Francesco bided his chance and seized it. He ran in, after Raniero had missed him with one of his savage sweeping blows, and rushed him against the wall. Then he struck and struck again, without uttering a word, playing so fast upon Raniero that he had his man smothered, blundering and dazed. The end came with a blow that cut the crown of Raniero's helmet. He threw up his hands with a spasmodic gesture, lurched forward, fell, rolled over on his back and lay still. For a moment Francesco stood over him, the point of his sword on Raniero's throat. He seemed to waver; then all the misery the Frangipani had inflicted on Ilaria rushed over him as in a blinding cloud. His sword went home. A strange cry passed through the hall, then all was still. The torch spluttered once more and went out. Francesco was in the darkness beside the dead body of Raniero.-- Meanwhile the Pisans had succeeded in scaling the walls. The clamor of the fight grew less and less, as one by one the defenders of Astura were relentlessly struck down and hurled over the ramparts. The storm had increased in violence, the heavens were cataracts of fire.-- In the blood-drenched court the duke and the Pisan admiral shook hands. Everything living had been slain. Astura was a castle of the dead. "God! What work!" exclaimed the Pisan. It was the testimony wrung from him by the stress of sheer hard fighting. "One of the viper-brood still lives," the duke turned to his companion, kicking with the tip of his steel boot the lifeless form of Giovanni Frangipani. The Pisan turned to a man-at-arms. "Take twenty men! Scour the lair from vault to pinnacle! We must have that other,--dead or alive!" The rain had ceased for the time. New thunder-clouds came rolling out of the west. Flambeaux flared in the court. Black shadows danced along the ghostly walls. The wind moaned about the crenelated turrets; sentinels of the Pisans stood everywhere, alert for ambush. The duke and his companions approached the door leading into the great hall. It lay in splinters. Stygian darkness held sway within. Suddenly the duke paused, as if turned to stone, at the same time plucking his companion back by the sleeve of his surcoat. Noiselessly as a ghost out of the door came the form of a woman. She was tall, exquisitely proportioned, and young. For a moment she paused on the threshold and looked out into the night. Almost immediately a second form followed, and paused near the first: that of a man. The woman seemed to stare blindly at the duke, with wide, unseeing eyes, as one who walks in a sleep. With a choked, inarticulate outcry the duke snatched bow and arrow from the nearest sentry, and ere the Pisan could grasp the meaning of what he saw, or prevent, he set and sped the bolt. A moan died on the stillness. A form collapsed, shuddered and lay still. The duke dropped bow and arrow, staring like a madman, then rushed towards the prostrate form.