While this was said to me by Mahomet One foot he held uplifted; to the ground He let it fall, and so he forward set Next, one whose throat was gaping with a wound, Whose nose up to the brows away was sheared And on whose head a single ear was found, At me, with all the others, wondering peered; And, ere the rest, an open windpipe made, The outside of it all with crimson smeared. 'O thou, not here because of guilt,' he said; 70 'And whom I sure on Latian ground did know Unless by strong similitude betrayed, Upon Pier da Medicin[725] bestow A thought, shouldst thou revisit the sweet plain That from Vercelli[726] slopes to Marcabò. And make thou known to Fano's worthiest twain-- To Messer Guido and to Angiolel-- They, unless foresight here be wholly vain, Thrown overboard in gyve and manacle Shall drown fast by Cattolica, as planned 80 By treachery of a tyrant fierce and fell. Between Majolica[727] and Cyprus strand A blacker crime did Neptune never spy By pirates wrought, or even by Argives' hand. The traitor[728] who is blinded of an eye, Lord of the town which of my comrades one Had been far happier ne'er to have come nigh, To parley with him will allure them on, Then so provide, against Focara's[729] blast No need for them of vow or orison.' 90 And I: 'Point out and tell, if wish thou hast To get news of thee to the world conveyed, Who rues that e'er his eyes thereon were cast?' On a companion's jaw his hand he laid, And shouted, while the mouth he open prised: ''Tis this one here by whom no word is said. He quenched all doubt in Cæsar, and advised-- Himself an outlaw--that a man equipped For strife ran danger if he temporised.' Alas, to look on, how downcast and hipped 100 Curio,[730] once bold in counsel, now appeared; With gorge whence by the roots the tongue was ripped. Another one, whose hands away were sheared, In the dim air his stumps uplifted high So that his visage was with blood besmeared, And, 'Mosca,[731] too, remember!' loud did cry, 'Who said, ah me! "A thing once done is done!" An evil seed for all in Tuscany.' I added: 'Yea, and death to every one Of thine!' whence he, woe piled on woe, his way 110 Went like a man with grief demented grown. But I to watch the gang made longer stay, And something saw which I should have a fear, Without more proof, so much as even to say, But that my conscience bids me have good cheer-- The comrade leal whose friendship fortifies A man beneath the mail of purpose clear. I saw in sooth (still seems it 'fore mine eyes), A headless trunk; with that sad company It forward moved, and on the selfsame wise. 120 The severed head, clutched by the hair, swung free