ses
to a kindlier frame of mind, and now, making good use of that same
jester's courage, he completed her subjection by the display of it.
She was prepared to wed the Lord Giovanni with a glad heart and a proud
willingness whensoever he should desire it.

But Giacomo was beside me now, and in the quadrangle a silence reigned,
all waiting for my command. From without there came such a din as seemed
to argue that all hell was at the Castle gates. There were shouts of
defiance and screams of abuse, whilst a constant rain of stones beat
against the raised drawbridge.

They thought, no doubt, that Giovanni and his followers were at their
prayers, cowering with terror. No notion had they of the armed force,
some six score strong, that waited to pour down upon them. I briskly
issued my command, and four men detached themselves and let down the
bridge. It fell with a crash, and ere those without had well grasped the
situation we had hurled ourselves across and into them with the force of
a wedge, flinging them to right and to left as we crashed through with
hideous slaughter. The bridge swung up again when the last of Giacomo's
mercenaries was across, and we were shut out, in the midst of that
fierce human maelstrom.

For some five minutes there raged such a brief, hot fight as will be
remembered as long as Pesaro stands. No longer than that did it take for
the crowd of citizens to realise that war was not their trade, and that
they had better leave the fighting to Cesare Borgia's men; and so they
fell away and left us a clear road to come at the men-at-arms. But
already some forty of our saddles were empty, and the fight, though
brief, had proved exhausting to many of us.

Before us, like an array of mirrors in the October sun, shone the
serried ranks of the steel-cased Borgia soldiers, their lances in rest,
waiting to receive us. Their leader, a gigantic man whose head was armed
by no more than a pot of burnished steel, from which escaped the
long red ringlets of his hair, was that same Ramiro del' Orca who had
commanded the party pursuing Madonna Paola three years ago. He was,
since, become the most redoubtable of Cesare's captains, and his name
was, perhaps, the best hated in Italy for the grim stories that were
connected with it.

As we rode on he backed to join the foremost rank of his soldiers, and
his voice--a voice that Stentor might have envied--trumpeted a laugh at
sight of us.

"Gesu!" he roared, so that I h