“Body of Satan!” he swore. “To doze at such a time!”
“I have scarce been out of the saddle for three days and three nights—this is the fourth,” I informed him. “I have had but three hours' sleep since we left Rome. I am done,” I admitted. “You, sir, had best take your daughter. She is no longer safe with me.”
It was so. The fierce tension which had banished sleep from me whilst these things were doing, being now relaxed, left me exhausted as Galeotto had been at Bologna. And Galeotto had urged me to halt and rest there! He had begged for twelve hours! I could now thank Heaven from a full heart for having given me the strength and resolution to ride on, for those twelve hours would have made all the difference between Heaven and Hell.
Cavalcanti himself would not take her, confessing to some weakness. For all that he insisted that his wound was not serious, yet he had lost much blood through having neglected in his rage to stanch it. So it was to Falcone that fell the charge of that sweet burden.
The last thing I remember was Cavalcanti's laugh, as, from the high ground we had mounted, he stopped to survey a ruddy glare above the city of Piacenza, where, in a vomit of sparks, Cosimo's fine palace was being consumed.
Then we rode down into the valley again; and as we went the thud of hooves grew more and more distant, and I slept in the saddle as I rode, a man-at-arms on either side of me, so that I remember no more of the doings of that strenuous night.
CHAPTER XI. THE PENANCE
I awakened in the chamber that had been mine at Pagliano before my arrest by order of the Holy Office, and I was told upon awakening that I had slept a night and a day and that it was eventide once more.
I rose, bathed, and put on a robe of furs, and then Galeotto came to visit me.