It had prevented him; he saw that now, he saw how hopeless his ambition had been from the first.…
“If I had my life again I would not serve Philip,” he muttered.
Then pain began to seize and grip him, and he became unconscious of everything save the physical agony; he fell on his face and clutched the rich mantles on which he lay, groaned and shrieked in blasphemous ravings.
“He hath not much fortitude after all,” said Farnese, who had looked on suffering so often that no anguish could move him; his cold eyes had many times rested on men and women flaming at the stake with the same expression of cruel indifference with which they now rested on this man of his own blood, who had served his turn and was no longer useful to the policies of Spain.
“How long will this last?” asked the priest.
“I cannot tell,” answered the Prince of Parma. “He must have great strength.”
“He had until he used it in the delights of Italy,” said Francisco Orantes. “Such a life as his, señor, does not make for old age—”
“Escovedo! Escovedo!” moaned Don Juan. “Help me! Succour me! I am burning–burning to the bone, the marrow! Jèsu! Jèsu and Maria!”
“Ay, pray for your sins,” remarked Farnese sombrely, “or you will go to light the flames that burn to all eternity.”