"The populace is on fire, Highness," reported a breathed captain. "It clamours for the Duchess of Nona. We can hardly hold them much longer, strong as we are. We must show her, though I perceive that her Excellency has fainted."
"She is dead, man," said Cesare shortly, wiping his pair of daggers.
"It is a pity, Highness. Ma——!" He shrugged the end to his period.
Cesare looked at the girl and shrugged in his turn.
"Luckily it is dark. We must play them that trick they played on Borgo San Domino. She must be put in a litter, and at the palace see to it that the lights are behind her before ever you set her up in the window. Do what you can for us, Ercole."
They worked their best to compose that pitiful dead. She had suffered much, and showed it. Her wide eyes were horrible. And there was little time for more than to order her dress and neck-jewels, and to smooth out her brown hair.
"H'm," said Cesare, "you have made little of it; but at a distance it may serve our turn until the troops arrive. Is the litter below? Good. Avanti!"
The church bells rang all night, and all night the Piazza Grande was alive, a flickering field of torches and passing and repassing throngs. "Evviva Madonna! Hail, Duchess of Nona!" were the cries they gave. And above, at an arched window, haloed by candle-light, the staring lady of the land, stiffened and relaxed, played out the last functions of her generous body, in return for the people's acclamation.
Bianca Maria, Queen of the Romans by virtue of proxy and the Sacrament, spurred into the city of Nona next noon at the head of a plumed escort. There, at the fatal window, she saw the whole truth in a flash.