Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
A voice, the voice of Ramiro del' Orca I knew it upon the instant reached my ears which concentration had rendered superacute. "It is locked, Baldassare. Get out those tools of yours and force it." My wits were working now at fever-pace.
The sun was declining, a red ball of fire, towards the mountains on our left, casting a blood-red glow upon the snow that everywhere encompassed us, as we cantered briskly on towards Fossombrone. In that hour I fell to pondering, and I even caught myself hoping that Messer Ramiro del' Orca might not chance upon the discovery of how egregiously I had fooled him.
All my life have men plagued me with marriages that were hateful to me, and this has culminated in the brutal act of Ramiro del' Orca. Do you not think that I have endured enough?" He stared at her for a moment. "Then you love this fellow?" he gasped. "You, Madonna Paola Sforza di Santafior, one of the noblest ladies in all Italy, confess to love this lordling of a few barren acres?"
It were best not to delay in setting out, although I can scarcely think that there is any imminent danger from Ramiro del' Orca now." "Who is he?" she inquired. "I told her, whereupon " "Did they come up with you?" she asked. "What passed between you?"
As a matter of instinct he looked about to see what it was had hurt him. Then his eyes fell upon the charred paper on the table, and the fallen candle, which was still burning across one end of it, and even to the dull wits of Ramiro del' Orca the only possible conclusion was suggested.
If you are brisk you will gain the shelter of the Lord Giovanni Sforza's fortress long before Messer del' Orca again picks up the scent, if, indeed, he ever does so." Giacopo laughed derisively till his fat body shook with the scornful mirth of him. "By my faith, I'm done with the business," he cried, and the other three expressed a very hearty agreement with that attitude. "How done with it?"
I had had some former acquaintance with this fellow, having first met him during the previous year, on the occasion of the Court of Pesaro's sojourn at Rome. His name was Ramiro del' Orca, and throughout the Papal army it stood synonymous for masterfulness and grim brutality. He was, as I have said, an enormous man, of prodigious bodily strength, heavy, yet of good proportions.
Some murmurs of farewell caught my ears, from those minions with whom I had herded during my three days at the Vatican. Then Messer del' Orca thrust me forward. "Mount, Fool, and be off," he rasped. I mounted, and turned to him. He was a surly dog; if ever surly dog wore human shape, and the shape was the only human thing about Captain Ramiro. "Brother, farewell," I simpered.
"Then, why plague me with unprofitable questions? What concern is it of ours how Messer del' Orca shall vent his wrath when he is disillusioned. Your duty now is to rejoin your mistress. Ride hard for Cagli. Seek her at the sign of 'The Full Moon, and then away for Pesaro.
As I was leaving the gallery I had a last glimpse of her, sitting there with drawn face and haggard eyes that followed me as I passed from her sight, whilst Ramiro del' Orca stood beside her murmuring words that did not reach me. His so-called courtiers and his men-at-arms were trooping out of the room, no doubt in obedience to his dismissal.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking