signore! It is haunted by the ghost of the Marchese Tisio!"
"Who was he?"
"Signore, he was the last lover of Donna Renata, whom she killed with the Borgia poison because he was faithless. Eh! it is true, Illustrious. She found out by her spies that the Marchese loved another, so she asked him to a last feast in her room, and when he was going she gave him a cup of wine. Dio! he drank it, the poor young man, and died. Ecco!"