"So run my orders."
"Orders from whom?" quoth I, surprised by his tone and manner.
"From the Captain of Justice, if you must know. So you may get you back
whence you came, and wait till daylight."
"Ah, but stay," I said. "I do not think you can have heard me. I carry
orders from my Lord the Governor. The Captain of Justice cannot overbear
these." And I shook the paper insistently.
"My orders are that none is to pass--not even the Governor himself," he
answered firmly.
It was very daring of Cosimo, and I saw his aim. He was, as Gambara had
said, a very subtle gentleman. He, too, had set his finger upon the pulse
of the populace, and perceived what might be expected of it. He was
athirst for vengeance, as he had shown me, and determined that neither I
nor Gambara should escape. First, I must be tried, condemned, and hanged,
and then he trusted, no doubt, that Gambara would be torn in pieces; and it
was quite possible that Messer Cosimo himself would secretly find means to
fan the mob's indignation against the Legate into fierce activity. And it
seemed that the game was in his hands, for this officer's resoluteness
showed how implicitly my cousin was obeyed.
Of that same resoluteness of the lieutenant's I was to have a yet more
signal proof. For presently, whilst still I stood there vainly
remonstrating, down the street behind me rode Gambara himself on a tall
horse, followed by a mule-litter and an escort of half a score of armed
grooms.
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