'Poor wretch!' said Bellarion. 'You deserve some mercy, and you shall have it, provided you can undo what you have done.'
'Alas, my lord!' Mombelli groaned, wringing his hands in a passion of despair. 'Alas! There is no antidote to that poison. It works slowly gradually corroding the intestines. Hang me, my lord, and have done. Had I been less of a coward, I would have hanged myself before I did this thing. But the Duke threatened that if I failed him the torture should be resumed and continued until I died of sheer exhaustion. Also he swore that my refusal would not save my Lord Facino, whom he would find other means of despatching.'
Bellarion stood between loathing and compassion. But there was no thought in his mind of hanging this poor wretch, who had been the victim of that malignant Duke.
He uttered an order in cold, level tones: 'Restore him his garments and place him in confinement until I send for him again.'
On that he departed from that underground chamber, and slowly, thoughtfully made his way above.
By the time he reached the courtyard his resolve was taken, though his neck should pay for it: Gian Maria should not escape. For the first and only time in those adventurous years of his did he swerve from the purpose by which he laid his course, and turn his hand to a task that was not more or less directly concerned with its ultimate fulfilment.
And so, without pausing for rest or food, you behold him once more in the saddle, riding hard for Milan on that Monday afternoon.
He conceived that he bore thither the first news of Facino's moribund condition.
But rumour had been ahead of him by a day and a half, and the rumour ran, not that Facino was dying, but that he was already dead.
In all the instances history affords of poetic justice to give pause to those who offend against God and Man, none is more arresting than that of the fate of Gian Maria Visconti. Already on the previous Friday word had reached the Duke, not only from Mombelli, but from at least one of the spies he had placed in his brother's household, that the work of poisoning was done and that Facino's hours were numbered. Gloating with della Torre and Lonate over the assurance that at last the ducal neck was delivered from that stern heel under which so long it had writhed like the serpent of evil under the heel of Saint Michael, Gian Maria had been unable to keep the knowledge to himself. About the court on that same Friday night he spoke unguardedly of Facino as dead or dying, and from the court the news filtered through to the city and was known to all by the morning of Saturday. And that news carried with it a dismay more utter and overwhelming than any that had yet descended upon Milan since Gian Maria had worn the ducal crown. Facino, when wielding the authority of ducal governor, had been the people's bulwark against the extortions, brutalities, and criminal follies of their Duke. When absent and deposed from power, he had still been their hope, and they had possessed their soul as best they could against the day of his return, which they knew must dawn. But Facino dead meant an unbridling of the Duke's bestiality, a free charter to his misrule, and for his people an outlook of utter hopelessness. It may be that they exaggerated in their own minds this calamity. It was for them the end of the world. Despair settled that morning upon the city. The Duke would have laughed if it had been reported to him, because he lacked the wit to perceive that when men are truly desperate catastrophes ensue.