"
Montanelli frowned slightly.
"What are you going to do with him?" he
asked.
"That is a question I shall settle in a very few
days. In the meantime I have had a good lesson.
That is what comes of taking off the irons--with
all due respect to Your Eminence."
"I hope," Montanelli interrupted, "that you
will at least not replace the fetters while he is ill.
A man in the condition you describe can hardly
make any more attempts to escape."
"I shall take good care he doesn't," the Governor
muttered to himself as he went out. "His
Eminence can go hang with his sentimental scruples
for all I care. Rivarez is chained pretty tight
now, and is going to stop so, ill or not."
. . . . .
"But how can it have happened? To faint
away at the last moment, when everything was
ready; when he was at the very gate! It's like
some hideous joke."
"I tell you," Martini answered, "the only thing
I can think of is that one of these attacks must
have come on, and that he must have struggled
against it as long as his strength lasted and have
fainted from sheer exhaustion when he got down
into the courtyard.
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