"Trust me, your reverence, you will be safer in Rome than out of it. The whole country will rise at the news, and the habit of Mount Carmel will not save the Cardinal of Strigonia. Turn back with me, and I will escort you to the Palazzo Corneto."
To make a short story, D'Este agreed after a little persuasion, and the mule was kind enough to amble back very willingly to Rome. We placed his eminence in the centre of our troops, and went onwards, entering the city by the Porta Pinciana, riding along leisurely in the direction of S. Trinita di Monti, and thence straight on towards the Ripetta. It was a work of no little danger to make this last passage, for everywhere bands of plunderers were engaged in gutting the houses, many of which were in flames, and we continually came across dead bodies, or passed houses from which we heard shrieks of agony. We could help no one. It was all we could do to keep our own heads on our shoulders; but by dint of shouting, "A Colonna!" with the Colonna, and "Orsini! Orsini!" with their rivals, and sometimes hitting a shrewd blow or two, we crossed the Ripetta, and in a few minutes were safe in the Palazzo Corneto.
Here we were received by Le Clerc, who comforted the trembling Strigonia, with the assurance that an excellent supper awaited him, informing me, almost in the same breath, that D'Amboise was in the Vatican. I lost no time in repairing thither, which I did on foot, accompanied by Jacopo alone, and made my way without let or hindrance to the Torre Borgia. Here everything was in the wildest confusion, and the Spanish soldiers of the Pope were plundering right and left. I stumbled across De Leyva, who, with a few men at his back, was trying to maintain order. He gladly accepted the offer of my sword, and we did what we could to prevent the wholesale robbery from going on. In a brief interval of rest, I asked,
"Do you know where D'Amboise is?"
"In the Sistine Chapel, with half-a-dozen others; De Briconnet guards the entrance."
"And Alexander?"
"Dead or dying--I do not even know where he is; Don Michele has seized as much as he can, and carrying Cesare on a litter, has escaped to Ostia."
"Then Cesare is not dead----"
"No. Cross of St. James! see that?" and he pointed to a reeling drunken crowd, full with wine and plunder, who passed by us with yells, into the great reception rooms.
Followed by the few men who remained steady, De Leyva dashed after them, and with Jacopo at my heels, I made for the Sistine Chapel. I reached the Scala Begia, and although I knew the Sistine Chapel was but a few feet distant, yet, owing to the darkness that prevailed, I missed the way, and Jacopo was of course unable to help me. Groping onwards we came to a small door, and pushing it, found it to open easily. It led into a narrow, vaulted passage, where the darkness was as if a velvet curtain of black hung before us. "I like not the look of this, excellency," said Jacopo, as we halted in front of the door.