And yet I reflected
that it was just. Any man who could have lent his aid to the foul crime
that was attempted there that night deserved this fate and worse.
Cavalcanti got to horse, and we rode down the street, bringing folk to
their windows in alarm. Behind us the flames began to lick out from the
ground floor of Cosimo's palace.
We reached the Porta Fodesta, and peremptorily bade the guard to open for
us. He answered, as became his duty, with the very words that had been
addressed to me at that place on a night two years ago:
"None passes out to-night."
In an instant a group of our men surrounded him, others made a living
barrier before the guard-house, whilst two or three dismounted, drew the
bolts, and dragged the great gates open.
We rode on, crossing the river, and heading straight for Pagliano.
For a while it was the sweetest ride that ever I rode, with my Bianca
nestling against my breast, and responding faintly to all the foolishness
that poured from me in that ambrosial hour.
And then it seemed to me that we rode not by night but in the blazing light
of day, along a dusty road, flanking an arid, sun-drenched stretch of the
Campagna; and despite the aridity there must be water somewhere, for I
heard it thundering as the Bagnanza had thundered after rain, and yet I
knew that could not be the Bagnanza, for the Bagnanza was nowhere in the
neighbourhood of Rome.
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