’That echo’s a scrivener. Say after me thus, word for word, so thy skull shall keep the record: _The ring goes this moment to the Duke at Vigevano, in false witness against our Saint. Narcisso gave it to Beatrice, Beatrice to Ludovic, Ludovic to Tassino—and Tassino carries it, wrapped round with fifty damning lies_. Can you fill in the rest?’ ’My God! How know you this?’ ’I know. Why have I been mumming else?’ ’O, thou good Fool!’ ’So beatified in a moment? But stay not. To horse, and after, or by luck in front of, this ill-omened popinjay. He must be anticipated, overreached, despoiled, poniarded—anything. I’ve had my ear to his door—it smarts yet—Ludovic was with him. I was before the Prince and heard him coming—"trapped!" I thought. But the fool looked out—door opens to the stairs—and shut me into its angle against the wall. So again when they left together, and I slipped away behind their worships, and presently ran before. There you’ve the tale. And so, a’ God’s name mount and spur, for a minute’s delay may kill all. But sith even now it be too late, why, run after to traverse that foul evidence, and the Lord speed thee. Remember—Tassino and the Vigevano road.’ Stunning, bewildering as was the nature of this blast, it served to clear Carlo’s brain as a southerly wind clears stagnant water. It meant action, and in action lay his _métier_. Prompt and comprehensive instantly, now that the sum of things had been worked out for him, he dwelt but on the utterance of a single curse—so black and monstrous that the candle-flames seemed to duck to it—before he turned and strode heavily from the room. ’Mercy!’ muttered Cicada, tingling where he stood; ’if Monna Beatrice isn’t blinking smut out of her eyes at this very moment, there’s no virtue in Hell.’ Ten minutes later, Carlo, booted, spurred, and cloaked, issued hurriedly from his quarters, and made for a postern in the north wall, on t’ other side of which Ercole, so he had sped his errand well, should be already in waiting with the cavalier’s horse, ’l’Inferno,’ saddled and bridled for the hunt. A thin muffle of snow lay on the pavements, choking echo; a thin, still fog, wreathing upwards from it, made everything loom fantastic—curtains, towers, the high battlemented spectres of the sentries. He clapped his hand to his hip, in assurance of the firm hilt there, and was clearing his throat to answer the guard’s challenge, when, on the moment, a whisk of sudden light seemed to overtake and pass him, and he whipped about, with a catch in his breath, to face an expected onset. Nothing was there. Only the ghosts of mist and snow peopled the ward he had traversed; but, across it, licking and leaping from a high window in the Armourer’s Tower, spat a tongue of flame. He dwelt a moment, fascinated. Faint cries and hurried warnings reached him. The flame shrunk, broke from its curb, and writhed out again.