At the end he had a moment of lucidity.
"You will guard my Bianca, Agostino," he said to me, and I swore it
fervently, as he bade me, whilst upon her knees beyond the bed, clasping
one of his hands that had grown white as marble, Bianca was sobbing
brokenheartedly.
Then the dying man turned his head to Galeotto. "You will see justice done
upon that monster ere you die," he said. "It is God's holy work."
And then his mind became clouded again by the mists of approaching
dissolution, and he sank into a sleep, from which he never awakened.
We buried him on the morrow in the Chapel of Pagliano, and on the next day
Galeotto drew up a memorial wherein he set forth all the circumstances of
the affair in which that gallant gentleman had met his end. It was a
terrible indictment of Pier Luigi Farnese. Of this memorial he prepared
two copies, and to these--as witnesses of all the facts therein related--
Bianca, Falcone, and I appended our signatures, and Fra Gervasio added his
own. One of these copies Galeotto dispatched to the Pope, the other to
Ferrante Gonzaga in Milan, with a request that it should be submitted to
the Emperor.
When the memorial was signed, he rose, and taking Bianca's hand in his own,
he swore by his every hope of salvation that ere another year was sped her
father should be avenged together with all the other of Pier Luigi's
victims.
Pages:
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438