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Updated: May 1, 2025
The Duca Valentino came with his retinue and the gentlemen of his household, among whom was ever conspicuous by his great size and red ugliness the Captain Ramiro del' Orca, who now seemed to act in many ways as Cesare's factotum. This captain, for reasons which it is unnecessary to detail, I most sedulously avoided.
He died on the return voyage, and was buried on the small island of the Commander group which bears his name. The story of the expedition is one of extreme hardship and of splendid Russian courage. At Orca we were transferred to the Newport, with Captain Moore in command, and, as on the Excelsior, everything was done for our comfort.
Their leader, a gigantic man whose head was armed by no more than a pot of burnished steel, from which escaped the long red ringlets of his hair, was that same Ramiro del' Orca who had commanded the party pursuing Madonna Paola three years ago.
"Of what harm do you speak, Madonna?" he cried, in a voice laden with concern. "Of what harm," she echoed, eyeing him with a scorn that would have slain him had he any manhood left. "Of what harm? Mother of Mercy, defend me! Do you ask the question? What greater harm could have come to me than to have fallen into the hands of Ramiro del' Orca and his brigands?"
He turned to the carnifex. "Federigo, do your work," said he, whereupon the fellow stepped behind me, and the halberdiers ranged themselves one on either side of me again. "A word ere I go, Messer del' Orca," I demanded insolently. He looked at me sharply, wondering, maybe, at the fresh tone I took. "Say it and begone," he sullenly permitted me.
It was Cesare's Spanish captain, one whose name was as well known and as well-dreaded in Italy as Cesare's own. The Duke held out to him the paper that he had produced. "You heard the question that I asked Messer del' Orca?" he inquired. "I heard, Illustrious," answered Miguel, with a bow.
"There is yet another part he played," said he, "as I have good cause to remember for he is the only man that can boast of having unhorsed Ramiro del' Orca. He was for a brief season the Lord Giovanni Sforza himself." "How?" asked the profoundly amazed Filippo, whilst all present pressed closer to miss nothing of the disclosure that seemed to impend. Myself, I groaned.
The cavalcade that had overtaken us proved to number some twenty men-at-arms, whose leader was no less a person than Ramiro del' Orca that same mountain of a man who had attended my departure from the Vatican three nights ago. From the circumstance that so important a personage should have been charged with the pursuit of the Lady of Santafior, I inferred that great issues were at stake.
He was prone to forget his God, and the lessons that as a babe he had learnt at his mother's knee for I take it that even Ramiro del' Orca had once been a babe but deep down in his soul there had remained the fear of Hell and an almost instinctive obedience to the laws of Mother Church.
"Boccadoro," said he, planting himself before me, and eyeing me with eyes that were very full of malice, "you will recall the punishment I promised you if I came to discover it was you had thwarted me in Pesaro. It is the second time you have fooled Ramiro del' Orca. There does not live the man who can boast that he did it thrice, nor will I risk it that you be that man.
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