o the smell, impossible to
discover in food--a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the
poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of
the poisoned key that lay always on the pope's mantelpiece, so that when
His Holiness wished to destroy some one of his intimates, he bade him
open a certain cupboard: on the handle of the key there was a little
spike, and as the lock of the cupboard turned stiffly the hand would
naturally press, the lock would yield, and nothing would have come of
it but a trifling scratch: the scratch was mortal. He knew, too, that
Caesar wore a ring made like two lions' heads, and that he would turn
the stone on the inside when he was shaking hands with a friend. Then
the lions' teeth became the teeth of a viper, and the friend died
cursing Borgia. So he yielded, partly through fear, partly blinded by
the thought of the reward; and Caesar returned to the Vatican armed with
a precious paper, in which the Archbishop of Cosenza admitted that he
was the only person responsible for the dispensation granted to the
royal nun.

Two days later, by means of the proofs kindly furnished by the
archbishop, the pope; in the presence of the governor of Rome, the
auditor of the apostolic chamber, the advocate, and the fiscal attorney,
pronounced sentence, condemning the archbishop to the loss of all his
benefices and ecclesiastical offices, degradation from his orders, and
confiscation of his goods; his person was to be handed over to the civil
arm. Two days later the civil magistrate entered the prison to
fulfil his office as received from the pope, and appeared before the
archbishop, accompanied by a clerk, two servants, and four guards. The
clerk unrolled the paper he carried and read out the sentence; the
two servants untied a packet, and, stripping the prisoner of his
ecclesiastical garments, they reclothed him in a dress of coarse white
cloth which only reached down to his knees, breeches of the same, and a
pair of clumsy shoes. Lastly, the guards took him, and led him into
one of the deepest dungeons of the castle of Sant' Angelo, where for
furniture he found nothing but a wooden crucifix, a table, a chair, and
a bed; for occupation, a Bible and a breviary, with a lamp to read by;
for nourishment, two pounds of bread and a little cask of water, which
were to be renewed every three days, together with a bottle of oil for
burning in his lamp.

At the end of a year the poor archbi