"And you deem this security?" rejoined Francesco, with a smile of scorn.
"To hedge your throne with foreign spears commanded by a foreigner?"

"This and God's grace," was the pious answer.

"Bah!" answered Francesco, impatient at the hypocrisy. "Win the hearts
of your people. Let that be your buckler."

"Hush!" whispered Gian Maria. "You blaspheme. Does not every act of my
self-sacrificing life point to such an aim? I live for my people. But,
by my soul, they ask too much when they ask that I should die for them.
If I serve those who plot against my life, as I have served these men you
speak of, who shall blame me? I tell you, Francesco, I wish I might have
those others who escaped, that I might do as much by them. By the living
God, I do! And as for the man who was to have supplanted me----" He
paused, a deadly smile on his sensual mouth completing the sentence more
effectively than lay within the power of words. "Who could it have
been?" he mused. "I've vowed that if Heaven will grant me that I
discover him, I'll burn a candle to Santa Fosca every Saturday for a
twelvemonth and go fasting on the Vigil of the Dead. Who--who could it
have been, Franceschino?"

"How should I know?" returned Francesco, evading the question.

"You know so much, Checco mio. Your mind is so quick to fathom matters
of this kind. Think you, now, it might have been the Duca Valentino?"

Francesco shook his head.

"When Caesar Borgia comes he will know no need to resort to such poor