to restrain me. I caught snatches of the Christmas hymn. I felt myself
beginning to be unnerved, and hastened towards the Corte. As I passed
under the portico at San Francesco I heard steps behind me; it seemed
to me that I was followed. I stopped to let the other pass. As he
approached his pace flagged; he passed close by me and murmured, "Do
not go: I am Giovanfrancesco Pico." I turned round; he was gone. A
coldness numbed me; but I hastened on.

Behind the cathedral apse, in a narrow lane, I saw a man leaning
against a wall. The moonlight was full upon him; it seemed to me that
his face, with a thin pointed beard, was streaming with blood. I
quickened my pace; but as I grazed by him he whispered, "Do not obey
her; return home: I am Marcantonio Frangipani." My teeth chattered, but
I hurried along the narrow lane, with the moonlight blue upon the white
walls. At last I saw the Corte before me: the square was flooded with
moonlight, the windows of the palace seemed brightly illuminated, and
the statue of Duke Robert, shimmering green, seemed advancing towards
me on its horse. I came into the shadow. I had to pass beneath an
archway. There started a figure as if out of the wall, and barred my
passage with his outstretched cloaked arm. I tried to pass. He seized
me by the arm, and his grasp was like a weight of ice. "You shall not
pass!" he cried, and, as the moon came out once more, I saw his face,
ghastly white and bound with an embroidered kerchief; he seemed almost
a child. "You shall not pass!" he cried; "you shall not have her! She
is mine, and mine alone! I am Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi." I felt his
ice-cold clutch, but with my other arm I laid about me wildly with the
hatchet which I carried beneath my cloak. The hatchet struck the wall
and rang upon the stone. He had vanished.

I hurried on. I did it. I cut open the bronze; I sawed it into a wider