The two grappled fiendishly. For a moment I feared Andrea had met his match, but right speedily I saw the Sienese writhe to the top, bend back the other’s right wrist, and send his own weapon home to the fifth rib. A mingled curse and howl, and Ettore Orosi was forever saved from the hangman. “Bah,” spoke Andrea, rising and coolly wiping his knife. “And he called himself a man of _virtù_!” I, however, had Ilsa beside me now. She was white enough and all of a-tremble, nor could I convince her at once that I was totally unscathed. Our men were seizing such of the enemy as still survived, and pinioning their arms. They were too scared for either resistance or flight. Both of the other Italians who followed the Cardinal had caught the full discharge and would never need a dungeon. Moritz had run at once to Forli. It had been impossible to spare him from the volley. A large ball had torn through his lungs. He was spitting blood upon his rich doublet as we raised him. Adolf, experienced in war surgery, gave him one glance. “How long?” questioned Moritz. “He will last an hour, hardly more,” spoke the veteran as complacently as though passing judgment on a speared stag. Yet Forli’s eyes opened at the words, and from him came a dreadful cry. “One hour! One hour! Oh! to die now, here, thus! Where is the priest? The confession? There is no absolution, no viaticum; I am damned forever. The devils will have my soul.” “Calm yourself,” I enjoined, contempt struggling with my pity; “recall your vaunted philosophy. How often you have praised Lucretius and Epicurus, and their disbelief in immortality. If you cannot die as a good Christian, die at least as a good pagan, and die as a brave man.” But the Cardinal only raved the worse. “No viaticum. My life has been one vast lie. I have held the honors of the Church and lived the life of a Turk. Ah! Marianna’s mother--how I treated her! Years ago--I see it as yesterday. I was in all Pope Alexander’s plots. I have feared neither God nor devil. Now--” More blood rushed to his lips, and for a moment he ceased moaning. “It is possible to fetch a priest from Ruhla,” I remarked, melting fast, but Forli raged on again. “No! no! I’ll have none of your pattering country parsons. What is their viaticum worth? ‘Absolvo’--a fool can say it. I’ll not believe it though spoken by Leo de’ Medici. Who is the Pope but the Master Rogue of all? If there’s a just God, he’ll damn me for all the absolutions and benedictions in Christendom. Oh! God, God!” He was passing to awful blasphemies, when straight past me moved Ilsa, and I beheld her kneel by the stricken man, put her pure, soft hands against that coarse, sensual face, and under her touch for a moment he lay still, gazing with his dying eyes up into hers. “Pray,” she commanded in the slow Latin she had learned at the convent, “pray to the Lord Christ; without priest or masses, even now He can forgive.” Wonderingly he looked at her.