handled as though it had been a whip, and bringing them, silent, to a
standstill. He bore it back to his shoulder, and alert for the first
movement, his blood on fire, and ready to slay a man or two should the
example become necessary, he addressed them.

"You see what awaits you if you persist in this," he said, in a
dangerously quiet voice. "Have you no shame, you herd of cowardly
animals! You are loud-voiced enough where treason to the hand that pays
you is in question; but there, it seems, your valour ends."

He spoke to them now in burning words. He recapitulated the arguments
which yesterday he had made use of to quell the mutinous spirit of
Cappoccio. He assured them that Gian Maria threatened more than he could
accomplish; and so, perhaps, more than he would fulfil if they were so
foolish as to place themselves in his power. Their safety, he pointed
out to them, lay here, behind these walls. The siege could not long
endure. They had a stout ally in Caesar Borgia, and he was marching
upon Babbiano by then, so that Gian Maria must get him home perforce ere
long. Their pay was good, he reminded them, and if the siege were soon
raised they should be well rewarded.

"Gian Maria threatens to hang you when he captures Roccaleone. But even
should he capture it, do you think he would be allowed to carry out so
inhuman a threat? You are mercenaries, after all, in the pay of Monna
Valentina, on whom and her captains the blame must fall. This is Urbino,
not Babbiano, and Gian Maria is not master here. Do you think the noble
and magnanimous Guidobaldo would let you hang? Have you so poor an
opinion of your Duke? Fools! You are as safe from violence as are those
ladies in the gallery up there. For Guidobaldo would no more think of
harming you than of permitting harm to come to them. If any hanging
there is it will be for me, and perhaps for Messer Gonzaga who hired
you. Yet, do I talk of throwing down my arms? What think you holds me
here? Interest--just as interest holds you--and if I think the risk
worth taking, why should not you? Are you so tame and so poor-spirited
that a threat is to vanquish you? Will you become a byword in Italy, and
when men speak of cowardice, will you have them say: 'Craven as Monna
Valentina's garrison'?"

In this strain he talked to them, now smiting hard with his scorn, now
cajoling them with his assurances, and breeding confidence anew in their
shaken spirits. It was a thing that went afterw