"It is a trap!" I muttered in his ear. "Beware!"
I was no more than in time. I had surprised upon Farnese's mottled face a
sly smile--the smile of the cat which sees the mouse come venturing from
its lair. And I saw the smile perish--to confirm my suspicions--when at my
whispered words Cavalcanti checked in his rashness.
Still holding him by the arm, I turned to the familiar.
"I shall surrender to you in a moment, sir," said I. "Meanwhile, and you,
gentlemen--give us leave apart." And I drew the bewildered Cavalcanti
aside and down the courtyard under the colonnade of the gallery.
"My lord, be wise for Bianca's sake," I implored him. "I am assured that
here is nothing but a trap baited for you. Do not gorge their bait as your
valour urges you. Defeat them, my lord, by circumspection. Do you not see
that if you resist the Holy Office, they can issue a ban against you, and
that against such a ban not even the Emperor can defend you? Indeed, if
they told him that his feudatory, the Lord of Pagliano, had been guilty of
contumaciously thwarting the ends of the Holy Inquisition, that bigot
Charles V would be the first to deliver you over to the ghastly practices
of that tribunal. It should not need, my lord, that I should tell you
this."
"My God!" he groaned in utter misery.
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