The career of this bad hero was now drawing to a close. In the month of November, he set out in the middle of the night for Ostia, to the great satisfaction of all Rome, for the purpose of embarking for Spezia, with a troop of five hundred men, and then of proceeding to Romagna. But the pope, who had hitherto given no mark of an intention to break his promises, suddenly determined to violate that good faith which had formerly adorned his character, and sent the Tuscan cardinal of Volterra (who was of course Borgia's hitter enemy) after him, to demand an order to the officers who held the castles in Romagna, that they should be given into the pope's hands. Borgia refused to comply with a requisition which deprived him of the last remnant of his power; on which he was arrested and placed on hoard a French galley. "It is not yet known," Machiavelli writes to his government on the 26th of November, "whether the duke is still on hoard the vessel, or brought here. Various things are reported. One person told me that, being yesterday evening in the pope's chamber, two men arrived from Ostia, when he was immediately dismissed; but, while in the next room, he overheard these men say that the duke had been thrown into the Tiber, as the pope had commanded.[123] I do not quite believe in this story, but I do not deny it; and, I dare say, if it has not already happened, it will happen. The pope, it is evident, is beginning to pay his debts honourably, and cancels them with a stroke of his pen. Every one, however, blesses this deed; and the more he does of the like, the more popular will he be. Since the duke is taken, whether he be alive or dead, no account need be made of him. Nevertheless, when I hear any thing certain, you shall have intelligence."