The Lord Alexander VI. is extended asleep on the bed.
The Lord Cardinal Bartolomeo of Segovia and Monsignore Gaspare Poto.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
I thank God for this sleep. Those fearful days
I knelt against his door! The raving wildness
I heard at times—inhospitable sorrow,
Aloof from our Creator! Then, dashed down,
The heavy frame wept like a haunted child’s.
Then silence
Too perilous to spread! I beat the door.
POTO.
We stood and watched and prayed you might prevail.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
And when he opened—Jesu, he was faded
As a dead fish; slack chin, and Arab eyes
Glassy in fever, with a vengeful thirst.
If only he had known the murderer,
And could have struck him down to deepest hell—
POTO.
Each moment
He snatches ends of this dark mystery,
As he unravelled at the dead of night
The broidery on a frame he could but feel.