A second we stayed so, and I thought indeed that my hour was come, when suddenly I felt the blood in my head released once more. He had taken his hands from my throat. He seized me now by the collar and dragged me rudely to my feet.
“Take this knave and lock him in his chamber,” he bade a couple of his bravi. “I may have need of him ere he dies.”
“Messer Ramiro,” came the interceding voice of Madonna Paola, “what he did, he did for me. You will not let him die for it?”
There was a pause during which he looked at her, whilst the men were roughly dragging me across the hall.
“Who knows, Madonna?” he said, with a bow and an infernal smile. “If you were to beg his life, it might even come to pass that I might spare it.”
He did not wait for her answer, but stepping after me he called to the men that led me. In obedience they halted, and he came forward. We were now at the foot of the staircase.
“Boccadoro,” said he, planting himself before me, and eyeing me with eyes that were very full of malice, “you will recall the punishment I promised you if I came to discover it was you had thwarted me in Pesaro. It is the second time you have fooled Ramiro del’ Orca. There does not live the man who can boast that he did it thrice, nor will I risk it that you be that man. Make your peace with Heaven, for at sunset—in an hour’s time—you hang. There is one little thing that might save you even yet, and if you find life sweet, you would do well to pray that that little thing may come to pass.”
I answered him nothing, but I bowed my head in token that I had heard and he signed to the men to proceed with me, whilst turning on his heel he stepped down the hall again to where Madonna Paola, overcome with weakness, had sunk upon a stool.
As I was leaving the gallery I had a last glimpse of her, sitting there with drawn face and haggard eyes that followed me as I passed from her sight, whilst Ramiro del’ Orca stood beside her murmuring words that did not reach me. His so-called courtiers and his men-at-arms were trooping out of the room, no doubt in obedience to his dismissal.