me on, then," he growled, in a white heat of passion that was only
curbed by the consideration of that slender, pale young cardinal, his
master.

Still, some of his rage he vented in roughly taking me by the collar
of my doublet, and dragging the almost headlong from the room, and so
a-down a flight of steps out into the courtyard. Meet treatment for a
Fool--a treatment to which time might have inured me; for had I not
for three years already been exposed to rough usage of this kind at the
hands of every man above the rank of groom? And had I once rebelled in
act as I did in soul, and used the strength wherewith God endowed me
to punish my ill-users, a whip would have reminded me into what sorry
slavery had I sold myself when I put on the motley.

It had been snowing for the past hour, and the ground was white in the
courtyard when we descended.

At our appearance there was a movement of serving-men and a fall of
hoofs, muffled by the snow. Some held torches that cast a ruddy glare
upon the all-encompassing whiteness, and a groom was leading forward the
horse that was destined to bear me. I donned my broad-brimmed hat, and
wrapped my cloak about me. Some murmurs of farewell caught my ears,
from those minions with whom I had herded during my three days at the
Vatican. Then Messer del' Orca thrust me forward.

"Mount, Fool, and be off," he rasped.

I mounted, and turned to him. He was a surly dog; if ever surly dog
wore human shape, and the shape was the only human thing about Captain
Ramiro.

"Brother, farewell," I simpered.

"No brother of yours, Fool," snarled he.

"True--my cousin only. The fool of art is no brother to the fool of
nature."

"A whip!" he roared to his grooms. "Fetch me a whip."

I left him calling for it, as I urged my nag across the snow and
over the narrow drawbridge. Beyond, I stayed a moment to look over my
shoulder. They stood gazing after me, a group of some half-dozen men,
looking black against the whiteness of the ground. Behind them rose the
brown walls of the rocca illumined by the flare of torches, from which
the smell of rosin reached my nostrils as I paused. I waved my hat to
them in token of farewell, and digging my spurless heels into the flanks
of my horse, I ambled down through the biting wind and drifting snow,
into the town.

The streets were deserted and dark, save for the ray that here fell from
a window, and there stole through the chink of a door to glow upon the
s