Yet, since I had disturbed and lightened it, a greater precaution was now necessary, and I waited there for some ten minutes maybe, a period that must have proved a very eternity to the old man upstairs.  At last I had the reward of hearing the snoring recommence; lightly at first, but soon with all its former fullness.

I rose and proceeded now with a caution that must guard me from any more unlooked-for obstacles.  Moreover, as I approached, the darkness was dispelled more and more at every stride in the direction of the light.  At last I reached the table, and stood silent as a spectre at Ramiro’s side, looking down upon the features of the sleeping man.

His face was flushed, and his tawny hair tumbled about his damp brow; his lips quivered as he breathed.  For a moment, as I stood gazing on him, there was murder in my mind.  His dagger hung temptingly in his girdle.  To have drawn it and rid the world of this monster might have been a worthy deed, acceptable in the eyes of Heaven.  But how should it profit me?  Rather must it prove my destruction at the hands of his followers, and to be destroyed just then, with Paola depending upon me, and life full of promise once I regained my liberty, was something I had no mind to risk.

My eyes wandered to the letter lying on the table.  If this were of the nature we suspected, it should prove a safer tool for his destruction.

To read it as it lay was an easy matter, and it came to me then that ere I decided upon my course it might be well that I should do so.  If by chance it were innocent of treason, why, then, I might resort to the risk of that other and more desperate weapon—­his own dagger.

At the foot of the short flight of steps that led from the hall to the courtyard I could hear the slow pacing of the sentry placed there by Ramiro.  But unless he were summoned, it was extremely unlikely that the fellow would leave his post, so that, I concluded, I had little to fear from that quarter.  I drew back and taking up a position behind Ramiro’s chair—­a position more favourable to escape in the untoward event of his awaking—­I craned forward to read the letter over his shoulder.  I thanked God in that hour for two things:  that my sight was keen, and that Vitellozzo Vitelli wrote a large, bold hand.

Scarcely breathing, and distracted the while by the mad racing of my pulses, I read; and this, as nearly as I can remember, is what the letter contained: 

“Illustrious Ramiro—­Your answer to my last letter reached me safely, and it rejoiced me to learn that you had found a man for our undertaking.  See that you have him in readiness, for the hour of action is at hand.  Cesare goes south on the second or third day of the New Year, and he has announced to me his intention of passing through Cesena on his way, there to investigate certain charges of maladministration which have been preferred against