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"I tell you I was so heated with anger at this base ingratitude, that I had not even the wit to have the names of their associates tortured out of them. Within a half-hour of their arrival in Babbiano, the heads of these men whom it had pleased Heaven to deliver up to me were where you saw them to-day."
"Bring the matter to an issue at once, your Highness," said Santi, "and thus you will go back to Babbiano well-armed to meet the Duca Valentino's messenger." Readily accepting this advice, Gian Maria went in quest of Guidobaldo, and laid before him his proposals, together with the news which had arrived and which was the cause of the haste he now manifested. Guidobaldo listened gravely.
"Seven," the Count laconically amended, resuming his hat and loosening his sword in its scabbard. "Not so, my lord," exclaimed Lodi, laying a hand upon the Count's arm. "You must not stay with us. You are our only hope the only hope of Babbiano.
What is a Duke then? He is but a man, and as the meanest of his subjects his love must take expression. For what does love know of rank?" She was moving towards the window again, and for all that he dared not a second time arrest her by force, he sought by words to do so. "Madonna," he exclaimed, "I implore you to hear me. In another hour I shall be in the saddle, on my way to Babbiano."
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.
Aghast at what he heard, Francesco pressed his informer for more news; but there was little more that the captain could tell him, beyond the fact that it was believed she had been driven to it to escape her impending marriage with the Duke of Babbiano.
Another three days would he have held Gian Maria here, whilst if you gave him that letter, it is odds he would slip away in the night of to-morrow, that he might be in Babbiano on the third day to take the throne his cousin treats so lightly. Sainted God!" he cried out. "I think this is the most diabolically treacherous plot that ever mind of man conceived and human heartlessness executed."
Such an agent of of the Count's interests we have among us, and his true object in protracting this siege, and encouraging and aiding you in your resistance, is to outwear the patience of the people of Babbiano with Gian Maria, and drive them in the hour of their approaching peril from Caesar Borgia's armies to bestow the throne on Aquila."
Do your worst against me, disgrace your manhood and the very name of chivalry by whatsoever violence may occur to you, yet I promise you that Valentina della Rovere never shall become the wife of his Highness of Babbiano." "You refuse to open your gates?" he returned, in a voice that shook with anger. "Utterly and finally." "And you think to persist in this?" "As long as I have life."
You have dragged me here before you by force, and, sitting there on the throne of Babbiano, you say: 'Prove that you have not conspired against me if you would save your head." A second he paused, and noted the puzzled look with which all regarded him. "Is this a parable?" sneered the uncomprehending Duke. "You have said it," flashed back Francesco. "A parable it is.
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