The duke broke away, wheeled and came again. He lashed home, split the Frangipani's collar-bone even through the rags of his hauberk. The Frangipani yelped like a gored hound. Rabid, dazed, he began to make blind rushes that boded ill for him. The swords began to leap and to sing, while blinding flashes of lightning followed each other in quick succession and thunder rolled in deafening echoes through the heavens. Cut and counter-cut rang through the night, like the cry of axes, whirled by woodmen's hands.
Suddenly the Frangipani parried an upper cut and stabbed at the duke. The sword point missed him a hair's breadth. Before he could guard the duke was upon him like a leopard. Both men smote together, both swords met with a sound that seemed to shake the rocks. The Frangipani's blade snapped at the hilt.
He stood still for a moment as one dazed, then plucked out his poniard and made a spring. A merciless down cut beat him back. His courage, his assurance seemed to ebb from him on a sudden, as though the blow had broken his soul. He fell on his knees and held up his hands, with a thick, choking cry.
"Mercy! God's mercy!"
"Curse you! Had you pity on your victims?"
Thunder crashed overhead; the girdles of the sky were loosed. A torrent of rain beat upon the Frangipani's streaming face; he tottered on his knees, but still held his hands to the heavens.
"They lied," he cried. "Give me but life."—
The duke looked at him and heaved up his sword.
Giovanni Frangipani saw the white face above him, gave a great cry and cowered behind his hands. It was all ended in a moment. The rain washed his gilded harness as he lay with his blood soaking into the crevices of the rocks.—
Francesco had witnessed neither the fight nor the ending. Impelled by an insensate desire to find Raniero, to have a final reckoning for all the baseness and insults he had heaped upon him in the past, for his treachery and cruelty to Ilaria, he had made his way to the great hall.