r and looked
with more intentness, a shudder of recognition ran through him, and a
great horror filled his soul and paled his cheek. The first of those
heads was that of the valiant and well-named Ferrabraccio; the next that
of Amerino Amerini; and the other two, those of his captured companions
on that night at Sant' Angelo.

So it would seem that Gian Maria had been busy during the week that was
sped, and that there, on the walls of Babbiano, lay rotting the only
fruits which that ill-starred conspiracy was likely to bear.

For a second it entered his mind to turn back. But his stout and
fearless nature drove him on, all unattended as he was, and in despite
of such vague forebodings as beset him. How much, he wondered, might
Gian Maria know of his own share in that mountain meeting, and how would
it fare with him if his cousin was aware that it had been proposed to
the Count of Aquila to supplant him?

He was not long, however, in learning that grounds were wanting for such
fears as he had entertained. Gian Maria received him with even more than
wonted welcome, for he laid much store by Francesco's judgment and was
in sore need of it at present.

Francesco found him at table, which had been laid for him amidst the
treasures of art and learning that enriched the splendid Palace library.
It was a place beloved by Gian Maria for the material comforts that it
offered him, and so he turned it to a score of vulgar purposes of
his own, yet never to that for which it was equipped, being an utter
stranger to letters and ignorant as a ploughboy.

Ensconced in a great chair of crimson leather, at a board overladen with
choice viands and sparkling with crystal flagons and with vessels and
dishes of gold and enamel, Francesco found his cousin, and the air that
had been heavy once with the scholarly smell of parchments and musty
tomes was saturated now with pungent odours of the table.

In stature Gian Maria was short and inclining, young though he was, to
corpulency. His face was round and pale and flabby; his eyes blue and
beady; his mouth sensual and cruel. He was dressed in a suit of lilac
velvet, trimmed with lynx fur, and slashed, Spanish fashion, in the
sleeves, to show the shirt of fine Rheims linen underneath. About his
neck hung a gold chain, bearing an Agnus Dei, which contained a relic of
the True Cross--for Gian Maria pushed his devoutness to great lengths.

His welcome of Francesco was more effusive than its wo