“I will not leave you, sir,” she vowed;
and it was good to hear her.
“Indeed, I hope you may not know the need,”
I answered wearily. And thus we started on once
more.
Sant’ Iddio! What agonies I suffered ere
the sun rose up out of the sea to flood us with his
winter glory! What agonies were mine during those
two hours or so of that last stage of our eventful
journey! “I must bear up until we are
at the gates of Pesaro,” I kept murmuring to
myself, and, as if my spirit were inclined to become
the servant of my will and hold my battered flesh
alive until we got that far, Pesaro’s gates I
had the joy of entering ere I was constrained to give
way.
Dimly I remember—for very dim were my perceptions
growing—that as we crossed the bridge and
passed beneath the archway of the Porta Romana, the
officer turned out to see who came. At sight
of me be gaped a moment in astonishment.
“Boccadoro?” he exclaimed, at last.
“So soon returned?”
“Like Perseus from the rescue of Andromeda,”
answered I, in a feeble voice, “saving that
Perseus was less bloody than am I. Behold the Madonna
Paola Sforza di Santafior, the noble cousin of our
High and Mighty Lord.”
And then as if my task being done, I were free to
set my weary brain to rest, my senses grew confused,
the officer’s voice became a hum that gradually
waxed fainter as I sank into what seemed the most luxurious
and delicious sleep that ever mortal knew.
Two days later, when I was conscious once more, I
learned what excitement those words of mine had sown,
with what honours Madonna Paola was escorted to the
Castle, and how the citizens of Pesaro turned out upon
hearing the news which ran like fire before us.
And Madonna, it seems, had loudly proclaimed how
gallantly I had served her, for as they bore me along
in a cloak carried by four men-at-arms, the cry that
was heard in the streets of Pesaro that morning was
“Boccadoro!” They had loved me, had those
good citizens of Pesaro, and the news of my departure
had cast a gloom upon the town. To have their
hero return in a manner so truly heroic provoked that
brave display of their affection, and I deeply doubt
if ever in the days of greatest loyalty the name of
Sforza was as loudly cried in Pesaro as, they tell
me, was the name of Sforza’s Fool that day.
THE SUMMONS FROM ROME
If Madonna Paola did not achieve quite all that she
had promised me so readily, yet she achieved more
than from my acquaintance with the nature of Giovanni
Sforza—and my knowledge of the deep malice
he entertained for me—I should have dared
to hope.
