But short consideration was needed to show him that there was but one course left for him to pursue with any chance of safety. The dangerous confidence which Cæsar Borgia had placed in him did not admit of any choice but between death and crime. He must be an accomplice or he must be an enemy; and to be Cæsar Borgia's enemy, for any man unarmoured in mighty power, was to stand upon the brink of the grave. All remorse, all hesitation, therefore, were quickly done away. "I must serve him well," he thought--"must help him to accomplish the deed--must teach him he cannot do without me. Then his own interest will make him my friend in acts, if not in heart."
Not three quarters of an hour had passed ere a friar presented himself at the Borgia palace. He stayed some twenty minutes, and ere he left another man was admitted to the cardinal--a man of swaggering military air, who had lost one eye, apparently in fight. These two came forth together, crossed over to the other side of the street, and stood there conversing for some time under an archway. During the next half hour, two others, each of whom had previously visited the Borgia palace, were added to the group, and it must be admitted that four more consummate scoundrels have seldom been gathered together.
On the following night there was a great entertainment at the house of Rosa Vanozza, the mother of the Borgias, the concubine of the pope. Guest after guest departed, some with lights to guide their steps, some apparently not so willing that the course they took should be marked. There was a servant, richly dressed, who stood in the square opposite the house, who scanned every group as it came out, and at the farther corner of the square were three or four men, discussing, it would seem, some knotty point with Italian vehemence of gesture.
Though apparently indifferent to everything but their own conversation, the eyes of these men also ran over each group that came from the Casa Vanozza. All passed by, however, without their moving; the lights wound away through the narrow streets, and all became darkness in the square. The men then moved on towards the servant, who still remained where he had been stationed before, as if intending to pass him; but just at the moment they were doing so, he staggered some paces with a groan, and fell upon the pavement. The men returned to the spot where they had been previously standing.
A few minutes after, two gay-looking young cavaliers came forth from Vanozza's house, and walked partly across the square together at some distance from where the dead man lay. One of them looked round, saying, "Where can my valet be? The dog has grown weary of waiting, I suppose. Have you no servants with you, Cæsar?"
"No," replied the other, "I have no fear of walking the streets of Rome alone--I am so beloved, you know, Gandia," and he added a short bitter sort of a laugh.
"Well, I take this street to the right," said the Duke of Gandia. "I have some business down near San Jacomo."
"Good night," said the other. "I know where you are going, Gandia. You can't cheat me."
"Good-night, cardinal," replied the duke, laughing, and they parted.
The same night, a few hours afterward, a boatman upon the Tiber, watching a load of wood which he had landed near the church of St. Jerome, and lying apparently asleep in his boat, saw two men come forth from the narrow alley which ran by the side of the church, and look cautiously all round, up one street and down another, as if to insure that all were free from passengers. Everything was still about the city--no step was heard, no moving object seen--and the two men returned to the alley whence they had issued forth.