"Here! Take your Duke.
Look at him, and understand." And he slashed the rope across, so that the
body plunged down into the castle ditch.
A few of the foremost of the crowd ran forward and scrambled down into the
ditch to view the body, and from them the rumour of the truth ran like a
ripple over water through that mob, so that in the twinkling of an eye
there was no man in that vast concourse--and all Piacenza seemed by now to
be packed into the square--but knew that Pier Luigi Farnese was dead.
A sudden hush fell. There were no more cries of "Duca!" They stood
silent, and not a doubt but that in the breasts of the majority surged a
great relief. Even the militia ceased to advance. If the Duke was dead
there was nothing left to do.
Again Galeotto spoke to them, and this time his words were caught by those
in the ditch immediately below us, and from them they were passed on, and
suddenly a great cry went up--a shout of relief, a paean of joy. If
Farnese was dead, and well dead, they could, at last, express the thing
that was in their hearts.
And now at the far end of the square a glint of armour appeared; a troop of
horse emerged, and began slowly to press forward through the crowd, driving
it back on either side, but very gently. They came three abreast, and
there were six score of them, and from their lance-heads fluttered
bannerols showing a sable bar on an argent field.
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