The same night, a few hours afterward, a boatman upon the Tiber, watching a load of wood which he had landed near the church of St. Jerome, and lying apparently asleep in his boat, saw two men come forth from the narrow alley which ran by the side of the church, and look cautiously all round, up one street and down another, as if to insure that all were free from passengers. Everything was still about the city--no step was heard, no moving object seen--and the two men returned to the alley whence they had issued forth. Shortly after, four men appeared at the mouth of the alley, one of whom was on horseback, and all approached at a quick pace toward a spot on the banks of the Tiber not more than ten yards from the boat in which the man was watching. When they came near he perceived that the horseman had the corpse of a dead man behind him, flung carelessly over the crupper, with the head and arms hanging over on one side, and the feet and legs on the other. When near the river, the horseman wheeled his horse and backed it to the brink. His companions then took the body from behind him, swung it to and fro several times to give it greater impetus, and then cast it as far as they could into the Tiber. The horseman then turned and gazed upon the shining surface of the river, upon which the moon was now pouring a flood of light. "What is that black thing floating there?" he asked. "It is his cloak," replied one of the others. "Cast some stones upon it quick," said the horseman. His orders were obeyed, and the cloak disappeared. When the boatman, many days afterward, told his story, upon being questioned as to whether he had seen anything particular on the fatal Wednesday night, he was asked with some surprise why he had not given information at once. He answered that within the last few years he had seen more than a hundred dead thrown into the Tiber, and had never considered it any business of his. On the following day Rome was startled with the intelligence that the Duke of Gandia, the pope's eldest son--the only one, indeed, who possessed in any degree the love or respect of the people--was missing; and sinister rumours spread around.