He had arrived at dawn, and he too had slept for some ten hours since his arrival, yet despite of it his air was haggard, his glance overcast and heavy.
I greeted him joyously, conscious that we had done well. But he remained gloomy and unresponsive.
“There is ill news,” he said at last. “Cavalcanti is in a raging fever, and he is sapped of strength, his body almost drained of blood. I even fear that he is poisoned, that Farnese's dagger was laden with some venom.”
“O, surely... it will be well with him!” I faltered. He shook his head sombrely, his brows furrowed.
“He must have been stark mad last night. To have raged as he did with such a wound upon him, and to have ridden ten miles afterwards! O, it was midsummer frenzy that sustained him. Here in the courtyard he reeled unconscious from the saddle; they found him drenched with blood from head to foot; and he has been unconscious ever since. I am afraid...” He shrugged despondently.
“Do you mean that... that he may die?” I asked scarce above a whisper.
“It will be a miracle if he does not. And that is one more crime to the score of Pier Luigi.” He said it in a tone of indescribable passion, shaking his clenched fist at the ceiling.
The miracle did not come to pass. Two days later, in the presence of Galeotto, Bianca, Fra Gervasio, who had been summoned from his Piacenza convent to shrive the unfortunate baron, and myself, Ettore Cavalcanti sank quietly to rest.
Whether he was dealt an envenomed wound, as Galeotto swore, or whether he died as a result of the awful draining of his veins, I do not know.
At the end he had a moment of lucidity.