"Your goods are safe as far as we are
concerned. We are not thieves," answered Pippo.
"Our errand here is a different one. In brief,
Caterina Canacci," he continued, speaking with
the calm impassive air of an official announcing
a judicial sentence, "you must die this night.
Your last hour is nearly spent."

"Die!" shrieked the miserable woman, while
her face became ghastly with livid pallor, and
her eye was distended by terror; "die! Now!
This night! Nay, you are frightening me in
jest. But 'tis bad jesting." She looked from
one to the other of the hard, pitiless faces
round her, in search of some justification of her
suggestion. But she found there, no ray of hope.
She read no passion-stirred ferocity in their
faces, but simply, quiet grim impassible
determination.

"'Twere poor jesting, truly, if jest there
were," returned Pippo; "but it is earnest, and
it is certain, lady, that you must die this night,
and this hour .... ay! and within this quarter
of an hour!"

"But it is impossible! I am not ready to die!
I am not prepared! I have done no harm to
any one. Nobody can wish my death!"

"My orders," resumed Pippo, in the same
measured cold tones, "are that you should be
informed that you are condemned to die by the
Lady Veronica, Duchess of San Giuliano. The
nature of your offence against that noble lady,
you doubtless know. I have no orders to allow
you time for preparation. Nevertheless, I give
you five minutes to make your peace with God."

A visible convulsive shudder passed through
the wretched woman's frame at the mention of
the name of the duchess. The reality of her
doom and its certainty seemed suddenly to flash
into her mind. Flinging up her arms, and
glancing wildly from side to side like a hunted
animal, she suddenly made a spring towards the
door. But a single quiet and rapid stride of
one of her executioners placed him between her
and it. Turning with the unreasoning impulse
of mere animal terror, she made a bound towards
the opposite window. A similar movement
on the part of another of the ruffians again
showed her the utter hopelessness of escape.

"Lady!" said Pippo, with the voice of one
speaking a doom certain as fate, "one minute of
the five is already gone. In four more, you die!"

"Jacopo! Jacopo! Why are you not here to
save me? Jacopo, must I die for your love?
Will you let me die, Jacopo? Help! Jacopo!
Quick! quick! to save me! Have you
recollected," she continued, turning to Pippo, as a
new possibility of hope dashed into her mind,
"have you thought that the duke will assuredly
avenge my death? Your own lives will pay for
mine. Have you thought of that?"

"It is little we care for your Florentine duke
or his anger. A dozen of such dukes could not
save you from the vengeance of our lady!" said
one of the Massa men, in the pride of his
superiority to Florentine law.

But Pippo only repeated in his doomster's
voice:

"Lady! two minutes of the five are gone.
You have but three more to live."

"How can I die!" she shrieked in anguish.
"How can I die, so young. Why should I die?
I am not ill! I am in health! Oh! God! I
cannot die! Save me! Will no one come! Will
no one tell Jacopo?" Then with a sudden
movement of her hands pressing back the long
disordered tresses on either side of her forehead, as
if she were striving to concentrate her thoughts
on a new idea, she with two or three staggering
steps reached Pippo's side, as he stood moodily
frowning, with his arms folded under his cloak;
and still holding her head between her hands,
and leaning her forehead against his shoulder,
said in a hoarse whisper, intended to be coaxing,
"Now look! noble sir! see how much better it
will be to save my life! Nobody shall ever
know that I am alive! I will go away! go where-
ever you will; . . . . now, now, while it is dark.
No one will ever know it; let us go away!
Jacopo Salviati will reward you nobly!" she
added, with the inconsistency of a reeling brain;
"Jacopo is generous, so generous! he will give
you anything you can ask, if you save my life."
And her voice grew hoarser and her words broken
by laboured panting, as she urged her desperate
pleading.

But Pippo shook his head gravely and slowly;
and only said, "Lady, three minutes out of the
five are gone. You have only two to live."

"But .... but .... in any case ... if I
am to die"—and the words were panted forth
brokenly, while the sweat-drops gathered on her
brow—"There must be a reprieve! There is a
reason! .... a reason why it cannot be that I
should be put to death now! . . . . not death
now!...I... the truth . . . ." and the poor
creature turned her face away, and stooping hid
it in her shaking hands; I.... have another
life besides my own within me! It is the truth!
Jacopo knows it is the truth! Therefore, you
see .... I cannot die to-night .... not put
my baby to death .... You see there must be
a reprieve!"

"One minute only remains of the time allowed
you to make your peace with God. Kneel to the
Holy Virgin, and say at least a Paternoster for a
passing prayer. Kneel!"

"Oh! God! to die! to die! I have done no
wrong .... I never sought .... I can't
pray!"

But she knelt, as she had been bidden, there
in the midst of the floor, holding up both clasped
hands rather in the attitude, as it seemed, of
prayer to her executioner than to Heaven. Pippo
secretly made a sign to one of the other men;
who, replying by an almost imperceptible
movement of the head, noiselessly stepped behind her;
and drawing from its sheath at his girdle a little
triangularly shaped dagger, and liberating his
right arm from the folds of his cloak, stood ready
to strike swiftly and surely.