of hand here at Forli, and they committed a good many
abuses, to the dismay and discomfort of the Citizens.

Sanuto comments upon this with satisfaction, accounting the city well
served for having yielded herself up like a strumpet. It is a comment
more picturesque than just, for obviously Forli did not surrender
through pusillanimity, but to the end that it might be delivered from
the detestable rule of the Riarii.

The city occupied, it now remained to reduce the fortress and bring its
warrior-mistress to terms. Cesare set about this at once, nor allowed
the Christmas festivities to interfere with his labours, but kept his
men at work to bring the siege-guns into position. On Christmas Day the
countess belatedly attempted a feeble ruse in the hope of intimidating
them. She flew from her battlements a banner, bearing the device of the
lion of St. Mark, thinking to trick Cesare into the belief that she had
obtained the protection of Venice, or, perhaps, signifying thus that
she threw herself into the arms of the republic, making surrender of her
fiefs to the Venetians to the end that she might spite a force which she
could not long withstand--as Giovanni Sforza had sought to do.

But Cesare, nowise disturbed by that banner, pursued his preparations,
which included the mounting of seven cannons and ten falconets in the
square before the Church of St. John the Baptist. When all was ready
for the bombardment, he made an effort to cause her to realize the
hopelessness of her resistance and the vain sacrifice of life it must
entail. He may have been moved to this by the valour she displayed, or
it may have been that he obeyed the instincts of generalship which made
him ever miserly in the matter of the lives of his soldiers. Be that as
it may, with intent to bring her to a reasonable view of the situation,
he rode twice to the very edge of the ditch to parley with her; but
all that came of his endeavours was that on the occasion of his second
appeal to her, he had a narrow escape of falling a victim to her
treachery, and so losing his life.

She came down from the ramparts, and, ordering the lowering of the
bridge, invited him to meet her upon it that there they might confer
more at their ease, having, meanwhile, instructed her castellan to
raise the bridge again the moment the duke should set foot upon it. The
castellan took her instructions too literally, for even as the duke did
set one foot upon it there was a grind a