They would note the sudden move of Corso Donati and his Pistojesi, whose charge upon the Aretine flank was the beginning of the end. Then came the wholesale slaughter and pursuit, wherein unnerved warriors, forgetful of everything but the fear of death, streamed in flight past Poppi and down the valley towards Bibbiena. One of these hunted knights they may have observed in the earlier stages of his flight; for the name and figure of Buonconte di Montefeltro[360] would be well known to them. But if their eyes were sharp and keen enough to catch a glimpse of him as he passed, it was but a glimpse. His end none saw or knew till Dante met the dead count’s spirit in Purgatory; though the scene of it, as there described, may well be the faithful reminiscence of the Poet’s own impression as he galloped with the pursuers towards Bibbiena. The spot where Arno and Archiano meet is dear to every student of Dante, though comparatively few are privileged to see it with their eyes. And when you see it, it is just a confluence of two mountain-streams, flanked by heaps of grey water-worn stones, and fringed by tall poplars and brushwood—this in the flat bottom of a fertile and well cultivated valley. But the rushing water has a voice unlike the sound of ordinary streams: the grey piles of pebbles and boulders, the tall whispering poplars and the bushes at their feet casting a dark line of shade along the river’s brim—these have something pathetic, tragic, funereal in their aspect. One seems to see Buonconte[361] staggering to the brink, bursting his way blindly through the hedge of trees and bushes, while his life-blood ebbs out from the wounded throat, and leaves a crimson track upon the plain—see him fall senseless, with just an instinctive crossing of the arms and an inaudible invocation of the name of Mary, that was to baulk the fiend of his prey. Then night falls, and the mountain tops “from Pratomagno to the main ridge” of Apennine, and all the valley between, are swathed in storm-clouds, and the _fossati_ are filled with drenching rain. The Archiano dashes down its steep course from “above the hermitage” of Camaldoli (whose founder, St. Romoald, has his place with St. Benedict in Paradise),[362] a roaring, foaming torrent, and swirls the corpse down the stream of Arno, unlocking the arms by force from that cross upon the breast which had served the soul so well— Sciolse al mio petto la croce Ch’ i’ fe’ di me quando ’l doler mi vinse,[363] and engulfs the body, soon to be covered with spoils of the river-bed. It is but a short walk down the steep lane from Bibbiena and through the meadows to the _imboccatura_, and the inhabitants of the hill-town may well have witnessed from their walls many a like tragedy on that day, as breathless Ghibellines at their last gasp found themselves caught in the trap—pulled up suddenly by Arno or Archiano, and overtaken ere their bewildered brains could decide what course to follow.