A long moment she looked at him. Then brushing aside the tears that dimmed her sight, she set a hand on either of his shoulders, and stood so, before them all, gazing up into his calm face.
“How shall I know that what you say is true—that I may trust you?” she asked, but her voice was not the voice of one that demands an overwhelming proof ere she will believe.
“By my honour and my knighthood,” he answered, in a ringing voice, “I make oath here, at the foot of God's altar, that my purpose—my only purpose—has been, is, and shall be to serve you, Monna Valentina.”
“I believe you,” she cried; to sob a moment later:
“Forgive me, Francesco, and may God, too, forgive my lack of faith in you.”
He softly breathed her name in such sweet accents that a happy peace pervaded her, and the bright courage of yore shone in her brown eyes.
“Come, sirs!” he cried now, with a sudden briskness that startled them into feverish obedience. “You, Fra Domenico, cut off your sacerdotals, and gird high your habit. There is climbing for you. Here, a couple of you, move aside that altar-step. My men and I have spent the night in loosening its old hinges.”
They raised the slab, and in the gap beneath it was disclosed a flight of steps leading down to the dungeons and cellars of Roccaleone.
Down this they went in haste but in good order, marshalled by Francesco, and when the last had passed down, he and Lanciotto, aided by others below, who had seized a rope that he had lowered them, replaced the slab from underneath, so that no trace should remain of the way by which they had come.
A postern had been unbarred below by Fortemani, who had led the way with a half-dozen of the men; and a huge scaling ladder that lay in readiness in that subterranean gallery was rushed out across the moat, which at this point was a roaring torrent.